Swire Properties White Christmas Street Fair 2021
The Company’s annual year-end community celebration, the White Christmas Street Fair, returned to Tong Chong Street in 2021 after a two-year hiatus. This year’s event was the first physical event to be fully designed and run by seven local university students from the Swire Properties Placemaking Academy (“SPPA”).
Running from 2nd to 5th December, the event saw Tong Chong Street transformed into “Santa’s Whimsical Factory”, an immersive experience inspired by the area’s rich history and by little-known stories from the Taikoo Sugar Refinery. The SPPA team aimed to immerse visitors in a celebration that brought memories from the Quarry Bay community to life, while also giving Hong Kong citizens some respite from the pandemic and adding a little “Christmas spirit” to the proceedings.
With community investment once again a key part of the Street Fair, the Company also donated HKD800,000 to Operation Santa Claus.
Youth Empowerment
The SPPA is a crucial part of our placemaking work and its goal of empowering and fostering Hong Kong’s youth to ultimately build vibrant and sustainable local communities where people can thrive. Through an open recruitment competition, seven talented and driven students were selected to design, plan and execute the Street Fair 2021.
The students participated in a full-time apprenticeship from July to December 2021, where they received mentoring and on-the-job training. They also had access to the Company’s vast resources to help bring their ideas to life.
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Developing new skill sets
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Developing Resilience and Giving Back to Society
As the students worked, they were mentored by, and learned knowledge and skills from, the Company’s senior management, external experts in the areas of sustainability and event-planning, and thought leaders from the design and community-planning sectors. The students also took part in 46 masterclasses. During their apprenticeship, the students learned about the Company’s long-term goals in placemaking, innovation, and sustainable development – the culmination being their design and execution of the White Christmas Street Fair.
First White Christmas Street Fair with zero-waste goal
In line with the Company’s goal of integrating sustainability into every facet of our business, “green” was at the heart of the White Christmas Street Fair 2021.
Working towards a zero-waste event, the team collaborated with designers, suppliers, vendors and the Company’s sustainable development department early on to plan and manage the materials that were used and discarded.
The waste reduction measures included:
- Using fully recyclable D-Board for most signages, instead of foam board
- Using FSC-certified wood for most wooden installations and gathering used wood for upcycling workshops by NGOs and recycling partners
- Banning the use of single-use plastic tableware, such as straws and cutlery
- Setting up recycling bins for paper, plastic, metal, glass bottle, and food waste
- Partnering with a local pulp mill to collect, clean and recycle paper cups and containers
The team also conducted a waste audit to review the type and amount of waste that was discarded and recycled, and took part in an independent carbon audit to evaluate the event’s carbon footprint. These audits have provided benchmark data that can be used to assess the environmental performance of future company events.
The event diverted over 0% of event setup materials and consumer waste from landfills through these reuse, upcycling and recycling initiatives, making the Fair an almost zero-waste event.
Students invited KS Wong, Secretary for the Environment, to visit the White Christmas Street Fair and share several practical tips on green event planning and sustainable development.