IMDA Simplifies Digital Sustainability Adoption for Businesses with New Practical Resources

1. The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has launched new resources to enable Singapore businesses to adopt digital sustainability solutions in a practical and measurable way. These resources comprise Digital Technologies for Sustainability Playbook, Practical Green Software Guide for Enterprises and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Emission Factors and Carbon Calculator for Cloud Services. Through them, IMDA aims to further support companies to go greener and be more competitive at the same time. Mr Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information announced the launch of these resources at Singapore Computer Society’s annual Sustainable Tech Forum today.

2. As more enterprises go digital to improve their business outcomes, IMDA recognises that digital solutions can also help enterprises become greener at the same time, via the adoption of digital sustainability solutions. A 2025 IMDA pulse survey¹ found that 81% of non-SMEs and 27% of SMEs have adopted at least one digital sustainability solution. Insights from these adopting firms include:

• Non-SMEs and SMEs cited regulatory requirements, and meeting customer expectations and demand as the primary driver behind their sustainability efforts respectively.
• The more commonly adopted digital sustainability solutions relate to resource and waste management, carbon accounting or emissions tracking and reporting, as well as energy management and optimisation solutions.
• 82% of enterprises reported that they benefitted from adopting digital sustainability solution(s), especially improved operational efficiency and manpower productivity.

3. The pulse survey also revealed that while businesses recognise the value of adopting digital sustainability solutions, lack of expertise and know-how remains a major barrier. For instance, among enterprises that have not kickstarted sustainability efforts, 38% of them identified "limited knowledge about sustainability practices" as a key challenge.

New Playbook Addresses "How-To" Barrier in Digital Sustainability

4. To bridge this knowledge and awareness gap, IMDA has developed a comprehensive Digital Technologies for Sustainability Playbook in consultation with industry. The Playbook offers businesses clear actionable guidance on how they can reduce operating costs and go greener at the same time, through digital technologies such as automation, Internet of Things, Data Analytics and AI. Validated by case examples from local companies such as Ghim Li Group, Kimly Construction, VFlowtech, Exceltec and SaladStop, the Playbook gives enterprises practical advice to invest in high-impact digital sustainability solutions.

5. The Digital Technologies for Sustainability Playbook is available via the IMDA Digital Leaders Programme website. This free resource targets C-suites, including Chief Sustainability Officers and ICT Leads navigating a growing sustainability mandate. 

Industry Trials Prove Green Software has Business and Environmental Benefits

6. Green software refers to designing, developing and operating software systems in a way that minimises their carbon footprint. This is relevant for businesses in any sector that develop ICT products or services. Since May 2024, IMDA has worked with 13 companies to trial the effectiveness of carbon reduction techniques on software application.

7. To date, the green software trials saw businesses achieving at least 20% reductions in carbon emissions, costs and energy usage by adopting green software practices. To equip more businesses with the knowledge to adopt green software practices, IMDA has developed the Practical Green Software Guide for Enterprises with Accenture and Green Software Foundation. As outlined in the Guide, businesses can achieve early cost and carbon reductions by focusing on three practical steps: right-sizing AI models, designing leaner software, and tracking and monitoring energy usage and costs. The Guide and the best practices for adoption of green software will be available on IMDA's website (1.08MB). 

New Carbon Calculator Simplifies ICT Emissions Tracking and Reporting

8. Businesses increasingly use cloud services to support their digitalisation, accessing computing resources, applications and data from anywhere via the cloud. To help businesses track and better manage the emissions from their cloud usage, IMDA and National University of Singapore Energy Studies Institute (NUS ESI) have jointly developed Singapore-specific emission factors (EFs) for ICT services. EFs are multipliers that convert the usage of activity into greenhouse gas emissions. The usage of activity includes key areas like Cloud Storage and Virtual Machines (VMs), which are essential components for many cloud-based services.

9. Singapore’s EFs for cloud services is among the first few EFs globally that estimate emissions using a bottom-up approach based on actual cloud usage, instead of a top-down approach that rely on broad industry averages and assumptions (such as average data centre energy use or generic grid emissions factors). This allows the EFs for cloud services to provide a more accurate way to measure emissions by taking into account local operating conditions and specific usage of cloud resources. This makes emissions tracking and reporting easier for enterprises in Singapore, especially for SMEs here, without needing extensive data collection. The methodology for the EFs was developed by and validated with industry partners, including sustainability consultancies, systems integrators, and Software as a Service (SaaS) providers.

10. Complementing the Singapore EFs for cloud services is a carbon calculator for cloud services rolled out by IMDA. The calculator allows users to track emissions by service types, configurations of the cloud service as well as the service duration. With this information, businesses can develop mitigation strategies and better plan for their future digital infrastructure, for example, choosing between on-premise and cloud deployments, or comparing emissions across different vendors and service types. Both the EFs and the calculator are available online at the Singapore Emission Factors Registry (SEFR) website for all businesses². 

IMDA’s Continued Efforts to Shape Singapore’s Sustainable Digital Future

11. Collectively, these new initiatives are part of IMDA’s ongoing efforts to green the ICT sector, as well as help the non-ICT sectors to become greener through using digital solutions. Singapore laid early groundwork through the Digital Connectivity Blueprint and the world’s first Tropical Data Centre (DC) standard introduced in 2023. This was followed by the Green DC roadmap in 2024, charting a pathway for the sustainable growth of DCs by improving energy efficiency and accelerating their use of green energy. Together with IMDA’s ongoing partnerships to drive energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from digital infrastructure, the new resources reinforce Singapore’s commitment to building a sustainable digital future.