Packaging waste: A circular future, or talking in circles?

Ms Grace Fu graduated with a Bachelor of Accountancy (Honours), and subsequently obtained a Masters of Business Administration from the National University of Singapore. She began her career in 1985 with the Overseas Union Bank, and later with the Haw Par Group, in the areas of corporate planning, financial controls and business development.

Ms Fu joined the PSA Corporation in 1995, and took on different responsibilities in finance and marketing. She held the position of Chief Executive Officer, PSA South East Asia and Japan, where she was responsible for the business performance of PSA’s flagship terminals in Singapore, Thailand, Brunei and Japan.

Ms Fu was elected as a Member of Parliament in June 2006 for the Group Representation Constituency of Jurong, Yuhua Division. She contested and won her seat in the Yuhua Single-Member Constituency in the 2011, 2015 and 2020 General Elections.

In 2006, Ms Fu was appointed to the Ministry of National Development as Minister of State. Two years later, she was promoted to Senior Minister of State, and given a concurrent appointment in the Ministry of Education. In 2011, she was appointed as Senior Minister of State in the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. In August 2012, she was appointed as Minister, Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Second Minister for Environment and Water Resources. In 2014, she was put in charge of the Municipal Services Office.

In 2015, Ms Fu was appointed Minister for Culture, Community and Youth, and Leader of the House. She also chaired the National Integration Council, National Youth Council, and sat on the board of the People’s Association. She was also involved in a number of committees, including as co-chair of the Singapore-Zhejiang Economic and Trade Council, the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city Joint Steering Council, the Ministerial Committee on Ageing and the Economic Strategies Committee.

In July 2020, Ms Fu was appointed Minister for Sustainability and the Environment.

Ms Fu is a member of the Central Executive Committee of the People’s Action Party and holds the appointment of Organising Secretary.

Ms Fu enjoys an active lifestyle, which includes running, yoga and hiking. She is married with three sons.

Hai Lin is the Executive Director of Zero Waste SG, a charity NGO looking to drive zero waste action in Singapore through education and advocacy. She has led several projects and initiatives on waste reduction since joining in 2017. In 2019, she received the NEA EcoFriend award as recognition for her contributions towards sustainability in Singapore. Through this role, she hopes to continue to empower people and organisations to relook at the concept of waste.

Jacob Duer is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a global non-profit organisation that brings together industry, government, civil society, development agencies and investors to help end plastic waste in the environment. The Alliance has nearly 50 member companies and supporters across the world’s leading organisations in the plastic value chain.

Jacob leads the strategic visioning and direction of the Alliance that targets to invest $1.5billion over five years to develop, accelerate and scale technologies and solutions focussing on integrated waste management systems, engaging communities and catalysing capital towards a circular economy.

Jacob has more than 20 years of experience with the United Nations, focusing on chemicals and waste management, environment and sustainable development. Currently based inSingapore, he has lived and worked with the United Nations in Austria, Senegal, Kenya and Switzerland.

Mohit is the lead partner for sustainability services in Southeast Asia and brings with him over 20 years of professional experience. He has led over numerous engagements covering a myriad of industries to help organisations develop sustainability & social impact strategies, develop sustainability technical criteria for awards and labels, build organisation capabilities in sustainability & social impact initiatives, develop and assure sustainability and CSR reports, and address risk issues for sustainability audits.  

As an expert in sustainability, Mohit has been invited to lead policy shaping initiatives in the areas of plastic waste management, green label programmes, sustainable supply chain, and sustainability & social impact strategies.  

Mohit serves as an executive committee member of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants’ (ISCA) Sustainability Reporting Committee to drive technical adoption of sustainability reporting.

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Mr Seah Kian Peng first joined NTUC FairPrice in January 2001 as its Chief Operating Officer. Since then, he has worked with the team to transform FairPrice into a multi format retailer, increased significantly its market share and social impact and also strengthened its brand equity. Under his leadership, many new innovative formats were introduced such as FairPrice Xtra, FairPrice Finest, FairPrice Xpress and FairPrice Shop. More recently, the newly revamped FairPrice Xtra and Unity was launched at Vivocity, ensuring that the Co-operative remains relevant to evolving consumers’ lifestyle and needs. Another significant focus involves driving growth of the e-commerce platform as part of the group’s efforts towards an omni-channel retailer of the future.

