Secretary for Development Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor reminded an audience of engineers and contractors this week that, in the coming decade, the public sector will pump from HK$35 billion to HK$50 billion a year into infrastructure projects big and small. This kind of budget must be the envy of most cities around the world. But in building the new - such as highways, bridges, rail lines, new towns in the New Territories and new development areas in Kowloon - and updating the old - such as fixing water pipes, greening slopes, retrofitting buildings and completing sewage treatment systems - will we get the highest value in the long term, from an operational perspective?
This means: will each of the many projects be designed to be energy and resource efficient? The problem is that inefficiency is generally invisible, but taxpayers and users end up paying for it. Each of these publicly funded projects requires a tremendous amount of design and engineering to get them off the drawing board and built. The final outcome depends on whether the projects are designed correctly from the start. So, let's use the term 'high performance' to describe long-term operational efficiency.
Take one of Hong Kong's signature projects - the redevelopment of the old airport site in southeast Kowloon. While green features are being considered, such as a more environmentally friendly centralised air-conditioning system, there appears to be no focus on the area over the long term. Indeed, the people who are funding, planning and designing the project seem unaware that they may actually be creating inefficient systems. They have certainly delivered on past projects, and are doing what they know well. The lack of awareness about long-term high performance is complex, but it often comes down to a few familiar things: an assumption that good design costs more and takes longer; the tradition that 'we have always done things this way'; and skills.
Building professionals acknowledge that there is often a lack of across-the-board thinking in such projects. For instance, individual components may be the best possible but, when taken together, the 'whole' often only works suboptimally.
However, these people also acknowledge that the proponents of such projects often fail to demand higher standards and a better outcome. So, what if the Hong Kong government were to demand that all publicly funded projects be long-term high performers, and this were to become a key aspect of public tendering? It would certainly make a huge difference; our professionals could then be innovative, to meet the challenge. Local professionals are quite capable of this, but the impetus must come from those who commission projects.
Recently, the Urban Renewal Authority announced its new sustainable development policy, which is encouraging. This public-sector property developer can make a difference and transform the construction industry in Hong Kong. The URA has many sites under its control, such as the large Kwun Tong area, where high performance can be achieved if it were demanded.