Sep-2018

GreenFest by Hysan Inaugural Festival: Rethink our Food!

Green the Community
HKGBC Delegation to Singapore – Learn, Engage and Foster Green Building Development
Green Luncheon with Distinguished Speaker Ms Dominique Gauzin-Müller
Green Buildings Contributing to Waste Reduction

GreenFest by Hysan Inaugural Festival: Rethink our Food!

By 2050 we will have 9 billion people on Earth, three quarters of whom will live in cities. To feed all these mouths ‘business-as-usual’ is no longer an option. We will need to fundamentally reconsider the way we grow, consume and even think about our food to ensure a secure and healthy future for all people and the entire planet.

To answer some of these questions, Hysan Development conceptualised Hong Kong’s very first sustainability festival for youth GreenFest – which will take place this coming November, with the aim of leading our youths to take action towards a more sustainable food future. GreenFest by Hysan will be an annual event to engage and inspire positive action towards a more sustainable future. It calls young people and top change-makers to immerse themselves in a different sustainability-related topic each year.

On its first edition, GreenFest will be themed around rethinking our food, featuring three breakout workshop sessions – Grow, Eat and Dispose. Held together with award-winning urban farming pioneer Rooftop Republic, the festival is targeted at secondary school students to empower them to become the food pioneers of tomorrow!

Over the weekend GreenFest’s activities are aligned with the main phases of our food system and its life cycle, from farm to dinner table to waste. These workshops and activities provide participants with the hands-on opportunity to rethink how we currently grow, consume and dispose our food.

The first of its kind, the GreenFest brings together thought leaders and change makers who are already transforming our food’s future, and the young minds of tomorrow to explore the most pressing food issues that our world is facing now. Through a series of interactive workshops, demonstrations and talks, students will investigate issues surrounding our current food systems; design solutions and innovations to reconnect with our food and define the value, role and place of healthy and sustainable food in tomorrow’s urban societies.

Space is limited for the event which will be conducted in English supplemented with Cantonese. For more details, please visit the website of GreenFest.

Green the Community

September marks the annual Hong Kong Green Building Week (HKGBW) campaign! Back for its sixth edition, the flagship event is co-organised by the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and the Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC). The campaign targets every one of the general public and aims to raise public awareness on green building movement and sustainable lifestyle.

The campaign kicked-off on 30 August 2018, with over 60 guests embarked the green journey at D-Park with the presence of Mr Wong Kam-sing, Secretary for the Environment, Mr Chan Ka-kui, Chairman of CIC, Mr Cheung Hau-wai, Chairman of HKGBC and the celebrity Mr Carlos Chan. The HKGBW 2018 TV advertisement was premiered during the event followed by a month long broadcasting period on all TV and radio channels. Starring Mr Carlos Chan as a green building expert, an array of green building features via Building Information Modeling were showcased while promoting the HKGBW 2018 as a whole.

Running for a month starting from 3 September, the HKGBW 2018 encompasses a wide array of activities that promulgates green living with green building concepts behind. Biz-Green Dress Day, a programme which has been running since HKGBW’s debut in 2013, was held on 20 September which drew 130,000 patrons’ attention and support for a greener workplace by wearing light yet professional to save energy through reducing air-conditioning consumption. A Mascot Tour was also arranged on the same day to call for action.

A shout-out to health and fitness enthusiasts in particular, Dynamic Green Exercise invited all to get into the work-out groove in malls throughout the ten-day exercising booths hosted in Festival Walk (Kowloon Tong) and Fashion Walk (Causeway Bay). By a specially designed floor electric system, the set-up exemplified the alternative energy idea as well as indoor health and wellbeing concept in our built environment.