In 2019, Mr Seah played an instrumental role in the formation of FairPrice Group where NTUC FairPrice, NTUC Foodfare and Kopitiam came together as an entity to cater to evolving consumer needs. Currently, FairPrice Group has an extensive network of over 570 touchpoints, employs about 13,000 staff with an annual turnover of over S$4 billion.

Mr Seah has also strengthened the bench-strength of FairPrice Group’s senior executive team, embarking the group in its dual transformation journey enabled by digital technology, and championed lean and productivity improvements. Whilst growing the businesses and putting them on a sound footing, he ensures that the social mission of moderating the cost of living remains a key thrust of the social enterprise.

Mr Seah has worked in both the public and private sectors. He has spent a large part of his career with the NTUC group, helming different portfolios within the group.  

Mr Seah is also a Member of Parliament. First elected in May 2006, he was re-elected in May 2011, September 2015 and again in August 2020. From 2011 to 2015, he was concurrently the Deputy Speaker of Parliament.

Mr Seah did his undergraduate studies in Australia under the Colombo Plan Scholarship. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and also a Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Directors. He was also the founding Chairman of the Harvard Business School Club of Singapore before stepping down in 2018.

Mr Seah is active on the community front. He is currently Chairman of the Marine Parade Leadership Foundation, and sits on the board of Singapore Olympic Foundation. He had previously served on the boards of Centre for Fathering, Singapore Centre for Social Enterprises (raiSE) and Singapore National Co-operatives Federation. He had also been a board member of SingTel, Health Promotion Board and National Parks Board.

Mr Seah is also a board director of The Consumer Goods Forum, a global industry network that brings together the CEOs and senior management of some 400 retailers, manufacturers and service providers across 70 countries.

Mr Xiao is RWDC's President for Asia Pacific, and a Director on its Board. Prior to this, he spent 14 years in Capital Markets at major investment banks, including JP Morgan, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, and ANZ. He was last Global Head of Commodities Trading, with experience trading in energy and agricultural products (both derivatives and physical), and complex derivatives. He was also a Venture Partner with WI Harper, a venture capital fund founded in 1993 that is dedicated to investing in the US and Greater China. Zhaotan holds a BSc from the London School of Economics.

Augustine Anthuvan has been a journalist for more than 20 years (1997-2019). He was Radio Singapore International's Assistant Programme Director, radio broadcaster & producer for 7 years, reporting on socio-political developments in Southeast Asia. In 2005, he joined Channel NewsAsia (CNA) and has worked in news and current affairs. Over the span of 14 years, Augustine as a senior TV journalist, covered numerous local and overseas news assignments; has written, produced and narrated several documentary programmes & became CNA’s Executive Producer for the Perspectives TV panel discussion series which he helmed for 8 Seasons (2012-2019). An established live commentator for national events - he is also a voice talent, speaker and media literacy facilitator. He is one of Singapore’s most experienced media trainers, and has been a decade-long forum moderator at numerous events. Augustine is now an independent strategic media relations consultant, moderator and media trainer.

Jessica is the Founder and Managing Director of Eco-Business, an award-winning journalist, TV presenter, director, producer, and a social entrepreneur. She has more than a decade of experience in media, journalism and sustainable development and is a columnist for print and digital publications such as The Straits Times and TODAY.

She is an independent and non-executive director of Singapore-listed ComfortDelGro, one of the world's largest land transport companies, and sits on the nomination and investment committees.

She serves as Strategic Advisor to Blue Planet Environmental Solutions, and is founding Director for Embodhi (Singapore), a non-profit for women empowerment in Asia. She is also an associate member of the Singapore Institute of Directors, and currently chairs the Climate Action SG Alliance – an initiative supported by the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources to advocate climate action and raise public awareness on climate issues.

A Singapore Press Holdings scholar, she has won many journalism awards. In March 2018, she was announced the winner of the Women of the Future Southeast Asia Awards for the media and communications category. She was also named as one of LinkedIn's Power Profiles for Singapore for 2018.

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