Foreword
It is my pleasure to introduce the 2017/18 Sustainability Report of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU).
2017/18 was an exciting year for our University as we showcased a series of inspiring events and stakeholder engagement activities to celebrate PolyU’s 80th Anniversary. It was also a year that witnessed our efforts and important decisions in our strategies to focus on paving a sustainable path forward, drawing the entire University community together to achieve our sustainability goals.
PolyU offers a wide range of education and research programmes in a dynamic and caring campus environment. The principles of sustainability prevail over our infrastructure and campus development, academic activities, research projects, and daily operations. We take all the needed steps to connect and align with our stakeholders on the most relevant sustainability topics. We invite the University community to participate in our initiatives and communicate with them through a series of survey and engagement exercises. We are proud to share the outcome of all these efforts with you, along with our performance on key social and environmental indicators, in this Sustainability Report.
Our research teams continued to spearhead the frontier of knowledge and technology to bring changes to the society and speed progress on sustainable development. Several highlighted projects that entail environmental and social benefits are presented in this report, which are associated with different research areas ranging from material science, environmental technology, sustainable road solutions, innovative energy harvesting textile, vision correction tools, to smart city development and big data analytics. The received international and local accolades are public recognition of the on-going efforts and achievement of our researchers as well as supportive partners.
Our students continued to serve directly to the society through different channels such as the Service-Learning programmes. Service-Learning programmes demonstrate a unique and experiential learning approach to pedagogy, integrating meaningful community service with academic study and reflections that enriches student learning. In the reporting year, our Vision of Love Mobile Eye Care Project visited 26 schools, elderly homes, and welfare organizations in Hong Kong to offer vision screen and eye examination service provided by our optometry students. To further cultivate social responsibility beyond our students, we also steered various impactful events through the University Social Responsibility Network and offered opportunities for outstanding students from our fellow institutions to join our offshore learning projects under our Global Service-Learning Scheme.
We recognize the importance of social innovation as a force for sustainable development. Our Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation delivers transdisciplinary sustainability research and thematic projects that connect and benefit the wider community, generating huge sustainability influence and speeding incremental transformation of positive changes for the society at large.
As one of the campus-wide sustainability initiatives of the University, the Green PolyU Awards – Green Office Programme was first launched in 2016 to better engage our staff to foster a green culture on campus. Managed by the Campus Sustainability Committee and the Campus Sustainability Office, this unique Programme entered into a new phase in the reporting year with focused activities and increased training opportunities for staff members. Through these activities, we aim to broaden their understanding of green office operation and encourage them to share green ideas with their peers to accelerate positive changes in their workplace. The Programme also recognized excellent-performing offices and units in implementing green initiatives with an award scheme.
We are approaching our sustainability activities based on our strategies that aim to balance economic, environmental, and social aspects. We have laid the cornerstone of our commitment, and we cherished some important milestones in the reporting year. To make campus operations even more environmentally-friendly, we completed a waste audit for the Main Campus to help us formulate strategies to reduce waste generated on campus. We set up a specific policy for paper reduction in 2017, followed by the PaperReduction@PolyU Campaign to share useful “paper smart” information with University community members. A 10% target was also announced and successfully achieved during the year to cut down printing paper used in the office. We introduced the ban on selling plastic bottled water below 1 liter throughout campus food and beverage services in the year. The rearrangement of trash bins and upgrading recycling facilities to reduce general waste were carefully executed. We also launched a trial scheme with enhanced bring-your-own discount and takeaway levy at selected canteens to highlight the call to reduce disposables.
We strive to shape the campus as an innovative and interactive platform to drive sustainability education and behavioral change. We introduced new online maps and platforms to all our stakeholders, enabling them to access campus green information with ease on their mobile devices. We organized on-and-off campus activities that deliver both sustainability and educational values to the University Community.
We are taking a multi-dimensional approach to generate bigger results and underpin the necessary shift in behavior needed to solve the world’s environmental crisis. We appreciate the support from all university community members, industry partners, and other stakeholders to enable the University to strive for continuous excellence and impact to address environmental, social and economic challenges faced by today’s world.
Ir Professor Alexander Wai
Vice President (Research Development)
Chairman of Campus Sustainability Committee