Link Sustainability Lab – a Cross-Sector Collaboration Platform for Sustainable Development
[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.]
Link Sustainability Lab, located in Lok Fu Place in central Kowloon, is Hong Kong's first sustainability education and collaboration platform located within an urban shopping mall. This not-for-profit educational and collaborative project was conceptualised and developed by Link, a homegrown Hong Kong real estate asset manager, whose local portfolio of community shopping centres (including Lok Fu Place) and fresh markets form an important part of people’s daily lives and the social fabric of Hong Kong.
Along these lines, one of Link’s central aims is to create sustainable business and social value to benefit different generations in the community, in turn improving the quality of life for all Hong Kong residents. As part of its mission, Link actively promotes cross-industry, cross-sector and cross-generational dialogue and collaboration in order to integrate sustainable development into the daily lives of individuals throughout Hong Kong, as well as within every level of the company’s own operations.
To help Link fulfil its mission, it established Link Sustainability Lab in April 2023 to popularise sustainability concepts and inspire people to explore various sustainable solutions. In this way, the Lab plays an important role in helping Link achieve its 3A objectives: providing an accessible platform, showing actionable pathways to sustainable development, and demonstrating that the objectives are achievable.
A sustainability hub
The Lab is positioned to be a public education space to popularise sustainability knowledge and inspire behavioural change among the community. Since its inception, the Lab has partnered with more than 60 government departments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), tertiary institutions and business entities. Together with these partners, who hail from a range of different sectors and industries, the Lab has collaborated to curate appropriate, engaging content as well as organise themed exhibitions, interactive gaming activities, talks and workshops.
For example, the Hong Kong PropTech Alliance hosted its 2023 Sustainability Committee meeting at the Lab in June 2023. More than 50 representatives from 12 corporate members of the Alliance attended the meeting, during which the Construction Industry Council shared details about its Carbon Assessment Tool and RESET Carbon discussed the broader use of low-carbon construction materials.
In August last year, the Environmental Campaign Committee organised its Low Carbon Diets event at the Lab to promote food sustainability. And in September last year, Urban Land Institute Hong Kong and Link jointly launched the Landlord-Tenant Decarbonisation Engagement Guide at the Lab. This report details pioneering tenant engagement transformation pathways and aims to chart a course towards a sustainable, low-carbon future. The launch event at the Lab brought together key tenants from the food and beverage sector and landlords to share ideas and best practices on collaboration.
Different sustainability themes
As part of the Lab’s role as an education platform to mainstream sustainability knowledge and catalyse change in the community, the Lab revolves around different sustainability themes. The inaugural food sustainability theme, “Take Eat Seriously”, was launched to coincide with the Lab’s opening in April 2023 and ending in October 2023.
As part of this new theme, the Lab invites visitors to experience the beauty of multiculturalism through the sharing of real-life stories from people of diverse backgrounds and the playing of an interactive game to learn more about the cultural characteristics of different ethnic groups. Visitors to the Lab can also learn about their own emotions and acquire skills to help them better interact with themselves and others through interactive games.
Taking the “Differently Together” inclusion theme further, the Lab has collaborated with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation and the Jockey Club “age at home” Gerontech Education and Rental Service Centre to feature “Peter and May’s Home Sweet Home”. This installation displays a range of gerontechnology products, with the aim of increasing public awareness of products and services that contribute to ageing at home as well as to provide social enterprises, startups and social welfare organisations with an opportunity to reach potential users and promote cross-generational social inclusion.
Link, through the Lab and its range of other community endeavours, will continue to put community cohesion at the centre of its sustainability ambitions, delivering inclusion education to create a more welcoming culture in the community – and promoting a more sustainable future for all.