HKGBC Green Tenancy Driver for Office Buildings
5
Message
from
Secretary
for the
Environment
Hong Kong is a well-known international metropolitan,
attracts numerous world-renowned enterprises to set up
their regional headquarters or offices. Their high demand
of offices stimulates the growth of rental market. We
should take this opportunity to transform Hong Kong into a
greener metropolitan by engaging our developers, owners
and tenants to actively participate in more environmentally
sustainable management and go greener.
The average office working hours of Hong Kong people
is more than eight hours per day, which means spending
more than one-third of a day in offices. Office operations
and inhabitants’ behaviour would definitely affect the
energy use and carbon emissions. Therefore, responsible
corporations should develop holistic measures to promote
environmental protection, minimize carbon emissions and step up the pace to comprehend and
educate inhabitants how to minimize the environmental impacts while implementing the best
green practices in office operations.
The Green Tenancy Driver for Office Buildings (“the Guide”) introduced by Hong Kong Green
Building Council Limited (HKGBC) includes five major sustainability education steps: Green
Awareness, Voluntary Pilot Run, Graduated Collaborative Approach, Split Incentive Consent, and
Green Lease. The Green Tenancy Driver aims to guide the owners and tenants to incrementally
establish a more sustainable and healthier working environment, and outlines a blueprint for
implementing Green Lease. Owners and tenants can evaluate the organizations’ resource
consumption, set up electricity and carbon reduction targets etc. This does not only reduce
operational costs, but also enhance property quality and thus achieve win-win collaboration.
I wish to express my appreciation to the HKGBC for its admirable effort in promoting the
standards and development of sustainable buildings in the context of a compact city and leading
Hong Kong to become a world’s exemplar of green built environment. The Green Tenancy
Driver for Office Buildings is indeed a timely complement to the Government’s policy framework
on sustainable development, which takes social, environmental and economic concerns into
consideration. I look forward to collaborating with the HKGBC in promoting a more sustainable
lifestyle and improving the working environment and living standard of Hong Kong.
Mr WONG Kam-sing, JP
Secretary for the Environment
