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Environmental protection is the responsibility of everyone, but for years the onus for organising action and awareness programmes has fallen on the EPD and green groups. We have taken up that challenge with great enthusiasm. Over the past 15 years students, businessmen, community groups, housewives - indeed, all sectors of society - have been provided with the knowledge and skills to protect the environment. Now, the emphasis is on helping others take up the EPD's reins and be leaders in environmental protection.
Capacity building is the key phrase. The EPD and the government-appointed Environmental Campaign Committee (ECC) are providing organisations and individuals with training, tools and ready-made programmes so they can spread the green word further in the community. The goal is to empower others to be agents of change in achieving more sustainable lifestyles.
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The EPD
and Environmental Campaign Committee organise two annual events,
World Environment Day (WED) and the Environmental Protection
Festival. This year, World Environment Day, June 5, was celebrated
under the slogan "Reduce Waste, Make Polluters Pay".
More than 54 000 staff and Student Environmental Protection
Ambassadors were reported by 103 schools to have participated
in the event and spread the message to family and friends.
Another 9 000 people joined green walks around Hong Kong.
Some 24 government departments supported WED, and 27 green
groups and non-government organisations organised game booths,
workshops, district activities, environmental activities and
green trail walks.
This year's Environmental Protection Festival was scheduled to be held in January 2005 instead of the end of 2004. The delay allowed for the event to be tendered out to community and green groups, to organise on a trial basis. The festival's themes are "Nature Conservation" and "Source Separation of Domestic Waste".
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Students are trained to be green leaders through the Student Environmental Protection Ambassador (SEPA) Scheme. The scheme, which began in 1995, encourages students to organise green activities on campus and in 2004, 11 975 students from 750 schools participated. Students with an outstanding record are eligible for overseas environmental study visits and camps (see below), and they can also receive badges after acquiring knowledge on different environmental topics. Until 2004 this programme was operated by the ECC but during the year, teachers were empowered to award the badges. Some 191 teachers have been trained as badge assessors, much the same as they assess students for Scout and Girl Guide badges. The
programmes organised for outstanding SEPAs provide further training
in taking up responsibility for the environment. A leadership camp
was organised in 2004 under the ECC MTR Environmental Award for
Schools and brought together outstanding SEPAs, as well as Girl
Guide, Scout and Junior Police Call Environmental Protection Ambassadors,
and outstanding students from the Pearl River Delta region. Another
10 outstanding SEPAs went on an environmental study visit to Japan,
as part of the annual ECC AEON Environmental Award for Schools.
A Nation-wide Environmental Competition for Youths of Mainland China
and Hong Kong, sponsored by Swiss Reinsurance Company, culminated
in an exchange programme here for winning students from the Mainland
and Hong Kong. The competition had the theme "Caring for Our
Water Resources" and was organised jointly by the EPD, ECC
and the State Environmental Protection Administration of Mainland
China. More than 400 000 primary, secondary and university students
participated.
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The extra-curricular activities described above encourage students to learn more about the environment in their free time. Students can also take a more active approach and make a difference, as the Wait Green Engine Off campaign demonstrated. The EPD wrote to schools in 2003, asking them to involve students in promoting Wait Green Engine Off to vehicle drivers near their campus. The schools were also sent an information pack that included souvenirs, leaflets and labels, but the ball was in their court to organise the activities. Over a nine-month period, ending in August 2004, more than 1 300 students from 81 schools talked to more than 5 600 drivers. The response is a positive sign for the future potential of such campaigns.
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Apart from helping
students to take action, schools must, of course, educate them.
The EPD is providing assistance here, by producing ready-made teaching
materials on the environment. In 2004 we produced subject-specific
materials, covering geography, chemistry, biology, physics, economics,
public affairs and social studies, to enhance earlier, more general
teaching packs. The materials are linked to the Hong Kong syllabus
and are available for secondary schools. Separate kits have also
been produced for primary schools and pre-schools. The Education
and Manpower Bureau provided comment on the kits and green groups
helped to prepare them. This joint effort is an important achievement
in increasing informed awareness of environmental issues.
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Another way of
increasing awareness is to set a good example to students. The EPD
and the ECC encourage schools to adopt environmental management, through
the Hong Kong Green School Award and Green Pre-school Award, with
sponsorship from the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited. The former
has been running for four years and in the 2003-04 academic year,
186 primary and secondary schools participated. The emphasis of the
next Green School Awards will be on what students and staff can do
at home and in the community, thus encouraging them to spread their
knowledge beyond campus boundaries. The Green Pre-school Awards, which
have been running for two years, already have an element of this because
they assess schools in part on parental involvement in green programmes.
