Singapore: The Singapore Island Country Club (SICC) has been awarded the Green Spirit Award at the 27th Singapore Environmental Achievement Awards (SEAA) 2026, recognising its growing efforts to integrate environmental sustainability into the way it operates and maintains its three golf courses.

Organised by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC), the SEAA recognises organisations for environmental stewardship and measurable improvements in environmental performance.

The award was presented by Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment and Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations, at Park Royal Collection Marina Bay.

The recognition comes as the SICC advances towards its ambition of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, while addressing one of the fundamental challenges of golf-course management: maintaining high-quality playing conditions while using water, energy and other resources more efficiently.

SICC General Manager Ian Roberts said: “This award is significant because it recognises that sustainability is becoming part of how we operate SICC, rather than being treated as a standalone environmental initiative. Operating three golf courses comes with considerable environmental responsibility. Our approach is to make practical, measurable improvements across the club, whether through renewable energy, smarter water management, electrification, resource recovery or bio-diversity conservation.

“There is still much more to do, but the Green Spirit Award gives us encouragement to keep improving and working towards our goal of carbon neutrality by 2030.”

The SICC established its carbon baseline at 8,516 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in FY2023/2024. Excluding the one-off impact associated with the replacement of ageing chiller equipment, its FY2025/2026 carbon footprint would have been approximately 8,102 tonnes, a 4.9% reduction from baseline. Scope 2 emissions from purchased electricity also fell by 6.9%.

Among its initiatives, the SICC’s solar-panel installation at its Island location has delivered its largest measurable environmental saving, generating renewable electricity on site and reducing reliance on grid-supplied electricity.

The club has also installed a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) to manage electricity demand more efficiently. By storing energy and helping to smooth peaks in demand, the system reduces strain on electrical infrastructure, supports more reliable club operations and enables the SICC to participate in the Energy Market Authority’s Demand Response Programme.

On its golf courses, the SICC is applying the same principle of using resources more efficiently. As water represents one of the largest environmental impacts of golf-course operations, SICC uses soil-moisture data and on-ground assessments to guide irrigation, rather than applying water uniformly across the courses. This allows the Golf Course Maintenance team to put the right amount of water in the right place at the right time, reducing unnecessary consumption while maintaining healthy turf and consistent playing conditions.

The club is also progressively replacing conventional course maintenance equipment with electric alternatives. Its electric greens mowers produce zero direct emissions during operation, require no petrol or engine oil and operate significantly more quietly than conventional petrol-powered equipment, helping to create a cleaner and quieter on-course environment for members and staff.

The SICC is also finding ways to extend the life of natural resources already within its landscape.

When trees fall during severe weather or need to be removed for safety or course playability, suitable timber is recovered and repurposed into tee markers and distance markers. The trunks are air-dried and processed locally, reducing waste, off-site disposal and transport-related emissions while replacing synthetic or polyethylene-based course materials with timber from the SICC’s own landscape.

Beyond resource recovery, the SICC is actively propagating native plant species found on its courses. Its Golf Course Maintenance team collects seeds from native trees and nurtures them into saplings for replanting. One notable example is Alstonia pneumatophora (Marsh Pulai), with fewer than 20 known specimens in Singapore. After a specimen on SICC’s course flowered, the club’s arborist successfully collected its seeds and propagated new saplings.

The SICC has since shared saplings with other golf courses, including Tanah Merah Country Club and Laguna National Golf Club, while seeds collected from its courses are shared with NParks’ Native Plant Centre for propagation and recorded in the Singapore Botanic Gardens Herbarium’s repository.

Roberts added: “A golf course is not only a sporting environment. It is also a living landscape. We have a responsibility to look after that landscape and the bio-diversity within it. For us, good environmental management and good golf-course management should go hand-in-hand. Technology and better data increasingly allow us to deliver the playing conditions our members expect while being much more precise about the resources we use.”

The Green Spirit Award marks an important milestone in the SICC’s sustainability journey as it continues to examine opportunities to reduce emissions associated with energy, fuel, fertiliser, materials, transportation and its wider supply chain, including through further electrification, renewable energy, greater resource efficiency and more sustainable procurement.

Its approach is centred on continuous measurement and improvement: understanding where its environmental impact comes from, identifying where the greatest gains can be made and progressively embedding those improvements into everyday operations.

*The Singapore Island Country Club is a member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation.