In the past 25 years, the environment and sustainability have become hot topics of conversation for governments, both on a local and global level. Driving the conversation – and policy shifts – are concerns over climate change. And for good reason. In 2021, a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – a United Nations body responsible for advancing knowledge on human-induced climate change – warned that global temperatures will very likely rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2040. That’s bad news for Hong Kong. With a temperature rise comes a potential rise in sea level, and numerous studies forecast that higher sea levels will submerge parts of Hong Kong’s coast , resulting in massive economic losses to coastal communities and loss of infrastructure. Air pollution is also a concern. Data from Hong Kong’s Air Quality Health Index has shown street-level air pollution in densely populated areas including Causeway Bay, Central and Mong Kok often exceeds World Health Organization guidelines. Vehicle emission is a major part, not helped by a rise in the number of private motor vehicles registered in the city: in 2019 it hit 628,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous year. NGOs tackling this issue include the Clean Air Network, which formed in 2009 to educate the public about the impact of air pollution on health, and advocate for policy and behaviour change. While the Hong Kong government has pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2050, the current rate of carbon emissions shows no signs of abating. Do you buy clothes from sustainable brands? This is how you can be sure Then there’s waste-management issues, including what to do when Hong Kong’s near-full landfills reach capacity , and water pollution problems, in particular the abundance of plastic waste, exposed again in 2021 when two typhoons dumped tonnes of plastic rubbish onto beaches . It’s clear the city faces many environmental challenges, and while progress has been made over the past quarter of a century, there is a long way to go. One of the early campaigners for environmental protection in Hong Kong was Christine Loh Kung-wai, a former undersecretary for the environment (2012-2017) who continues to push for the city to move away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy. Well-known non-government groups also play key roles in the city. Entities like WWF-HK and WildAid have made huge strides, with some of the biggest coming in the fight against the illegal wildlife trade that, in December 2021, saw Hong Kong officially ban the sale of elephant ivory. These groups have also helped shine a spotlight on the plight of Hong Kong’s iconic pink dolphins and finless porpoises, both species under threat from land reclamation. The city also has a growing movement of grass-roots organisations and individuals who are raising awareness on issues from plastic pollution to food waste. Age is no barrier. Take the work of climate-change activist Lance Lau Hin-yi, who made headlines in 2019 when the then 10-year-old spent almost every Friday standing outside his school’s gate, raising awareness about climate change. The work of Mei Ng and her team at Friends of the Earth (HK), a charity that has spent more than 30 years championing environmental sustainability in Hong Kong and China, also can’t be ignored. “Think globally, act locally” is a mantra Ng has followed in what she calls her “Green Long March”. She believes in DIY environmentalism and the fair share of eco responsibilities. Winning or losing does not matter. “If I could save one more breath of clean air, one more drop of clean water, one more tree, one more life, it is worth it,” she says. Here we look at some other organisations and individuals who are fighting the good green fight. Harry Chan Tin-ming Equilibrium is a word used often by Harry Chan, a 69-year-old Hongkonger who has earned the moniker “Ghostnet Hunter”. Instead of opting for an easy retirement, Chan has spent the past decade waging his own war on ghost nets – abandoned fishing gear that traps marine life. “Hundreds of kilometres of fishing nets are abandoned in the ocean every year, killing animals for decades before they disintegrate,” says Chan, who is the administrator of the “Hong Kong Ghost Gear Recovery Group” Facebook community. “They are the ocean’s silent killers.” On a small sliver of beach in Shek O on the south coast of Hong Kong Island, Chan scans for washed-up nets. It’s a patch he’s familiar with, having cleaned it many times through the ghost net clean-up events he organises with companies, schools and NGOs. “Education is key,” he says. So is staying balanced with nature, he adds. “Otherwise Mother Nature will continue to keep sending us warnings such as coronavirus and natural disasters to rebalance the planet.” Chan has made more than 3,000 dives and collected more than 80 tonnes of marine waste in the past 10 years. He doesn’t claim to be an expert on ESG (environmental, social and governance) and don’t call him an environmentalist or eco-warrior. What he is, however, is a good listener. “The best way to learn about the state of the marine environment is to speak to fishermen and those who spend their days near and in the ocean,” he says. “They are most aware of changes, whether it’s a population increase or decrease of a species or changes in water quality.” Chan’s voice is being heard. He was recently named an ambassador