Mr Speaker,
Yesterday I spoke about how we can work across sectors and borders to strengthen our efforts to tackle the haze and ensure clean air, and my speech today extends that discussion, along with raising some questions on the amendments tabled.
While we understand the importance and urgency of the amendments before us today, we mustn’t forget to view transboundary haze and its ill-effects as one instance of a wider pattern afflicting modern supply chains: harm created up and downstream of the chain, and sometimes far away from where goods are ultimately consumed. Our efforts to combat transboundary haze should be a two-way street: they must be informed by other attempts to address such harms across borders and industries, and used to feed into initiatives that encourage effective compliance and mitigate harms.
Transboundary haze takes place against the backdrop of the climate crisis: the same fires that choke our skies also release greenhouse gases and destroy forests and peatlands. Haze, climate and biodiversity are bound together. This falls squarely into the realm of planetary health, and we should legislate with that in mind. Many of us will note that the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution in Europe offers a model of how neighbours can cooperate: shared scientific monitoring, annual public reporting of emissions, and help for countries struggling to comply. Over time, particulate and sulphur emissions in Europe fell by 30 to 80 per cent.
Traceability and effecting change on the ground works best when it supports the farmers who depend on it. As mentioned yesterday, Ghana’s cocoa traceability system has already mapped over 40,000 farms in its pilot, and a pilot in South Sumatra reports gains in yields and incomes for smallholders. Our policies must link enforcement with financing standards, support smallholders, share data with our neighbours, and have a mechanism for review, so that what we learn from haze can inform how we tackle it continuously, alongside the next sustainability challenge.
Today, 7 other Workers’ Party colleagues will speak on wide-ranging issues on this topic, using incentives to tackle the root cause of haze, urge more proactive action against peatland drainage, leveraging existing systems to target undesirable behaviour, and better corporate accountability. We will also raise clarifications on technical questions relating to assessors and the updated penalty regime.
In my speech, I will look at how we can play to our strengths through a combination of existing tools and know-how to further strengthen responses. I also seek clarifications to certain proposed amendments.
Corporate finance tools to tackle the issue
Sir, Singapore is undoubtedly a pre-eminent financial hub with well-regarded corporate finance institutions based here, often servicing needs that extend well beyond our borders. Having both the institutions and their know-how located within our own jurisdiction is a unique strength and we should use this fully to our advantage. Allow me to expand on this while taking on board the amendments being debated here today.
The newly-amended Part II Section 5 states that an entity which engages in conduct that condones any conduct by another entity or individual which causes or contributes to any land or forest fire outside of Singapore is liable for an offence. While the accompanying illustration highlights a scenario where an entity that purchased products from a company found to have carried out slash and burn practices is rendered to have committed an offence, could the minister clarify how we deal with the role of financial institutions funding companies that adopt slash-and-burn practices? While the proposed new section 8E relating to Designated Persons gives the power to the minister to issue a prohibition against dealing with a designated person, including giving loans and other facilities. This is a start, but as the Minister said earlier, there could be practical considerations. The role of financers still bears scrutiny on a more granular level.
How would FIs be scrutinised or even held to account as (indirect) abettors of these burnings? This is not a new concept. In previous US administrations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), could under Superfund go after lenders to make them pay for cleanup costs of contaminated sites. Of course, this was only used to target a handful of financers, and the law has also since changed to afford greater protection to lenders. But of interest is how environmentalists argued that it made lenders more cautious of funding environmentally risky firms, and that the EPA then encouraged pre-loan audits. This suggests that using language understood by enterprises such as increasing risks and exposure can nudge behaviour in more desirable directions.
Closer to home, research by non-governmental organisations have uncovered the steady pipeline of funds flowing between local banks and firms behind the haze. As reported by the Straits Times, the NGO Forests & Finance as of mid October attributed 5.91 billion US dollars to OCBC between 2010 and 2026, while DBS and UOB supported such firms to the tune of 3.22 billion and 1.85 billion US dollars respectively between 2013 and 2026.
Our local banks are no strangers to leading the way in setting environmentally conscious targets. In 2024, our three major local banks indicated their commitment to cease the financing of thermal coal projects. They were the first to do so in advanced Asia. Over the years, these banks (who together have well over S$100 billion in sustainable finance commitments) have built sustainability-linked loan frameworks and green bond monitoring mechanisms with externally validated targets. Crucially, the banks already have some systems in place to monitor and ensure that borrowers and issuers maintain their information or ESG undertakings and meet green covenants on a structured, ongoing basis. It is not a stretch to think that these systems of monitoring on emissions or green targets can be improved and extended to verify whether an entity’s fire risk is controlled.
