• FairPrice Foundation to donate $30,000 to charity at the end of the week

In support of Earth Day, NTUC FairPrice (FairPrice) is bringing back its FairPrice Cares! Campaign to encourage customers to save and reduce the use of plastic bags during their grocery shopping. The FairPrice Cares! Campaign will run from 22 April till 28 April 2012 and is appealing to customers to bring their own bags and help FairPrice save at least 100,000 plastic bags in one week. This is the third year FairPrice is organising the FairPrice Cares! Campaign.

To encourage community participation, FairPrice has also committed to donate $30,000, at the end of the campaign, to Bizlink Centre and Bishan Home for the Intellectually Disabled to assist them in their community work. FairPrice has previously donated to Bizlink as part of the FairPrice Cares campaign in 2010 and FairPrice staff have been regularly volunteering at the Bishan Home.

Mr Koh Kok Sin, Chairperson, Green Committee at NTUC FairPrice said, “We want to encourage more customers to join us in our green efforts to help create a sustainable environment during the week starting with Earth Day. In fact, what we hope for is that customers will support such efforts daily, all year long. We have noticed greater awareness and increased participation of some of our eco-friendly efforts such as the Green Rewards Scheme, but we are constantly looking for more ways to better engage the community in our green efforts.”

FairPrice was the first supermarket to develop and launch a Green Rewards Scheme in 2007. The scheme looks to help minimise plastic bag wastage and enables customers to enjoy a 10-cent rebate for bringing their own reusable shopping bag with a minimum spending of $10. This scheme successfully saves about 5 to 6 million plastic bags a year.

Care to Save a Bag Photo Contest

To further engage customers, FairPrice is also organising a “Care to Save a Bag” photo contest where customers are encouraged to send in a picture of themselves using their own bags while shopping at FairPrice to promo@fairprice.com.sg. 20 photos with the most creative Green caption will receive a limited edition gift while the top three entries will each receive $100 in FairPrice vouchers. The contest is promoted through in-store posters and Facebook.

Other Green Efforts

Maintaining a sustainable environment is one of FairPrice’s core CSR pillars and FairPrice engages in a wide variety of green activities. For example, in 2009, the Green Lifestyle Campaign was launched to encourage customers to go further to shop, choose and think Green. FairPrice partnered with Philips’ ‘Change a Bulb’ programme, where each old light bulb brought in by customers were exchanged with an energy saving version by Philips. FairPrice also launched Singapore’s first eco-friendly supermarket at City Square Mall in December 2009 that showcases the latest eco-friendly solutions in grocery retailing.