How housing managers contribute to environmental sustainability via eco-labeling?

Abstract

Hong Kong is one of the top financial hubs in the world with high frequency of commercial activities every day. Coupling with the fact that most of the commercial buildings in Hong Kong are operated around the clock and the quantity of commercial building increases steadily every year, there are rising attentions focused on the environmental impacts brought from the commercial sector. Among all these impacts, some are irreversible like extinction of species and rising of sea level, giving rise to serious consequence. In spite of legislation by the authorities, the policies implemented merely provide the minimum requirements to the industry, which is lack of encouragement for the industry to striving for better. Until the emerging of eco-labeling which is voluntary in nature though, its financial benefits and the positive effects attract the housing industry to actively take part in by combining the environmental sustainability concept into the housing life cycle, in which the various stages could have enhancement on energy efficiency and reduction on energy consumption and waste production. This paper will analyze the benefits of eco-labeling and the role of housing managers to investigate how housing managers can contribute to environmental sustainability via eco-labeling.