A green approach looks high on the agenda for the next administration.
Secretary for Development Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor hinted at what the future may hold in a call for more environmentally friendly buildings.
Lam, tipped to be the next chief secretary, said with carbon emissions in the city rising by about 20 percent over the past decade, there is an “urgent need” for different sectors to cooperate and promote better buildings.
She was the keynote speaker yesterday at the Green Building Conference, which was attended by environmental experts from around the world.
“It will be very important to identify an enhanced policy impetus and make consolidated efforts to champion the cause of green buildings in the new government,” Lam said.
But she admitted there is a current lack of high-level policymaking in safeguarding the environment, something which the next government needs to address.
Lam said it has now become imperative for the construction industry to adopt green practices.
Daily operational costs of buildings, she noted, account for about 90 percent of electricity consumption and 64 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the city.
According to Hong Kong Green Building Council chairman Conrad Wong Tin-cheung, such construction is essential to the continued success of the city as both a hub for business and somewhere people will want to live and work in.
“Hong Kong simply cannot be a city in which people work and make money. We need to follow the examples of Singapore and San Francisco to create a quality living environment,” Wong said.
Green Sense president Roy Tham Hoi- pong said the move to clean up energy-hungry buildings is long overdue.
But Tham believes that with Lam favorite to take up the No 2 post in the next government and Wong Kam-sing, a specialist in green buildings, being tipped to be the next environment minister, the issue of sustainable development “should receive much greater attention in the near future.”
