Environmental stewardship is one of the key challenges businesses around the world are facing today. Fully acknowledging the importance of improving environmental performance and energy efficiency of our buildings, The Link has strived to improve physical hardware to more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
We embark on aggressive programmes for existing shopping centres to retrofit chiller plants, replace lighting systems and apply other energy saving equipment such as solar film for skylights and glass walls and variable speed drives. These programmes, supplemented by work process improvements, result in substantial savings in electricity consumption. For our renovation projects, we adopt green technologies in design guidelines, specifications and materials such as solar panels, green roofs and natural ventilations.
The Link REIT trains and educates our staff on environmental management. We established a new Slope and Tree Maintenance Team to take care of over 40 slopes, 5,840 trees and 956,000 square feet of landscaped area in our portfolio.
The Link REIT also educates the community on how to think and work responsibly and provide green knowledge that can be applied to daily life. The Eco-Terrace programme at Lok Fu Plaza was a very successful partnership with over ten green groups, establishing a pioneer farmland so that nearby residents had the opportunity to take part in farming activities at the terraced field. Our asset enhancement of Stanley Plaza also incorporated a range of eco-friendly designs that would reduce energy use and waste. Stanley Plaza achieved the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method ("BEAM") Platinum Standard. It has also been named as finalist of the Existing Building Category (Completed Building) - Hong Kong under the Green Building Award 2012.
However, The Link REIT recognizes that taking a longer term view of environmental sustainability, we will need to develop an overall strategy – focusing not only on energy and lighting, but also water and waste – then implement policies and put in place systems for monitoring and reporting. In addition to identifying and satisfying local environmental legislations and statutory requirements, we will reference against international guidelines and best practices in establishing green supply chain management, rental agreement and leases, internal controls and management systems to ensure we meet environmental requirements and targets.