To echo another HKGBC initiative - Hong Kong Green Shop Alliance, HKGBC is partnering with AEON to advocate green shopping culture by jumping on the wrapping cloth bandwagon. Unlike paper and plastic bags, wrapping cloth can be reused and therefore could ease the environmental concern. Shop and Wrap calls for action among shoppers by changing their attitude and behaviour via our own version of ‘G-Wrapper’ made of leftover fabrics. As a highlight, the celebrated artist Ms Dodo Cheng comes along the way by filming a short clip to support the green act. Grab your G-Wrapper now and check out redemption details before they are gone.

Other on-going programmes include Green Bazaar, to be held on 29-30 September, which serves as a shared space for 16 handcrafters to showcase their creativity on upcycling whereas workshops will be organised to enlighten participants with construction-related DIY moments (click here to register). During the two fun-filled days participants will also enjoy discarded wood pallets creations from HKBU, cement paintings from Moldflip and other visual art projects. Free-flow of coffee and tea will be served by the WWF solar cafe too.

To delve deeper into building sustainability and green living topics, Ignite HKGBW 2018 is an assembly of leaders and experts on Hong Kong green building and movement scene through a series of speedy presentations. Themed on sustainable construction and consumption, green building elements and indoor wellbeing, shared economy as well as minimalism, presenters will get 20 slides only and need to finish in five minutes. Join us for an empowering afternoon on 3 October and explore the incredible lineup now - click here to register and save your seats!

All programmes are free – please check out details on HKGBC website.

HKGBC Delegation to Singapore – Learn, Engage and Foster Green Building Development

Being two famous metropolitan cities in the world, Hong Kong and Singapore share a lot of similarities, not only for their high-rise built environment, but also for their emphasis on the development of sustainable built environment. To learn about the latest trends and technologies in Singapore as well as to share experience on town planning, infrastructure, public housing, and smart and green building development, the Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC) had organised a Delegation to Singapore during 3-7 September 2018. Around 40 Hong Kong delegates from various public and private sectors joined the delegation.

Dialogues with Policy Makers in Singapore

To engage in a closer dialogue with building-related authorities on urban planning and innovative green initiatives, the HKGBC had arranged a series of visits to Singapore’s authorities and meetings with their representatives.

The delegation first visited the Housing & Development Board (HDB) and its Centre of Building Research, Punggol Discovery Cube and Waterway Terraces to learn about Singapore’s public housing policies as well as smart and green technologies. The delegation then visited the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and its Singapore City Gallery to get to know the latest trend on city planning and infrastructure development in Singapore. The visits resulted in very fruitful discussions and substantial learnings on Singapore’s dedicated housing policies and town planning strategies.

On the second day, the Hong Kong delegates participated in the Sino-Singapore Green Building Workshop organised by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) on topics like green schools and hospitals design, sponge city technologies, precast design in housing projects and retrofitting existing buildings, with case studies practically useful for the industry in Hong Kong. After the Workshop, the delegation visited the Construction Productivity Gallery, Skylab and Centre for Lean and Virtual Construction of the BCA which impressed the delegates on how BCA is leading the overall R&D and joining hands with the private sectors to develop energy-saving building technologies, sustainable construction methods, amongst many others.

Learn from Iconic Green Buildings and Technologies in the City

To discover more eco-friendly features, the delegates went on for a site visit to the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital - the first hospital to win the BCA Universal Design Gold Award. Its healing environment filled with greenery, vast floor area with natural ventilation and low energy building design all helped to relieve patients' anxiety and speed up their recovery process. The delegation was particularly impressed by the relationship of architecture towards health and well-being as established in the hospital.

To discover more eco-friendly features, the delegates went on for a site visit to the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital - the first hospital to win the BCA Universal Design Gold Award. Its healing environment filled with greenery, vast floor area with natural ventilation and low energy building design all helped to relieve patients' anxiety and speed up their recovery process. The delegation was particularly impressed by the relationship of architecture towards health and well-being as established in the hospital.

