Engineer Cary Chan was appointed executive director of the Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC) in 2016, and one of his first moves was to introduce retro-commissioning to Hong Kong: a process of optimising a building’s operational performance to offset carbon emission and energy consumption without replacing existing equipment.

Over the years, Chan has also led collaborations between Swire and Tsinghua University to develop more energy-efficient properties and plants; set up training and registration scheme for industry professionals to become retro-commissioners; and organised global conferences where policymakers, architects and urban planners exchange ideas on sustainability models.

Last November, the HKGBC and Swire launched the Advancing Net Zero (ANZ) Ideas Competition, where participating land developers and industry professionals submitted proposals on how they would turn an existing building into an energy-efficient one.With all these initiatives in place, Chan hopes that by 2030, the Asia-Pacific region can cut down 40 per cent of emissions associated with manufactured materials and construction processes.“Going green is a marketing strategy now, and land developers are keen to show that they can do it,” Chan says.