From territorial to local planning : what is still missing in the sustainability assessment of Hong Kong?

Abstract

Local-level Sustainability Assessment has been a new policy instrument that has been advocated by policy communities to enhance the promotion of sustainable development. Its origin can be traced back to the earlier idea of Environmental Impact Assessment which was the first generation of sustainability assessment tools. Nowadays, most of the countries have enacted the EIA into law and regulation and provided a comprehensive impact assessment system on different environmental aspects so as to minimize the impacts by the development. The Social Impact Assessment was also introduced in some countries so as to mitigate the impacts on the local community and culture. Later, Strategic Environmental Assessment was also suggested in policy making process so as to provide a territorial level planning assessment. Still, there is a missing part in developing sustainability assessment tools at the local level.

The concept of sustainable development was firstly introduced in 1999 by the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Council for Sustainable Development, which its members are appointed by the Chief Executive and the Sustainable Development Division of the Environment Bureau, are mainly responsible for this issue. However, the effectiveness of promoting sustainable development is being questioned. Though there is a relatively long development on local planning, there is a lack of tools for Sustainability Assessment in the local level.

In a short term, it is a big challenge to develop a local-level sustainability assessment. In a long term, a local-level sustainability assessment can help evaluate the overall sustainability performance of the District. This study, aims to conceptualize and evaluate the current sustainability assessment system so as to consolidate a better Sustainability Assessment system for the local planning in Hong Kong.