Sustainability Nexus Forum 2026 - Dr Janil Puthucheary

Good morning. Thank you for inviting me to join you at the Sustainability Nexus Forum 2026.

My congratulations to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and Jurong Community Hospital, on this meaningful inaugural forum bringing together leaders from across infrastructure, energy, logistics, healthcare, and technology.

I understand that this is the NUHS cluster’s first cross-industry sustainability forum, building on the success of your Healthcare Sustainability Symposium in 2024 and Sustainability Public Forum in 2025. While the earlier platforms focused on sustainability within the healthcare sector, today’s forum broadens the conversation to the wider network of partners in the healthcare value chain. This is an important step, because making healthcare more sustainable will require collaboration not only within hospitals, but also across the systems that support healthcare delivery.

Climate change is an immediate issue we need to address. We are already feeling its effects, through hotter days and more frequent intense rainfall. These changes affect our health, our infrastructure, our biodiversity, our businesses and our quality of life.

Ensuring an organisation continues to operate requires a deliberate focus on adaptation. Organisations that invest in adaptation will be more resilient, face lower costs or probability of disruption, and be better positioned to maintain continuity and even thrive when climate events strike. In a changing climate, those that prepare early will be better placed to protect their people, assets, and seize new opportunities.

Earlier this year, my ministry designated 2026 as the Year of Climate Adaptation. It is a rallying call for everyone - individuals, communities, and businesses - to act together to strengthen our resilience as we collectively prepare for the impacts of climate change.

We also announced that we will be engaging stakeholders in the development of Singapore’s first National Adaptation Plan. This plan is a long-term living strategy, and the intent is to protect Singapore and Singaporeans against the impacts of climate change. We have since held some 50 engagements, and just last month, stepped up our national engagements through the launch of our National Adaptation Conversations. The engagements bring together members of the public, businesses, academia, community groups, youth and stakeholders across diverse backgrounds to exchange perspectives, share aspirations, discuss trade-offs and actions that we can take strengthen our resilience to climate change together. Building our resilience will require strong partnerships. It is not something that Government can do alone. We need partners from every sector to contribute their expertise and ideas.

Today's forum is an excellent example of partnerships in action, of collaborating towards a common good, of organisations coming together to learn from one another and develop practical solutions. At JurongHealth Campus, comprising Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and Jurong Community Hospital, sustainability is being integrated into everyday healthcare delivery, an example that we must learn from. As part of the NUHS family, the campus is demonstrating that innovation can improve patient care and advance environmental sustainability.

One example is the campus’ adoption of circular economy principles. They are repurposing and upgrading MRI scanners instead of replacing them, extending the operational life of these scanners by another 10 years. Reducing electronic waste while improving patient access makes better use of valuable healthcare resources.

Another example is the JurongHealth Campus’ Waterless Adult ICU project, which has been implemented across more than 40 ICU rooms. It strengthens infection prevention efforts while achieving savings in water and energy consumption. It has reduced approximately 7 tonnes of carbon emissions and saved approximately 1.9 million litres of water. Every litre of water and every tonne of carbon emissions matters, and we have to save as much as we can.

There is also an ongoing Smart Glass project, where traditional curtains in isolation and ICU rooms are replaced with smart glass. This supports better infection prevention practices by reducing fabric surfaces that require cleaning, while lowering water usage, waste generation and chemical consumption from the cleaning the fabric curtains.

These initiatives demonstrate that sustainability is not only about protecting our shared environment, but also about improving patient care and making our healthcare system more resilient.

I am encouraged that organisations across various industries, alongside Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, Jurong Community Hospital and NUHS, are coming together to exchange experiences and explore opportunities for collaboration. These partnerships are increasingly important for us to strengthen our climate resilience and advance our sustainability journey.

Please make full use of today’s discussions to build new connections, exchange ideas and identify opportunities for future collaboration.

But the conversation should not end here today. Partnerships, collaborations and co-creation are important as we develop Singapore's first National Adaptation Plan. I invite all of you, to join our National Adaptation Conversations and contribute to our National Adaptation Plan. As Singaporeans, healthcare professionals, businesses and community leaders, to share your views and ideas on how we can strengthen Singapore's resilience to climate change. MSE and government agencies are engaging Singaporeans through a variety of platforms, including focus group discussions, community dialogues, sector-specific engagements and public events. These platforms will facilitate conversations on adaptation challenges and opportunities, and opportunities for co-creating solutions and building ownership amongst stakeholders. Please join to share your feedback at go.gov.sg/NAPfeedback.

Together, we can build a more sustainable and climate-ready home for Singaporeans.

Thank you, and I wish everyone a fruitful forum.