Are Hong Kong's prime commercial buildings green enough? The 'Green Tenancy Driver for Office Buildings' campaign aims to encourage landlords, tenants and property managements to create a sustainable and energy-efficient building environment. Provided to China Daily

The Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC) launched the "Green Tenancy Driver for Office Buildings" campaign on Wednesday, encouraging green tenancy to be in place among office buildings gradually to achieve green lease.

With the biggest number of buildings taller than 20 floors in the world, Hong Kong's dense metropolitan areas are truly a sight to behold. However, these buildings consume a whopping 90 percent of the city's electricity, of which 66 percent is used for commercial purposes, according to last year's Hong Kong Energy End-use data.

Earlier in 2012, the HKGBC launched the "HK3030" campaign aimed at reducing the absolute electricity consumption of buildings in Hong Kong by 30 percent from the 2005 level by the year 2030.

The latest green campaign, which comprises five phases - "Green Awareness", "Voluntary Pilot Run", "Graduated Collaborative Approach", 'Split Incentive Consent" and "Green Lease" - is seen as an important step towards achieving the "aggressive yet achievable" goal.

HKGBC chairman Conrad Wong Tin-cheung emphasized that operation and management are key factors to be taken into consideration when evaluating a green building on top of the design and materials used.

As a world-wide trend in sustainable development, green tenancy is a way out of skyrocketing electricity costs with diminishing amounts of fresh water and landfill capacity in the city.

Some Hong Kong companies have already launched green initiatives. They include Swire Properties, which is the first local developer to provide tenants with free energy audits to encourage efficient energy use, and Wheelock Properties, which successfully reduced almost 40 percent of its annual energy consumption last year.

But most of the city's office buildings have yet to take active steps to reduce the strain on the environment.

"By creating a comfortable working environment, raising employees' productivity, as well as minimizing the operating costs of both landlords and tenants, a 'win-win' collaboration would be achieved," Wong said.

According to an assessment by UK land developer British Land Co PLC, green tenancy generated a 7.5 percent rental premium on average of the estimated rental value in its office leasing in 2012. The figures offer a glimpse of the benefits of collaboration between landlords and tenants.

With commercial building occupants spending an average of more than 47 hours weekly inside their premises, it is not the state-of-the-art technologies or machines that make the difference. The real change to sustainability is made by humanity, which is actively engaging in "greening" their habits and attitudes and reducing their environmental footprint.

"'The Green Tenancy Driver for Office Buildings' campaign offers a step-by-step approach for formulating plans and terms in achieving green lease," said Dr Benny Chow Ka-ming, director of the HKGBC and chairman of its Industry Standards Committee.

"By launching it, we hope affirmation will be gained among the industry towards achieving green tenancy and green lease," he said.

sophia@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 11/13/2014 page9)