HKAEE Ceremony Celebrates 2023's Environmental Champions in Hong Kong

2024-12-02 17:00 Last Updated At：18:08

HKAEE honours businesses for achieving environmental excellence

The following is issued on behalf of the Environmental Campaign Committee:

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HKAEE honours businesses for achieving environmental excellence Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

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HKAEE honours businesses for achieving environmental excellence Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

To commend companies, organisations and schools for their outstanding contributions to environmental protection in 2023, the Hong Kong Awards for Environmental Excellence (HKAEE) Presentation Ceremony was held today (December 2) at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The Chief Executive, Mr John Lee, congratulated the winning companies, organisations and schools in a video speech at the ceremony. He commended the winners for their efforts in environmental protection and recognised their contributions to creating a greener Hong Kong. He said that he looks forward to the collaboration of different sectors with the Government to foster green development and to build a beautiful China and a beautiful Hong Kong.

This year's ceremony was divided into morning and afternoon sessions. The officiating guests of the morning session for the business sectors included the Secretary for Environment and Ecology, Mr Tse Chin-wan; the Chairman of the Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF) Committee, Dr Eric Cheng; the Chairman of the Environmental Campaign Committee (ECC), Professor Simon Wong; the Awards Committee Chairman of the HKAEE, Dr Conrad Wong; and the Permanent Secretary for Environment and Ecology (Environment), Miss Janice Tse. Before the ceremony, the Senior Director and Head of International Affairs and Sustainable Finance of the Securities and Futures Commission, Ms Christine Kung, shared information on sustainability reporting. The five gold award winners also shared their award winning experiences.

The officiating guests of the afternoon session for the schools sector included the Under Secretary for Education, Dr Sze Chun-fai; Dr Cheng; Professor Wong; the Convenor of the Education Working Group under the ECC, Mr Wong Chi-keung; and the Commissioner for Climate Change of the Environment and Ecology Bureau (EEB), Mr Wong Chuen-fai. The Green School Information and Experience Session running in parallel with the afternoon session featured interactive information exhibitions, game booths and sharing sessions. Participants had the opportunity to learn from the green school awardees and deepen their knowledge of practising low-carbon living.

The HKAEE commends organisations that have demonstrated outstanding environmental performances in 14 different sectors. The three judging criteria are green leadership, programme and performance, and partner synergy. The Hong Kong Green Innovations Awards (HKGIA) announced on the same occasion aims to encourage local organisations to tackle environmental challenges using new ideas that will benefit the environment. The three assessment criteria are level of innovation, environmental achievements, and practicability and contribution to society. After two rounds of assessment by technical consultants, participants were assessed by the final adjudicating panels comprising the ECC and representatives from major chambers of different sectors in Hong Kong for the selection of gold, silver and bronze winners.

The number of entries competing for the 2023 HKAEE reached a record high of 3584, more than an eightfold increase compared with the figure for 2008 when the awards were launched. A total of 53 organisations won gold, silver or bronze awards this year, and 158 received certificates of merit. There were 78 entries in the 2023 HKGIA, a figure around five times higher than that of 2011 when the HKGIA was established. To commend company management members and employees for their dedication to enhancing the environmental performance of their companies and the community, one Most Outstanding Green Achiever, four Outstanding Green Achievers and five Green Achievers were selected. In addition, 38 organisations were honoured as Outstanding Promotional Partners. The detailed list of awardees can be accessed from the HKAEE website (www.hkaee.gov.hk).

The HKAEE, with funding support from the ECF, is jointly organised by the ECC, the EEB, the Advisory Council on the Environment, the Business Environment Council, the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, the Hong Kong Chinese Importers' and Exporters' Association, the Hong Kong Council of Social Service, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and the Hong Kong Productivity Council.

Financial Secretary Emphasizes Innovation, Inclusivity, and AI in CUHK EMBA Conference Speech

Speech by FS at CUHK EMBA Annual Conference

Following is the speech by the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, at the CUHK EMBA Annual Conference today (May 9):

Professor Dennis Lo (Vice-Chancellor and President, the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)), Professor Lin Zhou (Dean, CUHK Business School), Macy (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Ms Macy Chan), Michael (Chairperson of Organizing Committee, Mr Michael Chan), CUHK EMBA alumni and students, business leaders, distinguished guests and friends,

Good evening.

Addressing a room full of Executive MBA students and graduates is both an honour and a privilege. There is a particular kind of ambition in this room — one that is not content with success alone, but driven to understand it more deeply, in the belief that better ideas lead to greater impact.

That kind of commitment — to learning, to growth, to asking harder questions — is precisely what today's conversation is about.

The theme of this conference, which focuses on innovation and agile leadership, could not be more timely. Most of us here have lived through the Internet age and the smartphone revolution, which made communication faster and more seamless than anyone had imagined.

