With Temasek’s 100% stake in CapitaLand Group, could the real estate giant join this ranking in the coming years? Temasek’s total portfolio emissions excludes indirect, or Scope 3, emissions. The 15 categories of Scope 3 emissions include greenhouse gas emissions produced from the consumption of purchased goods and services, capital goods, franchises, business travel and employee commuting.
“At the moment we do not have Scope 3 [emissions] of the underlying companies flowing up into [Temasek’s total portfolio emissions],” says Franziska Zimmermann, managing director, sustainability at Temasek International. “Having said this, CapitaLand [Investment] is one of the companies on the Straits Times Index, so their mandatory Scope 3 reporting comes in next year.”
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Following a rule change in August 2025 by the Singapore Exchange (SGX), the 30 largest Singapore-listed companies by market capitalisation must report their Scope 3 emissions from FY2026.
Still, this will only affect the listed half of CapitaLand Group. CapitaLand Investment (CLI), which in 2022 committed to Scope 1 and 2 net-zero emissions by 2050, reported Scope 3 emissions of 1,517 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) for FY2025 ended Dec 31, 2025, 12% lower y-o-y.
CLI says it is “working towards updating its Scope 3 emissions target, aligned with climate science”, but acknowledges that gathering data on value chain emissions “continue[s] to be a challenging focus area" in its decarbonisation journey.
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CapitaLand Development (CLD), being the unlisted development arm of CapitaLand Group, is not compelled to follow SGX’s sustainability reporting rules. That said, CLD has set out to achieve net-zero emissions for Scope 1 and 2 by 2050, with plans to “progressively include Scope 3 within defined emission boundaries”.
CLD also announced in 2024 that it plans to reduce its embodied carbon intensity by at least 22% by 2030, compared to a 2019 baseline.
Concrete is one of the main contributors to the embodied carbon footprint of most buildings and infrastructure assets. Embodied carbon represents the carbon emissions released during the lifecycle of the building materials.
CLD’s chief corporate officer Tony Tan told City & Country in February that “development work is very heavy on embodied carbon”. “Most of the assets and business activity at the [CLI] level are really more operational.”
Tan was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of the Concrete Data for Concrete Action benchmark — Singapore’s first market-wide reference for assessing the carbon footprint of concrete. Created by CLD and the global coalition Climate Group’s ConcreteZero initiative, the benchmark presents volume-weighted average, minimum and maximum embodied carbon values across six common concrete strength classes for concrete supplied in 2024.
With the benchmark, concrete users can benchmark performance and set carbon targets, while regulators can align standards and track progress. Suppliers can differentiate products and guide innovation, and financiers can assess climate risk and support transition pathways.
“I think that [benchmark] will also help them get recognised for their efforts in going for more low-carbon cement, as opposed to the higher-carbon cement,” adds Zimmermann. “It helps with creating that transparency around what are the efforts and how are those efforts actually differentiating and resulting in lower Scope 3 emissions.”
See also: CapitaLand Development, ConcreteZero launch S’pore’s first market-wide carbon benchmark for concrete
Even in a future where Scope 3 emissions are better accounted for and also included in Temasek’s total portfolio emissions, names like port group PSA International could remain among the heaviest emitters, says Park Kyung-Ah, chief sustainability officer at Temasek International.
“PSA will have significant Scope 3, given [their] shipping [business], there’s PIL, there’s a bunch of companies that we would have to really go through. So, I think it’s hard for us to say definitively [that] these will be in the top five,” she adds.
In 2021, Temasek’s wholly owned Heliconia Capital Management bailed out Singaporean shipping line Pacific International Lines (PIL) with a US$600 million lifeline, giving the investor a majority stake.
Zimmermann adds that financed emissions — generated by the businesses and projects lenders do business with — also fall under Scope 3. This could bring Temasek’s portfolio companies, like DBS Group Holdings and Standard Chartered, into its list of the heaviest emitters.
“That’s a really tricky thing to do, financed emissions,” says Park. “They’re doing it for specific sectors and their balance sheet, but there’s also underwriting activity et cetera, which becomes quite high.”
Photos and chart: Temasek
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Temasek’s portfolio emissions flat y-o-y again, even as SIA logs record