for the Hong Kong Ocean Park Conservation Foundation and in 2020 was awarded the Hong Kong SAR Honours and Medal of Honour from Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor. “I gave the medal to my dad,” he says. “It was at that moment I knew he was proud of me.” Plastic Free Seas On July 23, 2012, seven containers of plastic pellets fell off a ship during Severe Typhoon Vicente, the biggest storm to hit the city in a decade. Six containers broke open , spewing 150 tonnes of polypropylene pellets into the ocean and onto beaches around Hong Kong. Tracey Read had just completed a plastic pollution research expedition that sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Hawaii sampling the sea surface in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. She returned home to find an environmental disaster had struck Hong Kong. One year after the spill, Read formed Plastic Free Seas (PFS), a charity that shines a local light on the global plastic pollution crisis. Dana Winograd also jumped on board, the two becoming a formidable duo in the fight against plastic pollution. “Tracey and I met when DB Green was formed in 2007,” Winograd says, referring to the community group on a mission to make Discovery Bay, on Lantau Island, a greener community. “We started PFS after Tracey came back from her trip and it was a coincidence that the pellet spill happened just after she returned.” While Read has returned to her native Australia, the pair continue to run PFS, pushing issues such as recycling and hosting beach clean-ups, as well as campaigning on green issues such as the plastic bag levy. “In 2009, the 50 cent plastic bag levy was introduced and we saw a positive impact,” Winograd says. “But the impact has lessened, so the government is now changing the legislation.” The move to increase the plastic bag levy to HK$1 is part of the Waste Blueprint for Hong Kong 2035, under which the administration hopes to promote a “plastic-free” culture. Winograd says their work is more important now than ever, with the coronavirus pandemic leading to an increase in the use of takeaway boxes, plastic cutlery and single-use masks . “In recent beach clean-ups, we’ve even found RAT tests [rapid antigen tests] and their packaging,” she says. Daisy Tam Hongkonger Daisy Tam first became aware of how food systems work in 2004 when she was a PhD student at London’s Goldsmiths College. “My research was around the organic movement and about reconnecting with our food system,” she says. It also involved fieldwork, in her case selling apples at Borough Market, one of the British capital’s largest and oldest food markets. It gave her valuable insights into how food systems work. When she returned to Hong Kong, Tam became acutely aware of the city’s heavy reliance on imported produce – about 90 per cent of the total food supply is imported. She was also disheartened by the amount of food waste in a city where poverty is a problem. “In Hong Kong, food is the largest waste category,” she says, adding it constitutes almost 40 per cent of the city’s waste, with 3,600 tonnes of food thrown away each day. That’s equivalent to the weight of 250 double-decker buses. “It’s not just the problem of food ending up in a landfill, it’s all the wasted resources that went into the production of it,” she says. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Breadline (@breadline_hkfoodworks) Tam got proactive, setting up Breadline, a crowdsourcing app that connects bakeries with volunteers who pick up leftover loaves to deliver to charities. Its network of 65 bakeries and 250 volunteers was more vital than ever during the pandemic, she says. As well as speeches and workshops, Tam also educates the public on food waste through her website, HK FoodWorks. DB Mothers & Friends The phrase “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure” aligns perfectly with DB Mothers & Friends, a social enterprise set up in 2013 by Hongkonger Nikki Wytus Bouteiller. With humble beginnings in Discovery Bay, the group connects donors with charities and social workers, recycling and redistributing discarded furniture, appliances, toys, books and clothes to the city’s less fortunate. “The first priority is the environment, to save items from landfills,” Bouteiller says. It’s a worthy cause. Each year about 4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste ends up in the city’s overstretched landfills. The second objective, Bouteiller says, is to help grass-roots families. “Buying a piece of furniture like a couch is very expensive so we want to help families in need.” Creating jobs is another positive by-product. And it doesn’t just help low-income households in the city. “We’ve also sent items to the Philippines and Burkina Faso.” Bouteiller works with charities including Crossroads Foundation, Christian Action, Refugee Union, St. Barnabas, Mother’s Choice and ImpactHK. “We also network with churches and schools,” says the former teacher. View this post on Instagram A post shared by DB Mothers & Friends (@dbmf.collection) Each piece of furniture, Bouteiller says, has a human connection, a story with a happy ending. “When we give away furniture, the families are so happy and they say how it has saved them,” she says. “We take pictures of the kids jumping on their new beds and pictures of the furniture in a new home and we send those pictures to the clients who donated the furniture … Everybody is happy. It’s so touching.”