Singapore Green Trade Marks Study - Preliminary Findings

By 2030, Asia has the potential to generate up to US$4.3 trillion of revenue and 232 million jobs in the region¹, in climate mitigation alone. Are businesses in Singapore creating and commercialising green innovations to advance their sustainability goals as the world transits to a greener economy?

IP activity has been widely used to track innovation performance, and the Singapore Green Trade Marks Study aims to examine the trends in green trade mark filings² in Singapore to understand our progress in green- or sustainability-related innovation. Taking reference from the EUIPO Green Trade Marks study, it also examines the distribution of the filings to identify the product groups and categories that companies are most active in.

Based on our preliminary findings, there is an indication of a strong growing interest in sustainability-related innovation in Singapore.

1. Trend in Trade Mark filings in Singapore (2014-2023)

Trade mark filings for green or sustainability-related goods and services in Singapore have increased by over 30% in the past five years. The absolute number of green trade mark filings has also doubled over the last 10 years, growing at a CAGR rate of 8.8%.

2. Green Trade Mark filings as a share of all Trade Mark filings in Singapore (2014-2023)

Similarly, the share of green trade marks has increased significantly from 8% in 2014 to 13% in 2023. This shows a growing interest in sustainability-related innovation in Singapore.

3. Number of green Trade Mark filings by product groups
(Ranked by number of green trade marks filed in 2023)

There is an overall increase in filings across all green-related innovations, especially for innovations related to transportation, climate change and energy production.

IPOS will dive deeper into these findings, and the full study is targeted for publication in 2H 2024.

¹ World Economic Forum White Paper in 2023 – “Accelerating Asia’s Advantage: A Guide to Corporate Climate Action”

² Green trade marks are defined as trade marks with at least one green term in their Goods & Services specifications. The classification is done based on the green expressions and methodology used by EUIPO’s Green EU Trade marks study 2021 and 2023.