Today, the rise of AI places us at a more fundamental tipping point. Technology is not merely changing the answers — it is redefining the questions themselves.

Consider what is already within reach. An AI assistant can learn your preferences, curate a personalised shortlist, and simply ask for your confirmation. We should even ask whether the smartphone and the search engine will remain our primary gateways to the digital world, or whether something altogether new is already taking shape.

To draw an analogy, the power of technology does not lie in drawing the old map with greater precision. It lies in revealing how much of that map remains uncharted — and in showing us that entirely new maps, with new co-ordinates, are being drawn.

This redefinition is unfolding across three dimensions simultaneously.

First, the redefinition of products. Products are no longer discrete, standalone objects. A smart car is a vehicle, but also a mobile platform for data. An insurance policy can be a contract, but equally a dynamic reflection of health data. Innovation today is born from cross-sector convergence and continuous evolution.

Second, the redefinition of services. Services are no longer delivered solely by enterprises. They emerge from collaborative networks of people and AI. But the more profound shift is in what customers now expect. In the past, good service meant reaching the right person quickly. Today, customers expect a solution that anticipates their needs before articulating them. This requires a new architecture of service delivery: human and machine, with AI handling the scale, the speed, and the personalisation that no human team alone could sustain.

Third, and most importantly, the redefinition of business models. In the past, we sought optimal solutions within established frameworks — when demand rose, we expanded capacity; when service needs grew, we opened more branches. Technology invites us to break out of those frameworks entirely. Intelligent manufacturing means that "economies of scale" is no longer the only answer; flexible supply chains have made customised, on-demand production the new normal.

These three redefinitions are opening a commercial frontier unlike anything we have seen before. But if the benefits of technology accrue only to a small circle, its power remains fundamentally constrained. This brings me to the second message I want to leave with you today: inclusivity.

Inclusivity is not charity. Yet it is the smartest business strategy available. The unmet needs of the broader public represent the largest and most underserved market opportunity in existence. When you make quality healthcare, education and financial services accessible and affordable to ordinary residents, you are not serving a group in need of handouts — you are unlocking a vast market that traditional business models have consistently overlooked.

Hong Kong has a distinctive role to play here. We can be a co-architect of standards, a hub for capital, and a bridge between innovation and real-world deployment — from clinical validation of smart healthcare, to green technology financing, to regulatory sandboxes for fintech. Our contribution draws not only on institutional strengths and international networks, but on our genuine commitment to broad-based participation.

Yet inclusive products and services are only the first step. The deeper dimension is empowerment.

History reminds us that the dividends of technological revolution need to be actively guided to reach the many. In the age of steam, and again in the Internet era, early gains concentrated among capital owners and top-tier talent. But today we have the opportunity to write a different story. AI, as an amplifier of human capability, is already enabling what was previously unimaginable: a solo entrepreneur, with the right tools and the right vision, can build a unicorn.

In other words, the unit of competitive advantage is shifting — from the size of your team to the skill with which you orchestrate your tools.

Our mission should be to make that shift available to everyone. To turn individual readiness into collective prosperity, and to ensure that the productivity gains of AI flow broadly across the society.

This is precisely why, in this year's Budget, I placed such emphasis on the "AI Training for All" initiative.

We are not trying to turn everyone into an engineer. We are ensuring that workers, managers, SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) owners, and ordinary residents become capable collaborators with AI: people who can access it, use it effectively, and put it to work as their assistant.

That may sound ambitious, but consider this: if AI can one day be as intuitive as the smartphone, then mass adoption is not difficult to imagine at all. Just as computers once migrated from specialist facilities into offices and homes, AI will find its way into everyone's daily work and life.

For business leaders, it may be tempting to think of AI as "digital employee" that can replace existing workers. But think of a different framing: equipping your workforce with powerful digital assistants can achieve productivity gains, while also freeing your people to do what humans do best — create, imagine and innovate.

Companies that take those extra steps, and think those extra moves ahead, will find that an empowered workforce is also a more innovative one.

All in all, the power of technology must ultimately be measured by its contribution to inclusive growth. And inclusive growth, in the end, depends on, yes, commercial acumen — but also empathy, compassion, and the conviction that a rising tide should lift all boats. I can see that those qualities live in this room.

I will close with this thought. Someone once joked that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. With AI, let us never fall into the same trap — in our race to price every efficiency gain, let us not lose sight of the deeper value we are trying to create: a society where the fruits of innovation are broadly shared, and where technology lifts not just the fortunate few, but everyone willing to reach for it.

So here is my ask: let us grow the pie together. And make sure we cut it well.

Thank you very much.

HKAEE Ceremony Celebrates 2023's Environmental Champions in Hong Kong

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