Sentosa GC becomes world’s first carbon neutral golf club

Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore has become the world’s first carbon neutral golf club, delivering on a commitment made during the 2021 HSBC Women’s World Championship.

As part of its sustainability commitment, and to complement ongoing carbon abatement efforts identified during its carbon profiling, the club has offset 5,500 tons of CO₂, the annual equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from 12.4 million miles driven by an average petrol-powered car and CO₂emissions from the energy use of 630 homes. 

With the support of its members, the club has set aside $1 from every round of golf since April 2021 to procure high-quality carbon credits from the Katingan Mentaya Project in  Indonesia and Cordillera Azul National Park in Peru.

The Cordillera Azul National Park project helps restore degraded forestry, preventing 27.7 million tons of carbon being released into the atmosphere to date, as well as supporting 665 jobs in the local community, 40 percent of which are held by women. The Katingan Mentaya Project protects more than 370,000 acres of peat swamp forest, generating 7.5 million carbon credits; its impact is equivalent to removing 2 million cars from the road each year.

Following its initial pledge, Sentosa Golf Club’s efforts to achieve carbon neutrality formed part of its commitment to the UN Sports for Climate Action Race to Zero initiative, as well as the Sentosa Carbon Neutral Network, with a number of steps taken to compensate its carbon footprint — all under the umbrella of its sustainability campaign, GAME ON.

The club was also the first in Asia to introduce carbon products in the form of biochar into their agronomy program to help remove more carbon from the atmosphere.

Other initiatives, pioneered over a decade of work, were identified to help with the reduction of scope 1-3 carbon, including a state-of-the-art irrigation system and agronomy equipment that creates efficiencies and minimizes product waste seen by over fertilization and watering.

The introduction of an all-electric golf cart fleet powered with lithium batteries, car charging stations and waste digesters also helps to grind down food and horticultural waste to reuse as fertilizer on the golf course. Further initiatives were also introduced to increase energy efficiency, resulting in the clubhouse being awarded the Green Mark Certification.

These complement other on-course efforts that saved more than 300 different species of trees during the redevelopment of the club’s Tanjong course, and the introduction of stingless bee colonies on-site that thrive in an ecosystem alongside otters, peacocks, long-tail macaques and other migratory and native birds. Endangered mangrove species situated in The Serapong Lagoon and heritage sites such as Fort Berhala Reping have also been preserved within the natural landscape of the golf courses.

“We are proud to see that Sentosa Golf Club has become the world’s first carbon neutral golf club and are extremely proud of this achievement,” said Andrew Johnston, the club’s director of agronomy and GM. “Ever since we began to share the importance of our sustainability journey back in 2018, we have always been focused on becoming an industry leader and inspiring others to follow suit by implementing eco-friendly initiatives to help reduce our overall carbon footprint. Hopefully this is just the beginning and more clubs around the world will commit to becoming carbon neutral in the near future.”