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Jo Baker

There's clearly some confusion in Hong Kong about sustainable living. It was evident on World Environment Day last month, when images of nature were plastered all over town but few organisations heralded any changes in their long-term behaviour. 
One Tsim Sha Tsui hotel's campaign to 'go green in style' and 'save the world' had guests writing down a wish about the environment, with the winner of the best wish promised two free and very environmentally unfriendly long-haul flights.  
'A 'green' apartment building in most advertisements here means a few plants on the balcony,' says Christian Masset, who chairs local NGO Clear the Air. 
That's not always the case, but it appears that 'greenwashing' - talking up ecological credentials for commercial gain - is in vogue. 
But Hong Kong is about five years behind the times. 
'They don't actually use the term 'green' as much now in America or Europe - they use 'sustainable', which is clearly defined in codes and regulations,' says David Chan, who works with The Link  Management. 'The problem in Hong Kong is that there are not really any rules governing what's sustainable or green.' 
So what should we be demanding  for truly sustainable properties? Masset  reels off a list of basics:  wind turbine generators, photovoltaic panels, solar convectors ... but there's much more. Design ideas that seem radical in Hong Kong are becoming  part of the everyday in Europe, where there's talk of ground source heat pumps (geothermals), wormeries and air-conditioning units that use seawater - all aimed at reducing the energy we use and  a response to ever-tougher building regulations.
So will solar panels or even a couple of mini wind turbines be enough to let you wear your 'sustainable' badge? 
'An eco-friendly building and a sustainable building are two different things,' says Chan. 'You could spend several million dollars on solar panels with some expensive energy management system that's friendly to ecology, that recycles water, using expensive current technology, but that might not be sustainable. You probably get your smallest carbon footprint in a mud hut.' 
Many architects will say that a home's most important green qualities are in its simplest details. 
'Passive energy design is probably more important nowadays than people realise,' says Kris Yao,  a Taiwanese architect. 'Plan the site well. Locate the building in a sensible way. You'll do much more good than using mechanical add-ons.' 
If a building faces southwest, he says, more mechanisms are needed to reduce the heat from the sun. But if it's in constant shade, more electricity will be needed for lighting. On the mainland, unlike in Hong Kong, sun-shade diagrams must be submitted to the planning bureau before any building begins, to make sure that the most is made of sunlight and cross ventilation, and that other buildings are not overshadowed. 
Good low-energy homes have better insulation - denser walls with windows carefully placed and double or triple glazed - with dynamics to pick up wind for air circulation.  In Hong Kong that means ensuring living spaces are out of direct sunlight and making good use of blinds and overhangs. It also means having windows double-glazed, with tints or film to block UV and infrared rays,  lattice  screens and doors inside  to allow natural ventilation, non-toxic materials such as timber, cork, wool and coconut fibre to insulate walls and indoor plants, which cool and dehumidify  the air. Studies have found that room temperatures can be cooled 4 to 5 per cent in the upper levels of buildings with grass roofs, which also absorb  pollutants from the air. A report by the Architectural Services Department in 2007 noted that Hongkongers simply needed to be more 'amenable' to the idea for it to work on a grand scale. Government buildings have been used as role models since. A green roof has been built over the visitors' centre at the Hong Kong Wetland Park. 
'I've seen walls of plants, and that could be the right direction here,' says Paul Eilbrecht, a Dutch designer and developer of bio materials, recently in town to run a sustainability workshop at the Hong Kong Design Centre. 'In new buildings in Europe now we'll have a green layer around the building as insulation for and against the heat.'  
It's all happening very slowly, however, and  a lack of regulations is seeing Hong Kong lag where others are leaping. Singapore studio Woha won a flurry of awards last year for its use of community gardens in its Newton Suites apartments, which boast a garden on  every floor and a 100-metre-high vertical garden. 
More than a decade ago, Penang welcomed the  Menara Umno by Ken Yeang. It was the country's first naturally air-conditioned skyscraper, with a wind-catching form that channels air currents, hanging gardens for wind breaks and shade and photovoltaics for extra energy. It also uses run-off water for flushing toilets. The  architect has since become famous for his  eco-skyscrapers.   
David Chan puts Hong Kong homes about five years behind much of the developed world. In Europe and North America eco-titans such as William McDonough are rethinking  buildings, putting them in 'closed cycles', in which every by-product is used.  
The first mainland city to be designed using McDonough's template is Liuzhou, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The plan gives every apartment direct sunlight and connects waste systems to habitat-restoration projects, gas cookers and agricultural roofs, across which farmers will be able to move  via a series of bridges. The central government has asked McDonough to design 11 more cities like it.  
The mainland has acted swiftly on its pledges to cut emissions, with strict building regulations. There are signs that it may also soon adopt a US-style Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating. Hong Kong  by contrast, has made no international promises, and its architects find little such  thinking coming from authorities or big developers, although the HK Beam Society, which applies a Building Environmental Assessment Method, does its best to nudge them along. We rarely see more than environmental appendages on existing housing models, ostentatiously talked-up in marketing brochures. 
'When you buy property in Hong Kong you're buying square footage,' says architect Frank Yu, who heads Hong Kong's  Gravity Partnership. 'Elsewhere, the product is much more important, whether there's enough air and sunlight, but in Hong Kong they just want to know that they've squeezed out every last bit of area allowable.'



Concrete bungle