Policy Statement & Submission

1. The Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce has embraced the concept of sustainable development as early as 1992. We believe in the principle of sustainable development, and strive to put it into practice in our daily operation.

Background

2. The Chamber submitted a paper to the government in 2000 endorsing the Susdev21 Study. We supported the formation of the Council for Sustainable Development (CSD) in 2003.

3. As we stated in our previous paper on Susdev21, it is important to communicate to the community the meaning and relevance of sustainable development. In this regard, we are grateful to CSD for adopting, through its Invitation and Response Document, a unique process of engaging the general public in the discussion and debate about our future.

4. There are many specific policy areas concerning sustainable development of Hong Kong. In line with the three pilot areas identified by the IR Document, the Chamber organised three events to gather members' input on solid waste management, renewable energy and urban living space. We would like to express our views as follows.

Solid Waste Management

5. Like other economies, the HKSAR's waste management strategy comprises waste avoidance and reduction in the first place, followed by reuse and recycling and finally disposal of unrecyclable waste. However, this 1-2-3 approach is rather passive. More proactive measures are needed to encourage waste reduction at source.

6. The Chamber has made two previous submissions on waste management policy in 2001 and 2003. On both occasions, we supported the principle of charging for waste disposal and its implementation through imposing a landfill charge, as an element of a comprehensive package of waste management measures.

7. There is considerable debate on the details of the charging scheme for construction waste. We believe there has been enough discussion within the community to conclude that we should move forward in landfill charging. Given the very limited life span of the three landfills, the Legislative Council should pass the Bill and relevant regulations, so that the charging scheme could be implemented as soon as possible. The waste disposal charge on C&D materials should be supplemented by a programme to encourage the construction industry to adopt sustainable construction practices.

8. Besides construction and demolition wastes, we reiterate our view, expressed in the earlier papers, that ultimately the goal must be to implement landfill charging for commercial, industrial and municipal waste as well. To that end the government should commence a detailed study on charging for other wastes such as domestic wastes.

9. We believe that, by introducing landfill charging, new business opportunities would emerge for the waste management, recovery and recycling industries. To facilitate that, all waste management measures should be supplemented by a community educational campaign to target waste reduction in all sectors.

10. However, even with an aggressive reduction and recycling programme, Hong Kong needs to develop effective large scale waste management facilities to treat and dispose massive volumes of residual waste. A possible solution to this is thermal waste treatment. Recently, “green” incineration has been extensively used in many countries to achieve the goal of “zero landfill waste”, and it has also become a source of energy to supplement conventional and non-renewable fuels. With the advance of modern technology, incinerators with minimal impact to air quality and human health have become a distinct possibility. The Chamber believes that clean and efficient incinerators should be an option to be actively explored, and we urge the government to examine this option carefully and come to a conclusion without delay.

11. Waste disposal is a long-term issue requiring long-term vision. Incinerators, for example, require substantial investments, and even if we were to plan building thermal waste treatment facilities now, it could still be too late as our landfills might be full by the time they were operational. Unfortunately, waste management policy decisions are often driven by short-term political agenda. The landfill charging, for example, has been debated for a long time and is still not yet implemented. It is not certain to us whether the formation of a single waste management authority would help – it might require substantial time and impose considerable resources burden on the Administration. We believe that if the Government musters enough political will, concrete action can be taken now, within the current system. Institutional arrangements should be part of a long-term sustainable policy which government should begin to formulate now.

Renewable Energy

12. Hong Kong's two power companies have made many significant improvements over the past 15 years by introducing clean gas fuel and low NOx burners, resulting in major reductions of more than 45% in air pollution even while power consumption rose by 60%.

13. Nonetheless, the growing energy demand due to population and economic growth is creating tremendous pressure on the earth's resources. It is also affecting our climate adversely. Therefore, there is a need to develop renewable energy (RE) to supplement our long-term energy requirements.

14. China and many countries/economies have already committed themselves to some sort of RE targets, but the RE projects in Hong Kong are still on a voluntary basis, and on a relatively small scale. While there are understandable constraints due to land and technological limitations, the HKSAR Government should develop a specific policy to promote the widespread adoption of renewable energy resources and technologies.

