Environmental Technology
Local industries and the public in Hong Kong are becoming more conscious about environmental protection and sustainable development than ever before. In a recent public consultation document, the Council for Sustainable Development highlights solid waste management, renewable energy and urban living space as the first three pilot areas for which collective effort by the government and the community are needed for the territory’s long-term sustainability. Working with the Environmental Protection Department, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and other relevant organisations such as the local universities and Hong Kong Productivity Council, we hope to identify and facilitate development of environmentally friendly technologies and processes to serve the needs of our community.
Environmental protection therein also lies immense business opportunities for the environmental technology companies. With the increasingly stringent regulatory regimes on environmental protection in the global market, many industrial sectors have recognized the need to adopt and develop green manufacturing practices and clean technologies in order to survive and compete.
Environmental Technology Industry in Hong Kong
According to our study in 2002, the Hong Kong environmental protection market is approximately HK$9.7 billion per annum, and a steady annual growth rate from 2% - 5% is expected for the next five years. Currently, there are about 370 establishments in Hong Kong involved in the environmental technology industry-related business with a total of about 23,000 full-time employees. The major business activities of these companies are focused on the local and the Mainland markets, and to a lesser extent, on the markets in Southeast Asia. They can be broadly grouped into five sub-sectors, namely pollution control technology, clean technology, environmental supporting service, environmental monitoring/measuring technology and green product manufacturing. Considerable number of these companies have good technical capabilities in their specialty areas, such as water conservation and pollution control, air and odour pollution control, waste recycling or recovery, noise control and energy conservation.
Many Hong Kong companies in the industry have excellent understanding and experience in the local and Mainland markets. However, majority of them (89%) are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with less than 100 staff. These SMEs, in general, have limited resources in developing and integrating innovative environmental technologies, hence dampening their competitiveness to realize the market opportunities through reacting to the rapidly advancing technological needs and evolving regulatory requirements in different markets.
Support for Environment-Related Projects
Funding supports are available for eligible environmental technology-related R&D projects and other projects/activities in relation to environmental and conservation matters under the Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) and the Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF). Since its establishment, the ITF has approved 60 R&D projects in developing clean environmental technologies and processes suitable for application in Hong Kong, with the total funding amount exceeded HK$103 million. These projects cover a wide variety of environmental technologies including solid waste treatment, energy conservation, control of traffic pollution, noise control technology, sewage treatment and water recycling. Occasionally, specific R&D themes on particular environmental technologies may also be solicited by the ITF to address new challenges to the industry due to new regulatory requirements or arising environmental issues in Hong Kong.
In order to encourage continuous skill improvement of the local workforce and nurture technical expertise and professional engineers for the industry, companies which wish to have staff trained in areas that would be useful to their businesses may apply for a training grant under the New Technology Training Scheme (NTTS) and the Professional Services Development Assistance Scheme (PSDAS).