While MAS has also recently urged banks to review their financing ties with companies linked to the haze. However, is it enough to act after the fact? It may be too late, given that the fires have been started and damage already done. Banks should report, in aggregate, how many haze-linked clients they reviewed, and follow-up action taken – such as conditions imposed, reduced exposure, or exit.
Moreover, many agri-commodity conglomerates carry out their operations via a complex web of contractors, different entities and convoluted corporate group structures. Yet, it appears that the illustration provided under Section 5 only singles out employees of an errant entity, instead of widening the scope to contractors and sub-contractors hired by said errant entity to carry out their bidding. Notwithstanding this, could the minister clarify how the focus of enforcement efforts remains trained on the larger corporate bodies behind such actions?
In a similar vein, any responsible financing frameworks (including green financing) should also ensure that FIs screen the entire issuer or borrower group, not just a project or specific-purpose loan, to ensure that we do not end up in a dissonant situation where a green label can sit on a borrower with fires on its land.
Yesterday, I also spoke about how public monies – through our sovereign wealth funds – can be applied to tackle the issue of haze. In 2016, this House was told that our SWFs had no investments in companies causing the haze, and that the government does not interfere with commercial decisions. While I agree that the government should not be directing investments, we should not use this as a fig leaf to dismiss the role that SWFs can play.
Norway’s fund publishes its expectations of companies, now consolidated in a nature document released in March 2026, and says that where relevant, companies should adopt no deforestation, no peat, no exploitation policies. These expectations are the foundation for company dialogues, shareholder proposals, votes against the re-election of directors, and, for companies that do not respond, possible divestment. It also asks banks in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil to adopt no-deforestation lending criteria, and expects companies to be transparent about their lobbying on nature issues. New Zealand’s funds have preferred engagement over divestment, although they have been challenged to show evidence that engagement actually changes behaviour. This suggests that engagement is only credible when paired with milestones and consequences.
It may therefore be time for our own GIC and Temasek to publish a haze and earth stewardship policy, including a clear stance on fire. This should include annual reports on which holdings they engaged, what commitments they obtained, and what they did when commitments were not kept. And will they disclose their exposure to firms now under inquiry by our own authorities and the public? Temasek published its first standalone sustainability report in 2024, which should be expanded to include the above points, so that we can more clearly see how our own SWFs are being used to tackle the haze. Investing to choke ourselves makes little sense, even if inadvertently.
Next, I move on to some more discrete aspects of the Bill relating to enforcement and transparency.
Section 7
We must also close any potential gaps that errant entities can exploit given the defences available under legislation.
Under the new Section 7(2), a firm or entity can claim a defence in engaging in conduct, whether in or outside Singapore, that causes or contributes to any land or forest fire through management of a second entity that is the owner or occupier of any land situated outside Singapore based on a balance of probabilities under new Section 5(3). Likewise, an entity can also claim a defence against civil liability if a second entity managed by a firm or entity does not fulfil its duty in refraining from conduct or condoning conduct by third parties that cause or contribute to land or forest fires that give rise to or risk haze pollution in Singapore on the balance of probabilities under new Section 6(2). In other words, it is someone else’s fault.
The “balance of probabilities” is the usual standard in civil suits, and a standard applied to defences in criminal cases, so its use in the bill is unsurprising. However, as we have seen, the companies involved or complicit in the land and forest fires behind the current and other rounds of haze can have complicated ownership and contractual structures. Corporates could ultimately point to these to raise defences which are weighed up on the basis of balance of probabilities, and ultimately avoid accountability. This might deny aggrieved parties proper recourse and justice, especially those without access to high-powered legal teams – on top of diminishing the punitive effect of the law to curb behaviour that causes or risks serious haze pollution.
Given the various difficulties associated with enforcement of our previous laws to tackle haze, should there be consideration of a more stringent application of proof, especially given the legal and regulatory complexities sometimes found in other jurisdictions. For the law to be more effective and to achieve its intended purposes, it is important to further raise the costs of having complex corporate and contractual structures that obscure liability. This can disincentivise the use of such relationships to engage in activities that can risk or cause serious haze pollution.
Transparency
Turning to transparency and public interest relating to the bill, under the new section 8C, Singapore’s Director-General of Environmental Protection may require an entity suspected of involvement in the fires to appoint an assessor, at the entity’s own expense. The assessor must then report on, among other things, the extent of the entity’s involvement in land or forest fires.
This is a welcome addition. Environmental Protection Laws in Indonesia and Australia have provisions allowing the government to direct audits, similar in spirit to the assessors envisioned in the amendment bill. But could we not publish the assessor reports by default, with appropriate allowance for necessary redactions? Doing so is appropriate given the immense public interest, and would have practical benefits.
