Green Building Makes a Change
Being sustainable has become a main concern all over the world. Although Hong Kong has ranked Asia’s second-most sustainable cities, it performed poorly in environmental factors. Hong Kong’s serious air pollution, high greenhouse gas emissions, poor solid waste management and the low proportion of renewable energy sources contributed to its low ranking in planet sub-ranking. This alerts Hong Kong should really take action to improve the environmental problems. And green building will be the most suitable solution.

According to The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it defines green building as a sustainable or high performance building. It is environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building’s life-cycle from design, construction to operation. Basically, reduce energy and water use, healthy indoor environmental quality, smart material selection and the buildings effects on its site are the key consideration of green building.

Green building can achieve efficient use of energy which most of the present buildings in Hong Kong cannot. In Hong Kong, the greenhouse emissions are surprisingly high for a city that has well-developed public transport system, “Buildings could be a big source of such emissions, “Graham Kean, Asia-Pacific head of client solutions at Arcadis said. In order to improve the current situation, we can focus on the design of the new green building to achieve efficient energy consumption.

The introduction of water- and energy-saving initiatives like advanced HVAC and lighting controls, low-flow fixtures, and cool roofs can reduce energy consumption for air-conditioning and lighting in buildings which utilize renewable energy, reduce waste, and decrease heating and cooling expenses. The Curtis National Park Service building, which is the LEED gold certified building in United States