On top of that, on 6 & 7 September 2018, the delegation visited the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and its residential halls constructed using the game-changing technology: Prefabricated Pre-Finished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) method. To further understand how prefabricated units are produced, the delegation also visited a local precast yard – Greyform. Experts from Greyform showed the steel reinforcement production, automation precast and Prefabrication Bathroom Unit (PBU) – finishing area during the visit. Prefabricated building solutions could effectively upgrade building quality, improve site safety and enhance environmental protection by reducing construction waste.

Foster Green Building Development with Concerted Effort

The delegation also attended the International Green Building Conference 2018 on 5-7 September 2018 and engaged with international green building experts for knowledge exchange and learning. Moreover, Ir Cary Chan, Executive Director of the HKGBC was the first Panel Speaker at the session “Global View to Net Zero” after the Opening Plenary Session. He presented on how the HKGBC drives retro-commissioning (RCx) as a key strategy for Hong Kong in meeting the COP21 target.

Apart from technical visits and conference, the trip was perfected with several social events. The Networking Dinner hosted by the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC) on 3 September 2018 and the Annual Gala Dinner organised by the BCA and the SGBC on 6 September 2018 created excellent networking opportunities for the delegates to connect with thought leaders, policymakers and practitioners in the built environment sector from the Asia Pacific region. During the Networking Dinner, Mr Cheung Hau-wai, Chairman of the HKGBC delivered a speech and shared the latest green building advancement in Hong Kong with around 90 guests from the BCA, SGBC, World Green Building Council Asia Pacific Network and the HKGBC delegation. Whilst at the presentation ceremony for the WorldGBC Asia Pacific Leadership in Green Building Awards during the Gala Dinner, two pioneers from Hong Kong - Swire Properties Limited was awarded the Business Leadership in Sustainability whereas Ms Mary Chan from DLN Architects Limited won the Women in Green Building Leadership Award. We are so proud of the outstanding achievements of Hong Kong!

The Hong Kong Delegation enjoyed a rewarding learning experience during their stay in Singapore. The HKGBC would further develop and launch initiatives and platforms to foster knowledge transfer and international collaborations to drive the global green building agenda.

Green Luncheon with Distinguished Speaker Ms Dominique Gauzin-Müller

Ms Dominique Gauzin-Müller, a renowned French architect and architectural critic, has come over to Hong Kong as invited by Wu ZhiQiao (Bridge to China) Charitable Foundation. The Council has seized the opportunity to organise a Green Luncheon with this distinguished speaker on 14 Sep 2018. Dominique shared her views about sustainable development on the topic of “The European Eco-districts and their transposition in a tropical climate”, using case studies of European countries to demonstrate what make a city really sustainable. Around 30 participants including our Directors, Members and friends in the NGO Community attended the Luncheon and investigated the feasibility of introducing other places’ green building elements in Hong Kong. Apart from the inspiring presentation and fruitful discussions, fresh and healthy vegetarian dishes were served at the Luncheon to promote green living and food sustainability.

Right after the Luncheon, the participants visited a meaningful exhibition - Wu ZhiQiao Earthen Architecture Bi-City Exhibition, which was organised by the Foundation and supported by our Council. The exhibition introduced and showcased the Foundation’s endeavours in advocating sustainable building concept, connecting people between Hong Kong and the mainland China, and improving the livelihood of villagers through its student-based bridge building, village enrichment activities and award-winning earth house construction projects. The exhibition would be held from 14 Sep to 13 Oct 2018 and would definitely worth a visit.

Green Buildings Contributing to Waste Reduction

The office area of the Sui Loong Pao Building at the Chinese University of Hong Kong was certified as Platinum rating under BEAM Plus Interiors. Recycling facilities for glass and small electrical appliances are provided to encourage recycling. The majority of internal walls, partitions, ceilings and flooring, as well as office furniture, were reused, while over 90% of internal walls and door materials were sourced locally within 800 km from the office, alleviating air pollution and reducing carbon emission from long-haul material transportation.

[END]