Founded in 1936, as a multidisciplinary real estate forum, ULI facilitates an open exchange of ideas, information and experience among industry leaders and policy makers dedicated to creating better places.

We now have more than 46,000 members worldwide, of which 500 of them are based in Singapore.  Our membership has been growing steadily, with more of our industry stakeholders drawn to our mission to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.  We progress this mission by:

• Connecting active, passionate, diverse members through the foremost global network of interdisciplinary professionals
• Inspiring best practices for equitable and sustainable land use through content, education, convening, mentoring and knowledge sharing
• Leading in solving community and real estate challenges through applied collective global experience and philanthropic engagement

For ULI Singapore, we have decided, for the current Exco term, to focus on three areas which we feel are relevant to the current environment and challenges facing our industry:

1. Continuing to grow the membership, particularly through increasing youth engagement and fostering diversity;
2. Providing leadership in understanding the landscape of recovery and re-shaping of real estate post-pandemic and in the context of Singapore’s positioning for this new era; and
3. Enhancing the ESG agenda, in terms of knowledge, capability and application in real estate and the built environment.

Membership Growth with Diversity

 As it is our mission to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact, it is imperative that the youths in our community have a direct say in the long-term plans and development practices.  ULI Singapore has been actively reaching out to Universities, engaging students to participate in our activities.

With their needs in mind, we have earlier launched a new programme exclusively for student members called the Up Close and Personal leadership engagement series.  This is a monthly opportunity for students to have a candid dialogue with industry leaders about trends and career options in the built environment and important soft skills such as personal branding and developing your influence.

We also kicked-off our annual ULI Singapore Mentorship programme today.  This year we received a record number of applicants from our under-35 members, seeking 12-month mentorship from our senior members.

Supported by the Young Leaders Group committee co-chaired by Nicole Chua and Tan Yi-xun, we matched 36 mentees to 36 mentors from different disciplines and both the public and private sector.

Our Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) here in Singapore have been working hard at driving diversity for our community through two pillars: Women Empowerment and Engaging Agents of Change.

In the first pillar, WLI arranged activities such as the Powwow Dinners, and Honestly Speaking sessions where our members can directly engage with leaders on how to advance their careers.

In the second pillar, WLI launched its Champions of Change pledge last month. This pledge was developed in consultation with our members and we are pleased to see that more than 20 senior members have stepped up to commit to be a Champion of Change.

I encourage you to consider being one so that we can collectively drive DEI for our industry and not just within organisations. Do reach out to the WLI Singapore Co-Chairs, Tang Wei Leng and Tan Shin Hui to find out more about their programmes.

Looking ahead, we are also focused on developing our next generation of leaders.  NEXT is an affinity group co-chaired by Ambika Goel and Gareth Wong.  Both have been engaging our members who are stepping into leadership roles and will be creating opportunities to tap on their insights while supporting their network, exposure and advancement in the industry.  .  Please reach out to them to find out more on what they have lined up for the year ahead.

Providing Leadership in reshaping of real estate

Recalibrating how real estate will be used, managed, designed and developed is an important consideration with the acceleration in disruptive trends and changes in consumer expectations over the last couple of years.  We have prioritised this in ULI Singapore as one of the ways we can help each other in the Industry as well as contribute to the community we live and operate in.

In October last year, ULI Singapore invited members to participate in a roundtable discussion about Singapore’s long-term land use plans and to share our collective ideas and suggestions with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) as part of their Phase 2 public engagement exercise for its Long Term Plan Review (LTPR) 2021.  This phase aims to set out a collective vision for Singapore. The format of the roundtable was developed in consultation with URA and ULI Singapore, with the discussion led by one of ULI’s members Chintan Raveshia, Cities Leader, Southeast Asia, Arup.  We had a total of 12 roundtables of cross-disciplinary professionals who spent their time to contribute their ideas.  These were collated and shared with URA and the Ministry of National Development for their consideration.  The key recommendations centred around:

1. Enhancing the vibrance of the CBD through the more flexible use of buildings, creating a greater variety of uses and amenities; a stronger focus on sustainability; and better connectivity to recreation, the outdoors and natural environment
2. The focus on de-carbonisation and the adaptive re-use of buildings
3. The provision of a wider variety of accommodation options, across rental and ownership; affordability; and across demographics such as young professionals, single parent families and the elderly

I am sure we will get to hear more about the LTPR from Minister Desmond Lee in his opening keynote today, and in the discussion to be facilitated by Chintan.

