************************************************************
The following is issued on behalf of the Council for Sustainable Development:
The Council for Sustainable Development (SDC) today (March 29) submitted its report on the public engagement on "Combating Climate Change: Energy Saving and Carbon Emission Reduction in Buildings" to the Government. The SDC put forward a set of recommendations in two main categories, namely Systemic Enhancement and Facilitation of Behaviour Change.
Speaking on the report, the SDC Chairman, Mr Bernard Chan, said, "In the course of the public engagement process, discussions were focused on promoting demand-side management in electricity consumption among the community, the related possible barriers as well as practicable measures. The findings of the engagement process bring out a key message - the effectiveness of energy saving and carbon emission reduction to combat climate change requires the participation of people from all walks of life. With the Government taking the lead and stepping up public education and awareness efforts, the community as a whole may then follow suit.
"The SDC has strived to balance the views of all stakeholders in formulating the 30 recommendations submitted to the Government," he said.
The key recommendations of the SDC include:
* Promoting carbon audits: The Government should (1) promote carbon audit comprehensively and take the lead in conducting carbon audits in major public facilities. The audit results should be published in one to three years' time to showcase the benefits of conducting such audits; (2) encourage carbon audits among the general businesses (especially small and medium enterprises); (3) the Hong Kong Housing Authority should conduct carbon audits for the common areas of public rental housing blocks; (4) major subvented public bodies, for instance universities and hospitals, as well as premises under the home ownership scheme, should also follow suit.
* Providing more information on electricity consumption: The two power companies should explore means to assist the public in better understanding their electricity consumption, covering items such as electricity consumption per capita or per floor area in Hong Kong, carbon emission per unit of electricity consumption and by providing informative and user-friendly electricity bills. The Government and the power companies should move in the direction of promoting energy conservation when reviewing the tariff structure. More studies and discussions on tariff structure review are required in order to achieve consensus among the community.
* Continuously enhancing energy efficiency: The Government should continuously review the Energy Efficiency Labelling Scheme for electricity appliances and the Building Energy Code with reference to the advancement of technology and overseas experience, with a view to further enhancing the energy efficiency.
* Promoting green buildings: The Government should work more closely with the professional bodies concerned to promote green buildings, including the adoption of green standards when retrofitting the existing buildings and promotion of the use of building energy efficiency management systems, etc. The Government should use the energy data collected through the energy audits as required under the Ordinance to build up a database and establish a benchmark for building operators/occupiers to refer to in identifying improvement potential in energy efficiency of their own buildings among buildings with similar operation and physical characteristics.
* Enhancing public education and promotion: The Government should launch more public education and awareness programmes to widen and deepen the public awareness of climate change and the importance of energy efficiency and carbon reduction, with a view to encouraging the participation of the community and facilitating behavioural change.
About 1 300 stakeholders from the relevant trades, professional bodies, green groups, academia and the general public participated in 28 public engagement events (including five regional forums) organised by the SDC and its supporting organisations between August and December 2011. Lingnan University's Office of Service Learning - the Independent Analysis and Reporting Agency (IRA) of the public engagement, analysed some 1 700 written submissions from individuals and organisations. In parallel, public education and publicity programmes were also carried out with the support of collaborating schools, non-governmental organisations and other organisations.
The SDC's report as well as the IRA's report and analysis are available on the public engagement's dedicated website (www.susdev.org.hk) for public viewing.
Ends/Thursday, March 29, 2012
Issued at HKT 15:31
NNNN
Windows Media format
Flash format