For example, having such assessor reports in the public domain would increase the reputational cost for non-compliance, or for contributing to land and forest fires. Consumers can use this to make more informed decisions about their purchases as well. Large clients and agencies who award standards and ratings may find the reports useful, and companies desiring to clear their name may be more inclined to cooperate fully with assessors if they know the report will be made public.
Perhaps most importantly, Singaporeans would likely appreciate the additional transparency, especially when publicly available information is hard to come by on the six cases that had been initiated by the NEA under the 2014 THPA. Likewise, Singaporeans would probably welcome public information regarding results from the joint task force with Indonesia to deal with firms behind the fires and haze.
Penalties for non-compliant individuals
While the range of enforcement levers at our disposal has been expanded, its effectiveness largely hinges on our authorities’ ability to obtain the necessary information to take action.
The revised proposal in Section 10(6) to raise the maximum fine for individuals who fail to comply with requests for information to $50,000 is thus a welcome addition. However, is this sufficiently punitive to send a clear signal of accountability to senior decision-makers?
First, the gap with penalties on entities is jarring. Under the newly-proposed Section 5, entities face fines of up to $1 million for every day of haze pollution and $500,000 for every day they fail to comply with preventive measures notice. Yet, a non-compliant individual faces a one-off fine of $50,000. While we may argue that a refusal to cooperate is not of the same severity as failure to comply with a notice, companies are ultimately mere legal concepts that are run by people. If we believe that accountability rests with those who are directly involved in these decisions, there should be room to revisit the proposed penalty amount for non-compliant individuals.
Second, we must ask whether the $50,000 penalty is commensurate with the financial means and accountability of those it targets. The individuals likely to be charged under this provision are not field hands, but senior executives with decision-making power. The annual reports of several of the ten companies linked to haze-causing fires summoned for investigation disclose executive annual remuneration well in excess of a million dollars. Against that, a $50,000 fine is a little more than a tap on the wrist.
In view of this, could we not raise the maximum fine for individuals to $200,000, a sum that reflects the seriousness of obstructing an investigation and sits closer to the scale of the penalties on the entities these individuals lead, and ultimately control?
Traceability
On my final point, traceability, we hear a lot about the difficulty of obtaining good data, of knowing who is responsible. Prior to the recent haze episode, the government issued 6 preventive notices under the THPA, and while 2 cases have since been closed, the remaining 4 are still open to this day, highlighting the difficulty in bringing errant companies to task. This roadblock in implementation could be attributed to issues obtaining cooperation, especially from companies operating abroad. In particular, SMU’s Adeline Chong and Stefanie Schacherer, alongside other legal experts, observed that obtaining maps delineating the ownership/operation situation of each concession has proven to be difficult.
Amending our laws without strengthening our information-gathering capabilities would make it significantly more difficult for our authorities to enforce them, yet we should also be sensitive to the sacrosanct principle of non-interference. With Singapore assuming ASEAN chairmanship next year, we should use this opportunity to strengthen information-sharing efforts at the ASEAN level.
While the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Transboundary Haze Pollution Control recently established its secretariat office in Jakarta, the Centre does not have the legal muscle to carry out its duties, which includes developing a dashboard laying out the locations of hotspots over maps delineating the owner of each concession, enhancing haze and forest fire preparedness, as well as coordinate responses to requests for assistance. There should be a concerted effort to address such limitations.
Smallholders might face difficulties adhering to traceability requirements such as the EUDR due to a lack of technical expertise or resourcing. Nevertheless, there are NGOs helping to plug this gap, for instance, the Rainforest Alliance provides a streamlined certification programme for smallholders who adopt environmentally-sustainable practices, including the usage of satellite imagery to map out certified farmland. Working with them can help us plug any information gaps in enforcement.
Just like how we work with NGOs, we can likewise share our knowhow on dealing with haze pollution and its associated wildfires with counterparts worldwide who might be experiencing similar issues.
Mr Speaker, the amendments in this Bill are part of our effort to go after corporations that turn a blind eye to their environmental and public obligations. As we operationalise it, I hope we will act against those who finance the culprits behind the haze, close legal loopholes, improve transparency on investigated companies, increase penalties for uncooperative individuals, and leverage our strengths in research and corporate financial systems to tackle the problem.
This should not stop at haze. A “we tried our best” approach will only go so far in meeting our climate goals and protecting our citizens. I hope we carry this momentum into stronger oversight of businesses’ environmental impact more broadly.
Notwithstanding the points made above, I support the Bill. Thank you.
