“Fighting Climate Change, We’re All In”
In July 2020, Swire Properties launched the “Sustainability: We All Count” SD-themed communication campaign to raise awareness about our SD efforts and encourage stakeholders to work together to achieve our SD 2030 vision.
This year, we ran a second iteration of the campaign with a new theme: “Fighting Climate Change, We’re All In”, highlighting our commitment to the Business Ambition for 1.5°C and the city-wide goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
The campaign was aimed at our employees, tenants, key stakeholders and the general public and featured “1.5°C” as the key statement. Posters were displayed in malls, lift lobbies and office buildings, as well as online through a social media blitz to draw attention to the need to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century to hold off the worst impacts of climate change.
In addition, as part of the “Fighting Climate Change, We're All In” campaign, we designed a “1.5°C pin” to demonstrate our commitment to fighting climate change. We also distributed these pins to all our employees to encourage everyone in the company to continue our SD efforts and work towards the 1.5°C goal.
1.5°C@Work Challenge
To further engage our employees in the Business Ambition for 1.5°C initiative, we ran a Company-wide energy-saving competition called the “1.5°C@Work Challenge”. The aim was to encourage the use of less electricity in our own offices, and lead by example to inspire our tenants, peers and the wider Hong Kong community to do the same.
Office employees were provided with energy-saving tips and ways to change small daily habits to save power at workstations, during meetings and in breakout rooms. They were also encouraged to share their “next-level ideas” that may influence future company policies.
The challenge ran from August to November 2021, using June 2021 as a baseline in all our offices and properties across Hong Kong, the Chinese Mainland and Miami. The office with the largest percentage decrease in electricity use, Taikoo Li Sanlitun, was named the Top Energy Saver. They reduced their consumption by around 6%.
An SD Academy for Media Partners
In July 2021, we organised a media briefing to communicate our sustainable development work and our efforts to combat climate change to the mainstream media. This took the form of an SD Academy covering such topics as our science-based targets, carbon emissions management over a building’s lifecycle and key SD efforts made at the construction, operation and end-of-life stages of a building.
The briefing was followed by a tour of One Taikoo Place that showcased our SD building design and features. Guided by our technical services and sustainable development team, the media guests examined the building’s key SD features, including its glass façade, waste-to-energy trigeneration system and dual-level roof solar photovoltaic system.
A total of 26 journalists from 21 media outlets attended the briefing, generating over 20 immediate print, online and broadcast stories, and helping pave the way for other in-depth media stories and interviews that profiled the Company’s SD initiatives.