15. Hydropower, traditional biomass energy and geothermal energy are obviously not feasible in Hong Kong. The renewable energy with the potential of wide application in Hong Kong includes wind and solar energy. The two power companies have been actively exploring different sources of renewable energy locally. We urge the Government to look into the lessons learnt from the pilot schemes, as well as look beyond our boundaries to find other solutions.

16. Hong Kong is located along one of the two wind belts in China. We could therefore benefit from this clean and renewable energy source by installing wind turbines on outlying islands that are wind-intensive, or by importing wind energy from Guangdong.

17. By providing small scale photovoltaic (BIPV) power, solar energy has helped in emission reduction, though with limited capacity. Hong Kong's largest BIPV panel installed on the Wanchai Tower, together with other similar systems in other public and commercial buildings, have proved the technical feasibility of generating electricity through solar energy.

18. Although the installation cost for BIPV system is still high, commercial viability can be strengthened if they are more widely adopted. The long life span – at 20 years the life-span is substantial – can also help. Architects should be encouraged to incorporate solar system into building designs at the conception stage, so that the effectiveness of power generation could be maximised.

Urban Living Space

19. Hong Kong is a densely populated city, with relatively small amount of land to accommodate a large population. Being an international business and tourism centre, we must tackle the urban problems of congestion, urban decay and concrete cityscape, and develop a sustainable environment for work and living.

20. The New Territories provides solution space to our urban congestion problem. However, in developing the New Territories, a balance must be struck between development needs and social and environmental needs. There should be comprehensive consideration of the NT as a whole, while limited areas could be used for new towns development and commercial activities, such as those along transport links. The rural character and natural scenery of the NT is an asset which needs to be preserved. There should be design guidelines for open green space in new town developments to retain the NT's characteristics.

21. The problem of building neglect is a long standing and complex issue. The Chamber, in its response to the Government's Consultation Paper on Building Management and Maintenance in May 2004, recognised the efforts by government departments in encouraging building management and maintenance, such as through assistance provided to Owners' Corporation (OCs), the Coordinated Maintenance of Buildings Scheme (CMBS), the $700 million loan scheme, and various re-development projects. But these efforts are not enough.

22. There are 11,000 potentially problematic buildings that do not currently have an OC and are not serviced by a management firm. At the current rate, it would take 60 years for CMBS to cover all these buildings, and 18 years for OC's to be formed. This is not acceptable for a world class city like Hong Kong.

23. Therefore, we supported the Integrated Building Management and Maintenance (IBMM) approach as the more sustainable solution, which gives due weight to the principle of owners' responsibility. This is crucial for the long term, as ultimately it is the building owners who should be responsible for the proper building upkeep, including the necessary financial commitment.

24. To make the scheme a success, the IBMM should be supplemented by the range of aggressive measures, including to accommodate owners of old buildings to public housing under a transitional period and to link building responsibility to property title.

25. In the case of old districts, full scale demolition and redevelopment should not be regarded as the norm. Revitalisation should be the preferable option to minimise the social and environmental impacts while improving the living environment of old neighbourhoods. Owing to substantial cost with limited scope for return from revitalisation, the Government should cooperate with the private developers to find ways to balance the social and commercial needs.

26. The Chamber supports sustainable building designs by offering incentives to individual buildings and urban development projects with well-coordinated landscape features and hardware facilities to minimise waste and energy usage. The implementation should be on a voluntary basis, within the context of an overall policy to promote sustainable building design.

Conclusion

27. In 1992, the Chamber's Environment Committee promoted the Charter for Sustainable Development of the International Chamber of Commerce, well before the concept of “sustainable development” became part of government's policy vocabulary in 1995. Over the years, the Committee has been drawing the attention of the business community to a number of environmental issues affecting Hong Kong's sustainability, and we are glad to see that the general public is now more widely engaged in the discussion on sustainable development. We encourage the Sustainable Development Council to apply its engagement process to cover other important environmental issues and policy areas, and urge the Government to respond by taking concrete actions.