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Many businesses
work with the EPD and ECC on various campaigns, and the ECC
also organises the Hong Kong Eco-Business Awards to recognise
good green practices. Hong Kong Disneyland continued to be a
partner in 2004, through the "Jiminy Cricket's Environmentality
Challenge". More than 40 000 students have made environmental
pledges and 248 classes have participated in a class project
competition. The winners joined a boat trip to the Hong Kong
Disneyland site in June 2004 and a similar competition has been
organised for 2004-05. Meanwhile, the EPD and ECC also continued
to work with the MTR Corporation, AEON Education and Environment
Fund and Swiss Reinsurance Company on various competitions for
students (see main text for details).
The
sixth Hong Kong Eco-Business Awards in 2004 attracted 107
entries, under the categories Green SME, Green Construction
Contractor and Green Innovative Practice. Training programmes
were also provided on green management, green purchasing and
partner synergy. The winners will be announced in early 2005.
The EPD, through its Community Relations Unit, offers extensive outreach programmes and seminars for civil servants, who are our internal customers. The programmes cover such topics as green living, eco-driving and green consumerism. In 2004, 50 training sessions were organised for 900 civil servants. We also worked with individual departments, for example, we organised an environmental training programme for graduate engineers in the works departments.
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The most effective
green campaigns reach into people's daily lives and enable them
to take responsibility for protecting the environment. The ECC's
Waste Recycling Campaign in Housing Estates began in 1998 with the
aim of bringing recycling closer to where people live. More than
1 400 estates now have bins located on the ground floor of blocks
to collect waste paper, aluminium cans and plastic bottles. The
campaign has been effective, but it was felt even more could be
achieved by collecting separated waste on each floor of apartment
blocks. Thus, the pilot programme on "Source Separation of Waste"
(also known as "Super 3R") was introduced in August 2004 to test
floor-based collection.
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Super 3R began
in 13 housing estates in Eastern District. Significantly, the role
of the EPD and ECC has been to facilitate, not operate, the scheme.
Each property manager can decide on the type of bin and pick-up
schedule that best suits the circumstances of his/her estate. Moreover,
collection is extended to all recyclables, such as all metals and
plastics, electrical appliances, computers and old clothes. Initial
feedback is that recycling has doubled in some estates, and almost
50 other housing estates have agreed to join the scheme.
Another way in which the government acts as facilitator is by funding community-based waste recovery projects. In 2004 the Environment and Conservation Fund funded 22 projects operated by community and green groups in hard-to-reach places, such as villages and older districts. Some projects are also testing the feasibility of recycling other materials, such as plastic bags, and of composting. The projects will last 12 to 18 months.
Apart
from facilitating others, our community work also entails educating
people and raising awareness. The Community Green Network set up
123 "green desks" at shopping malls and other public places this
year to answer enquiries from students, housewives, teachers, businessmen
and others. The Environmental Resource Centres (ERC) at Fanling,
Wan Chai and Tsuen Wan, and the Mobile ERC, also continued to be
points of contact and entertained a total of more than 130 000 visitors
in 2004. An environmental education programme on the Harbour Area
Treatment Scheme was also organised (see Chapter
8 Water for details). A travelling exhibition attracted 38 000
visitors and more than 200 Environmental Protection Ambassadors
volunteered to help with the exhibition and disseminated information
about the scheme through their own networks.
Capacity-building is meant to provide members of the community with the knowledge, skills and confidence to initiate projects. But this role can be filled by other organisations besides the government. Two non-government organisations have taken up the reins and are serving as examples to others. The AEON Education and Environment Fund operates a home-based Environmental Protection Ambassador scheme that trains participants to help their neighbours and families learn greener practices. Although the scheme is operated by a private company - with the ECC as advisor - the wider community benefits. Similarly, the non-profit making Warehouse Teenage Club is seeking to set up an environmental resource centre. Its operators have sought EPD advice on training environmental mentors and they intend to organise competitions for schools, promote waste reduction projects and throw the doors open to everyone in the community.
The
impulse to go green is spreading. Environmental protection campaigns
and projects are no longer solely the domain of green groups and
the government. This is a very welcome move because it recognises
that the environment is everybody's concern. The future direction
is to encourage more groups and individuals to take up the green
mantle and make a difference in their communities.
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