How I got here… Sino Group sustainability head, Melanie Kwok

Kwok joined Hong Kong property giant Sino Group in 2011 to run what was then known as the company’s corporate social responsibility department. Almost 14 years later, Kwok is unequivocal about why she has stuck around at the company that owns the Fullerton and Conrad hotel brands for so long. She says she has acquired the one thing that all sustainability practitioners crave to do their jobs effectively – power. 

Speaking to Eco-Business on the sidelines of the ReThink conference in September, Kwok said that having the ear of the Ng family, who founded the US$210 million company in the early 1970s, has helped her to move the needle internally.

But getting traction for the sustainability agenda has not always been easy. Kwok, who was Sino Group’s first sustainability hire, has had to win over her peers in other parts of the company to get buy-in for environment, social and governance (ESG) policies – even Sino Group’s flagship sustainability policy, Sustainability Vision 2030, which was signed off by the founders at the height of the pandemic in 2020. “If I hadn’t listened to people in other departments, I wouldn’t have survived this long,” she says.

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Sustainability can be stressful. It’s not easy to retain staff, particularly younger executives who realise that what they learned at university is not applicable in the workplace.

Melanie Kwok, sustainability head, Sino Group

Kwok works with a team of six sustainability staff on programmes that include decarbonising a company with a land bank of 19.5 million square feet across its residential, retail, office and industrial properties by 2050, cutting out single-use plastic from core operations by 2035 and giving all of its 11,000 employees ESG training by next year.

No problem is more important in Hong Kong than housing, Kwok noted on a panel at ReThink. Sino Group, which as a property developer has had a hand in one of the world’s most acute housing crises, helped launch Hong Kong’s first community living room in Sham Shui Po, one of the cities poorest districts, at the start of the year. The 800 square-metre room gives people living in Hong Kong’s tiny subdivided flats a shared place to do their laundry, shower and hang out.

Sino Group has also built a “wellness lodge” in Sham Tseng to help people living in temporary housing, and the group runs a number of urban farms to offer Hong Kong residents a taste of green living among the cramped, concrete high-rises. “We’re not just building buildings, we’re building communities,” Kwok said on her panel discussing the role of the private sector in tackling complex social challenges.

Talking to Eco-Business after the session, Kwok was keen to talk about her own influence in Hong Kong’s sustainability community. She counts being vice chair of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce’s environment and sustainability committee, advisor to the government’s recycling fund and sub-committee member on youth and capacity building for the environment and ecology bureau among her list of responsibilities. “My power and influence in Hong Kong is expanding because of my experience and my network,” she says.

Kwok is also candid about the things she would have done differently if she could start her career over. Retaining staff was a problem early on. She admits to getting frustrated with new recruits who joined Sino Group with limited understanding of the business or the industry. “I can’t count the number of times I made people cry,” she says. But motherhood – she has a five year-old daughter – has helped her develop a greater sense of empathy.

In this interview, the Hongkonger talks about why she chose a career in sustainability, the most difficult thing about her job, and the knowledge gap between higher education and the workplace. 

What’s your educational background, and why did you choose a career in sustainability?

I went to Headington School, an English boarding school for girls – the same school that Harry Potter actress Emma Watson went to, although she’s a lot younger than I am.

When I had to choose subjects for my GCSEs and A-Levels, geography was my top pick. Sustainability didn’t exist as a subject when I was at school, but geography was the most closely related subject, as it covered social and environmental issues.

I’m Catholic. Since I was very young, my parents would take me to church everyday. One of the things I remember learning at church is that everyone has a purpose. For some people, it takes them a long time to discover what that purpose is. But for me, I knew early on that it was God’s will for me to pursue an environmental-related career. 

Having gone to school in Oxford, which is a leafy city surrounded by the English countryside, I developed a love for nature. The mindset for environmental protection was a lot more developed in the UK than in Hong Kong then. When I returned to Hong Kong for the summer holidays, I realised that my city had a big waste problem. That intrigued me. I thought that one day, when I go back to Hong Kong to work, I would really want to do a job that helped improve the environment in my city.

I studied environmental science at Imperial College London, environmental law at London School of Economics and then did a master’s degree in sustainability at Cambridge University. They’re prestigious universities, but also really diverse. I met people there from all over the world, from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, and they shared different perspectives on the sustainability challenges of where they come from, which fascinated me.

I got good grades at school – straight As. But when I told my parents, who are fairly typical Hong Kong Chinese parents, that I wanted to study environmental science, they were furious. They told me that with those grades, I could study medicine or law, and I would never get a job in Hong Kong with an environmental science degree. At that time, not many Chinese people at my college were studying environmental science either. 

But it’s amazing how times have changed. Now all companies are looking to hire sustainability people, and environmental science is a really helpful degree to have. 

You started your career working for environmental consultancies. How did you get the job at Sino Group?

I saw an advertisement for Sino Hotels’ first sustainability role [in 2011]. It started small but grew as I got promoted over the years. I now run the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) programmes. 

