Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, Environmental Monitoring and Green Ship Programme

The Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore maintains comprehensive monitoring and reporting systems for port environmental compliance and operational performance. MPA publishes an annual sustainability report prepared with reference to the GRI 2021 standards and aligned to Singapore’s whole-of-government GreenGov.SG targets, IMO guidance, the UN Sustainable Development Goals and World Ports Sustainability Programme metrics.

The most recent edition covers calendar year 2024. The report states that external assurance has not been sought, and that reliability is supported instead by an internal review of relevance and reliability. That disclosure is itself instructive for DMCs: a credible first reporting cycle does not require third party assurance, provided the basis of preparation and its limits are stated openly.

MPA measures its own operational greenhouse gas footprint using the operational control approach under the GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard.

Resource use is tracked against three GreenGov.SG indices, each with a 2030 target: Energy Utilisation Index 123 kWh/m2 (target 120), Water Efficiency Index 96.7 litres per person per day (target 74.2) and Waste Disposal Index 0.636 kg per person per day (target 0.351). Reporting variance against target transparently, including where current performance sits above the target, is a transferable practice in its own right.

MPA tracks maritime decarbonisation efforts and reports on progress toward sustainability targets through formal reporting mechanisms. Performance indicators reported for 2024 include green vessel participation (29 Singapore-flagged ships from 12 companies received the Green Ship Certificate; MPA, 2025), alternative fuel adoption (sales of alternative bunker fuels of 1.34 million tonnes, exceeding one million tonnes for the first time; MPA, 2025), and MPA’s own emissions, energy, water and waste indices. Targets give the monitoring system defined end points: net zero emissions by 2050 for the harbour craft and pleasure craft sectors and for port terminals, and, for MPA as an organisation, emissions expected to peak around 2027 to 2028, when new MPA buildings are fully operational, and net zero around 2045 under GreenGov.SG.

Monitoring is increasingly digitally enabled. The digitalPORT@SG platform suite covers just-in-time planning and coordination, cross-border data exchange (digitalOCEANS), ship to shore connectivity over 5G (digitalSHIP) and cloud-based Maritime Single Window services (digitalPORT Global). The Singapore Maritime Datahub provides shared data infrastructure, and a Maritime Digital Twin launched in 2025 integrates real-time vessel, port operations and environmental sensor data with AI and predictive analytics. From 1 April 2025 all bunker suppliers must issue electronic bunker delivery notes by default, creating a digital audit trail for fuel quality and quantity data. GeoSpace-Sea, a marine spatial data infrastructure, supports data-driven planning and environmental assessment, and remote and autonomous technologies are being adopted for operations such as hydrographic survey.

MPA Singapore operates under the Tokyo Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control in the Asia Pacific region (Tokyo MOU) framework, conducting systematic inspections and verification of vessel compliance with MARPOL, SOLAS, and other international maritime conventions. Inspection volumes and detention rates are published through the Tokyo MOU annual report rather than in MPA’s own sustainability report.

Emergency preparedness is reported through exercises: the 16th Joint Oil Spill Exercise in 2024 brought together more than 100 personnel from 18 agencies and companies and trialled new response technology, and ammonia plume modelling and drone surveillance were used to support safety planning during ammonia bunkering trials.