How green are Hong Kong’s new builds?

Developers say they are going green but are they talking crisp HK$50 notes rather then eco-conscious design features? Alex Frew McMillan reports.

Winning the pollution battle will take a monumental effort from officials, factory owners and industrialists on both sides of the border - and a bit like the view of Kowloon from the Peak on an average day, whether they’re up for the fight is unclear.

The construction and real estate industries, large producers of waste and the shapers of the homes in which we live, also need to get on board. The government has tried to do its bit by encouraging the development of green buildings.

A 2008 report from the Buildings Department on its activities shows that 329 developments have been approved with green features since the scheme began in 2001. Almost 350 green features were introduced in 2007.

But critics of the scheme say it is being misused by developers who qualify for a bonus of up to 8 percent on the total area of a project by introducing balconies, wider corridors and lift lobbies, communal sky gardens, podiums and the like.

It’s hard to blame developers for using the system to their benefit. But maybe they should come good on some of their marketing materials, which plug any lose environmental connection they can find.

Don’t look for the green drive to come from the top. The Chief Executive himself has looked back with nostalgia to the days when he and his public-service cohorts were free to carpet Shatin with concrete, without the interference of those pesky environmentalists.

“It was wonderful. I did not have environmentalists in my hair in those days,” Donald Tsang said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We were moving 100,000 people every day into Sha Tin. We were pulling down mountains. We were reclaiming seas, and we were building our new town.” Clearly green features didn’t feature.

Tsang said in the same interview that the city “must grow in order to be competitive,” and that the city should use “physical development and good use of land” to build towards a population of 10 million.

Good news for property developers, to be sure. But is it good news for the rest of us?

Tsang also said he was “certain” the air quality will be better when he leaves office in 2012 than it is now. He better hope the winds of change don’t blow.

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