NTUC FairPrice (FairPrice) today announced its partnership with PUB, the national water agency, to adopt the recently completed Sengkang Floating Wetland, a project launched by PUB under its “Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters” (ABC Waters) Programme. As part of the adoption, FairPrice will set up the FairPrice Water Education Fund to equip schools with enrichment programmes to promote water education and encourage a greater sense of ownership among Singaporeans in keeping Singapore’s waters clean.

Mr Seah Kian Peng, CEO (Singapore), NTUC FairPrice, said, “FairPrice continually looks to contribute in meaningful ways to the community. We are excited to partner PUB and play our part towards creating a more livable and beautiful environment for Singaporeans. We are honored to adopt the new wetland in Sengkang and to join in to reinforce the need to provide safe water bodies, and to provide for continued education on the importance of maintaining quality water for our community”.

FairPrice is investing up to $30,000 to set up the FairPrice Water Education Fund which will be utilised over two years. The Fund will serve to help schools enhance their water education programmes. For example, it will be used to publish a resource book on water-quality monitoring, enable teachers to attend workshops on water-quality monitoring, acquire resource teaching materials or support other water education initiatives proposed by schools.

“In Singapore, we are very fortunate to have access to amenities like clean running water, but we must not take this for granted. We must continually look for sustainable sources of clean water,” said Mr Seah Kian Peng. “As a responsible member of our community, FairPrice is taking a positive step by supporting this initiative and educating young Singaporeans on the importance of keeping our waters clean.”

Apart from the sponsorship, FairPrice staff will also be participating in regular cleaning and various other activities at the Sengkang Floating Wetland. This morning, FairPrice staff were involved in clean-up and water-quality testing activities.

As a social enterprise, FairPrice recognises the importance of caring for both the community and environment. Recent initiatives include FairPrice’s recent donation of $1 million worth of food vouchers to needy families through the FairPrice Food Voucher Scheme and the Share-A-Textbook Project to help needy student save on textbooks expenses and encourage recycling. Over the years, FairPrice has collected over 1.8 million textbooks that have benefitted over 137,000 needy students.

FairPrice also launched Singapore’s first eco-friendly supermarket in City Square Mall that is designed with the principle of reduce, reuse and recycle. The supermarket features the latest eco-friendly solutions in grocery retailing. FairPrice also launched its Green Rewards scheme in 2007 to encourage shoppers to bring their own bags and has since given out more than $710,000 in rebates.

This year, FairPrice was awarded the Community Developer Award by Singapore Compact in recognition of FairPrice’s commitment towards corporate social responsibility and the Green Retailer Award by the Singapore Retailers Association.