What’s the hardest thing about your job?

ESG is changing so fast and it’s hard to keep up with the pace of change. Sino Group is aligned with 12 sustainability indexes and standards. If I don’t stay on top of each one, we will fall behind. Each change to a standard means having to read through 800 pages of guidelines all over again. I have to understand why the changes matter. If I don’t, I cannot expect my colleagues in other departments to understand why we need to act on certain sustainability issues.

What’s been your proudest career moment to date?

It was when Sino Group became the first Hong Kong property firm to make the Global 100 [a ranking of the world’s most sustainable companies by Canadian firm Corporate Knights] in 2023.

Melanie Kwok speaking at the ReThink event in Hong Kong in September. Kwok spoke about Sino Group’s involvement in the creation of a community living room for people living in sub-divided housing. Hong Kong has one of the developed world’s most acute housing problems. Image: Robin Hicks / Eco-Business

At the recent ReThink conference in Hong Kong, a young professional working for a non-profit complained that there is a big gap between what sustainability students are taught at university and what they are expected to know in their workplace. Is there anything you learned at college that you use in your job now?

Since I got my degree a long time ago, I would say what I learned at university is not 100 per cent applicable to what I do right now. But the skills gap is likely a lot narrower now compared to when I entered the workforce [in 2003].

The material I was taught has evolved, particularly the jargon and terms we use. When I was at university, we talked about sustainable development in terms of the “three bubbles” – economic, social and environmental. Back then, the Sustainable Development Goals and the word “ESG” didn’t exist. The sector is ever changing.

What do you observe is missing in the young people you interview for sustainability jobs?

I have this discussion often with sustainability heads of other companies in Hong Kong. The problem with what students are learning in college is that the world has moved on by the time they enter the workforce, and the sustainability curriculum has not kept up. That is particularly true with ESG standards.

When we hire a sustainability officer, we expect them to have at least basic knowledge of ESG ratings such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, MSCI, CDP and Global 100, because if they work for Sino Group or other listed companies, a big part of the job is to work on these indices. But many students I’ve interviewed haven’t even heard of these standards.

The question I always ask young people in interviews is why they want to work in sustainability for Sino Group. Eight out of 10 people tell me: “Because I am passionate about sustainability and I want to change the world.” But they have very little knowledge of Sino Group and what our ESG agenda is.

But I don’t really blame students for lacking detailed knowledge, because at university what they are taught is broad and lacks depth on the challenges different industries are facing.

Why have you stayed at Sino Group for so long?

Because of the authority I now have at the company. I was Sino Group’s first sustainability hire, and I am lucky that the Ng family [the owners of Sino Group] trust me. I report directly to the top decision-makers. There are no middle layers, which makes my life a lot easier.

But sustainability is not a fairy tale. Getting things done requires a lot of communication and diplomacy – even if sustainability policies are leadership-driven. For instance, when coming up with Sino Group’s Sustainability Vision 2030 policy, I didn’t go to the family owners to draft the policy. I went to every department head and asked them to co-write the policy with me. In order to sustain a job in sustainability, you have to respect other departments. 

Melanie Kwok (fourth from the left) led the “Discover Shui Hau” project for Sino Group, which promoted ecological conservation in Shui Hau on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. Image: LinkedIn

What mistakes have you made during your time at Sino Group? What would you have done differently if you could start in your role again?

I can be quite a harsh person. When we set up our sustainability team, we experienced high staff turnover. I think that was because I was frustrated with new recruits who didn’t understand our corporate sustainability objectives. I can’t count the number of times I have made people cry. I probably drove away some young talent. But back then, I wasn’t a mother. I am now, and I think that has helped me to become a more patient, empathetic person.

Another thing I would have changed is the time I take to make a decision. When I drafted the first ESG policy for Sino Group, it took me nearly half year. But ESG is moving so fast these days that if we don’t keep up, we fall behind. In the old days, my boss would read about our peers in the news and ask me why we hadn’t achieved certain things.

I have learned to make decisions faster and we have been among the first in the industry to adopt the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures [a framework for businesses to disclose their impacts on nature], the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) decarbonisation principles and incorporate International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards into our sustainability reports.

What advice do you have for aspiring sustainability practitioners?

Plan well ahead – to give yourself enough buffer room to respond to ad hoc matters. 

One example is the SBTi validation process. After submitting our data, SBTi suddenly reached out with a list of 10 questions. We were only given 48 hours to respond. If we hadn’t responded, we would have been disqualified. I was on holiday at the time but we had to scramble to answer all of SBTi’s questions.

That was frustrating because I sincerely believe in the need to take a break from what is a very stressful job. Sustainability practitioners need to find ways to build resilience – and that involves finding time to stop and refresh your mind and body. 

I listen to music to help me relax. I rarely exercise – because I’m a mum, I just don’t have time. I love to travel, and I switch off my phone when I go on holiday. My husband – who’s a banker – doesn’t, which is why he never enjoys his holidays. He’s forever answering company emails!