Singapore Australia Green Economy Agreement

GEA Text

• Full text of the SAGEA

17 Joint Initiatives

Under the GEA, Singapore and Australia also agreed on 17 joint initiatives as part of initial efforts to pursue cooperative projects in forward-looking and emerging areas.

Joint Initiatives

• List of Environmental Goods

• List of Environmental Services

• Mechanism to Identify and Address Non-Tariff Barriers

• Trade Facilitation - Digital Verification Platform

• Environmentally Sustainable Government Procurement

• Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems

• Standards and Conformance Collaboration

• Joint Statement of Intent on Green and Transition Finance

• Develop Architecture for Cross-Border Electricity Trade

• Green Shipping Cooperation

• CSIRO A STAR Research Collaboration

• Australia-Singapore Green Skills Roundtable

• Singapore Australia Go-Green Co-Innovation Programme

• Austrade-Enterprise Singapore MOU to Support a Green Business Partnership

• Austrade-Enterprise Singapore MOU to Support a Green Business Partnership (Text)

• Fostering Cooperation on Ecolabelling and Related Sustainability Schemes

• Statistical Measurement of the Green Economy

Press Releases

• Singapore and Australia sign Green Economy Agreement, 18 October 2022

Implementation Update on the GEA - June 2023

Progress has been made on implementing the 17 initiatives listed as annexes in the Singapore-Australia GEA. Implementation highlights include:  

1. Environmental goods and services (Annexes B1.1 and B1.2): Agreement to commence industry consultations, in the second half of this year, to inform the periodic review of the GEA’s environmental goods and services lists, which will account for technical and technological advances and enable new environmental goods and services to be added. 

2. Environmentally sustainable government procurement including ecolabelling and sustainability related schemes (Annexes B1.5 and B6.3): Environment officials have met twice through a six-monthly bilateral dialogue to pursue areas of common interest including advancing ecolabelling, reducing greenwashing government reporting on environmental sustainability. 

3. Green and transition finance (Annex B3.1): Acting Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the launch of the S$5 million Convergence Asia Climate Solutions Design Grant, to support the design and launch of innovative blended finance solutions that mobilise private capital to sectors critical for climate transition and resilience in Asia, such as clean energy, sustainable cities and infrastructure, and nature-based solutions. The grant has secured funding commitments from the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, The Olayan Group, and UBS Optimus Foundation Further information is available at: https://www.convergence.finance/news-and-events. Finance officials are also exchanging knowledge, expertise and approaches to develop green finance taxonomies, to build greater alignment of sustainable financial frameworks and support and drive investment in clean energy projects in Australia and Singapore. 

4. Cross-border electricity trade (Annex B4.1): A joint working group has been established and is considering a range of issues to develop the architecture to enable cross-border electricity trade between Australia and Singapore. Our officials have agreed on the indicative scope and timeline for the development of a framework for cross-border electricity trading.

5. Green shipping cooperation (Annex B4.2): Acting Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese agreed to establish a Green and Digital Shipping Corridor (GDSC) by the end of 2025 to help decarbonise and digitalise the port and shipping industry, including through establishing low and zero-carbon fuel supply chains and digital solutions to facilitate paperless handling between the ports of Singapore and Australia. Arrangements overseeing the establishment of the GDSC will be outlined by our lead authorities in a separate Memorandum of Understanding.

6. CSIRO-A*STAR cooperation (Annex B4.4): A research-industry partnership, with a funding of $2,500,000 over a five-year period from each side, is advancing projects including related to lithium battery recycling and food waste. 

7. Green skills roundtable (Annex B5.1): Skills, training and employment agencies from Australia and Singapore held their inaugural roundtable in May 2023 to share approaches and policies on developing the necessary skills and capabilities required in a green economy workforce.

8. Go-Green Co-Innovation Programme (Annex B6.1): Acting Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese launched the joint A$20 million Go-Green Co-Innovation Program, to provide grants over a four-year period to drive co-innovation between Singaporean and Australian small and medium enterprises to develop green products and services, and noted the program’s commencement with business matching activities in the lead up to grant applications opening later in 2023.

9. Austrade and Enterprise Singapore Green Business Partnership (Annex B6.2): Agencies, to date, have jointly delivered eight targeted initiatives and networking receptions for private and public stakeholders to facilitate potential partnerships, including in the hydrogen and agri-food tech sectors. Trade and investment opportunities have been highlighted at these industry events, including the Melbourne All Energy in October 2022 and dedicated GEA-event in Singapore in November 2022.  

10. Measuring the Green Economy (Annex B6.4): Australian and Singaporean statistical agencies have held six technical working group meetings since October 2022. Implementation of their two-year work plan is building joint capacity in the collection and compilation of data needed to measure the green economy.