During the recent launch of the Emerging Trends in Real Estate Asia Pacific annual report in November last year, a joint undertaking between PwC and ULI, the audience concurred that there must be a greater focus on the considerations behind the redevelopment vs readaptation of existing real estate.  Singapore is a young nation, but it has years of culture and heritage that is part of our social identity and is proudly reflected in some of our physical landscape even within the CBD.  The adaptive re-use of existing buildings is also beneficial to the carbon footprint.

This led to the creation of a joint workshop this morning, facilitated by Arup, Colliers and 8M Real Estate where 30 of our conference delegates comprising both the private and public sector reviewed a few case studies and discussed the considerations when deciding between demolishing and redeveloping vs. readapting. This was framed under the pillars of governance, environmental impact, commercial implications and social good.  We hope to build on this further with our members as part of our programme of work.

We also ran a small version of ULI’s UrbanPlan programme, a simulation and role-playing exercise in which participants learn more about the fundamental forces that affect real estate development in our communities. ULI Singapore together with NUS and the Centre for Liveable Cities co-produced a Singapore edition where participants explored the interaction of planning norms, codes and regulations and design choices and the nature of Singapore’s 2-envelope system.  Our thanks to Cistri, Colliers and CLC for facilitating this morning’s workshop and to Distrii and CDL for being our venue hosts.

Other topics we covered recently included the Tokenisation of Real Estate, new Strategies for Asset Management, and the Future of Retail.  We will also be convening discussions around the application of PropTech, which continues to grow in importance in the industry.  Fundamentally, what is constant is the stretching of minds, particularly with our younger members, to evolve our industry to be more progressive, dynamic and relevant for the future.

Enhancing the ESG Agenda

Climate risk is a recognised and shared problem and the industry has been focussed on sustainability initiatives for some time.  In 2009, ULI’s leading real estate owners came together with a shared commitment to cost-effectively reduce anergy and water use, waste generation, and greenhouse gas emissions.  That initiative became Greenprint – a blueprint for green buildings.  The ULI Greenprint Centre for Building Performance is a worldwide alliance of leading real estate owners, investors and strategic partners committee to improving the environmental performance of the global real estate industry.  Through measurement, benchmarking, knowledge sharing, and implementation of best practices, Greenprint and its members strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and to achieve net zero carbon operations by 2050.  Greenprint members include Allianz, ACRE, Blackrock, Lendlease, Hang Lung Group, Heitman and PGIM.  If your institution is not yet part of Greenprint, I would invite you to reach out and contribute to this global programme.

In Singapore, the Sustainability Product Council, co-chaired by Esther An and Nina Yang, brings together senior members to discuss pertinent ESG issues for the built environment. Several topics have been discussed and best-practices shared including  sustainability linked bonds, greening of supply chains in urban logistics, Net Zero buildings and reflections on COP26.  Singapore-based members are encouraged to approach our Council co-chairs to find out more about the Council and how to be part of the Council discussions.

Singapore’s built environment is remarkable and globally recognised and this comes from an authentic partnership and exchange of ideas and practices between the public and private sectors. Last year, of the 12 regional winners of the ULI Asia Pacific Awards for Excellence, 4 were from Singapore: Jurong Lake Gardens, Kampung Admiralty, Paya Lebar Quarter and Punggol Town.  I encourage you to showcase your developments and submit them for this year’s Awards for Excellence.

I would like to thank Anthony Couse and Zheng Wanshi who supported ULI Singapore in the programming of today’s Conference, and to our speakers and facilitators for contributing their time and knowledge to what I am sure will be an exciting and informative event.

On behalf of our members here in Singapore, we also express our sincere appreciation to our annual supporters who contribute significantly in many ways to our mission.

I look forward to working with our members in Singapore to continue to drive ULI’s mission forward and our 3 key pillars in Singapore – strengthen diversity in our membership; re-shaping our real estate strategies for the post-pandemic or endemic era; and enhancing the knowledge and application of ESG in the built environment.

Thank you and wishing all of you an enjoyable and fruitful conference.