Can longer leases help reduce pollution from buildings in Hong Kong?
- Setting policies to encourage longer property leases can motivate landlords and tenants to make more energy-saving upgrades in buildings, says consultancy JLL
- Buildings contribute to nearly two-thirds of Hong Kong’s greenhouse emissions, according to government data
“Currently, the landlords and tenants have no or low incentive to make energy efficient upgrades, especially with short-term lease agreements of three years, which is shorter than the payback period of major energy efficiency retrofits,” said Kamya Miglani, director of research of work dynamics in Asia-Pacific at JLL.
“Incentivising tenancy clauses which are longer term … could be a first step in the direction of ensuring better collaboration.”
Occupiers of buildings “want to have stronger collaboration and support from landlords when it comes to retrofitting of their office space to make it more sustainable and energy efficient”, which requires broader policy measures to be put in place, said Miglani.
“Some buildings have achieved a certain degree of energy saving through retro-commissioning, for example [by] fine-tuning the system settings such as temperature set point and operating hours to avoid wastage. The latter method requires no or minimal expenditure,” said Cary Chan, executive director of HKGBC.