Professor Lily Kong, President of the Singapore Management University, and Lee Kong Chain Chair Professor of Social Sciences was recently invited to give a virtual keynote address on “Singapore – The making of a sustainable city-state” at the Swedbank Summit.
The annual event held in Stockholm brings together CEOs, Chairmen, and owners from the largest corporations and institutions in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.
This year’s event was themed “Recovery – learnings from the pandemic and a sustainable way forward” and saw around 100 participants gathering and engaging with world-class speakers
During the speech, Professor Lily Kong shared how Singapore is a “City-state-island” and has unique conditions for planning. Singapore is also a “garden city” from its early days of establishment when founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew led the charge of tree planting around the city. Today, Singapore has evolved into the notion of a “city within a garden”, and is committed to a biophilic, green, and blue environment. Given this, some would argue that there is a strong sense of commitment to environmental sustainability alongside economic sustainability, professor Lily Kong said.
Besides economic, environmental, and cultural sustainability, the city-state has focused on multiple dimensions of social sustainability as well. One key element is the ability to transform from a city of slums and squatters with dirty rivers before the 1970s to one where 80% of the population live in affordable and subsidized public housing. Singapore is also a multicultural population living cheek by jowl and efforts have been put into creating a harmonious and socially sustainable society, professor Lily Kong said.
Read the full article and much more from Professor Lily Kong’s speech on Singapore – The making of a sustainable city-state here
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