Events are an important part of Swire Properties’ placemaking and community-building efforts. Since launching our Green Guidelines for Event Management and Production of Collaterals in 2018, our marketing and promotions, event management and administration teams have worked diligently to incorporate the guidelines into their event planning, production and execution efforts.
White Christmas Street Fair
In 2023, our White Christmas Street Fair continued to work towards being a zero-waste event. From the earliest stages, we incorporated circularity principles into the planning and execution processes to ensure that the materials used were reduced, reused and recycled. Through careful planning of the design and structure of event installations, 95% of event setup and consumer waste was diverted from landfills, up from 91% in 2022.
Circularity measures adopted included:
- Serving all food and drinks in reusable cups and containers through "bring your own" or onsite borrow and return booth, preventing the disposal of over 15,000 single-use cups and containers.
- Digitalising F&B coupons to redeem food and drinks, minimizing paper waste.
- Utilising 3D printing quartz sand to create Christmas decorations that can be broken down and reused, replacing the use of non-recyclable fiberglass.
- Using fully recyclable D-Board for most signage instead of foam board.
- Setting up recycling bins to ensure proper disposal and recycling of paper, plastics, metal cans, and food waste.
- Conducting a comprehensive carbon audit and circularity assessment to understand environmental impacts and identify hot spots in carbon emissions.
All these measures resulted in the fair’s waste diversion rate improving again – the rate has consistently improved over the past three years, rising from 90% in 2021 to 95% in 2023. We also conducted a comprehensive carbon audit and circularity assessment for the event for the third consecutive year to understand its environmental impact and identify areas of high carbon emissions, such as electricity consumption (three electricity meters were installed for more accurate monitoring and management) and transportation of event set-up materials. Further carbon reduction opportunities were identified which will continue to drive improvement in future events.
White Christmas Street Fair
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Annual Dinner 2023
This year, the Swire Properties Annual Dinner returned with an enhanced focus on sustainability.
Sustainability features incorporated into the 2023 Annual Dinner included:
- Introduced the “Most Sustainable Costume Award”, encouraging colleagues to incorporate innovative and creative sustainability elements into their costumes.
- A costume collection box set up at the venue that let participants donate their costumes to charity after the event.
- Use of set-up materials that could be reused or recycled, such as FSC-certified D-board, and reusable arcade machines and LED wristbands.
- A ban on decorative materials made using Styrofoam.
- Adopting recommendations from the WWF-Hong Kong Seafood Guide and following the Swire Pacific Sustainable Food Policy to ensure that only sustainable seafood items were included in the buffet menu.
- Donating surplus food from the buffet to a local food charity.
With support from our event agency, venue partner and recycling partners, we conducted a thorough event circularity assessment to record the respective weight of materials that were reused, recycled or sent to landfill after the event. Overall, the Annual Dinner achieved a 79% waste diversion rate, setting an example and benchmark for future internal events.
Annual Dinner 2023
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Supporting Circular Fashion and Women’s Empowerment
In January 2023, Taikoo Place supported Métier Minus, a used luxury fashion charity pop-up organised by an office tenant. The event, held at Blueprint, offered 600 pieces of post-loved luxury women’s fashion collection pieces, accessories and shoes from some of the world’s most prestigious design houses. Advocating a “buy less, buy quality” concept, all items displayed at the pop-up were collected through generous donations from private collections.
This two-day event raised over HKD410,000 for a local social enterprise that aims to promote reuse culture while empowering women with job opportunities and training. The event also helped extend the useful life of high-quality fashion items. Building on the success of this event, the event had a come-back in early 2024 at an even larger scale at ArtisTree.
Supporting Circular Fashion and Women’s Empowerment
Citygate Outlets “Beyond Glass” Sustainability Campaign
In November 2023, Citygate Outlets launched a sustainability campaign named “Beyond Glass” to raise awareness about resource circularity, nature conservation and sustainable living. Partnering with three young green architects, the campaign combined architecture with ecology to promote the sustainable development of Lantau Island. The initiative had four parts:
- The “Shadow of the Butterflies” art installation. Over 800kg of used glass bottles were collected from more than 60 Citygate Outlets F&B tenants and two in-mall recycling bins. These were upcycled by the three green architects who created a permanent installation of 600 iridescent glass butterflies.
- “Go Green” upcycling workshops, which engaged shoppers in ways to combine sustainability with their daily lives. These included a soap-making workshop using old coffee grounds, a workshop on making natural soap, and creating tote bags using natural dyes obtained from food scraps and plants.
- Organising a “nature bathing healing journey”, where shoppers explored the rich biodiversity of Lantau Island, focusing on butterflies.
- Promoting a plastic-free dining culture by providing “Green Up” rewards to shoppers when they brought their own containers for takeaway orders, and offering shoppers a chance to win HKD100 F&B e-vouchers by logging their sustainable behaviours through the TAIKOO+ app.
Citygate Outlets “Beyond Glass” Sustainability Campaign
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Cityplaza Green Christmas Campaign
Cityplaza incorporated sustainability elements into the mall’s Christmas decorations and souvenirs this year. These included:
- Upcycling used plastics into eye-catching eco-cartoon character ornaments using 3D-printing technology.
- Collaborating with a local green technology company to transplant whole spruce trees from their original habitat to our Christmas garden. After the event, the trees were replanted, preserving them and adhering to the principles of circularity.
- Establishing the “GROW with LOVE” pop-up store, selling eco-friendly products such as moss balls, coffee cups with nature-themed designs and eco-friendly bags.
Cityplaza Green Christmas Campaign
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10K Challenge 2023
This year’s 10K Challenge fun run for Swire Properties' colleagues and family members introduced a number of waste reduction measures:
- Since 2018, we have encouraged runners to reuse their uniforms from the 10K Challenge to avoid producing textile waste.
- To reduce plastic waste, no bottled beverages or single-use cups were provided. Instead, water for runners along the route was dispensed in reusable cups. Participants were also encouraged to bring their own bottles and refill them at water stations.
- E-certificates were given out to participants to reduce paper use.
- Recycling bins were set up for paper, plastic bottles, general plastics, metals and food waste to reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill.
10K Challenge 2023
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