As climate tipping points lie alarmingly close, achieving carbon neutrality is the task in hand. The construction industry consumes approximately 36% of all energy consumed globally and accounted for 40% of all carbon emissions in the world. In order to achieve sustainable development, the Construction Industry Council is determined to lead the industry towards the goal of carbon neutrality.
Leading Low Carbon Construction Technology Showcase
Ir Thomas HO, Chairman of the CIC, visited the CIC–Zero Carbon Park (CIC-ZCP) in Kowloon Bay in late April to learn about the latest development of this landmark facility. Established in 2012, CIC-ZCP serves as an exhibition, education and information centre to raise awareness of the importance of low-carbon living, showcasing the state-of-the-art eco-building design and technologies to the local and international construction industry, and eventually innovates the stakeholders to deploy new technologies as a way to reduce carbon footprints.
Zero carbon building is a building that has zero net carbon emissions on an annual basis. CIC-ZCP aims to achieve this by generating on-site renewable energy from photovoltaic panels and a tri-generation system using biofuel made of waste cooking oil. On top of being self-sustainable, CIC-ZCP exports surplus energy to offset embodied carbon of its construction process. Apart from renewable energy generation, CIC-ZCP has taken various passive design measures to save energy. For example, CIC-ZCP is cross-ventilated as its main facade faces southeast to take advantage of the prevailing summer breezes coming from that direction. The elongated form of CIC-ZCP also enables a suitable room depth between the northwest and southeast facade for daylighting.
Upgrade and Update
CIC-ZCP has never stopped upgrading throughout the decade. Chairman of Zero Carbon Building Management Board, Mr CHONG Kin-lit, Paul explained that the park has installed the “Air Improvement Photovoltaic (AIPV) Glass Canopy” to replace the old canopy of the cafeteria in CIC-ZCP. The glass canopy not only offers daylighting, on one hand it generates renewable energy from sunlight through cadmium telluride nano thin-film photovoltaic technology. On the other hand, the quantum dot nano top coating system decomposes PM2.5 and volatile organic compounds, which will help improve air quality. Ir Thomas HO appreciated the efforts CIC-ZCP has paid to put new technologies into practice for the benefit of the members of the public.
A pioneer of MiC
To achieve the target of carbon neutrality, the construction industry should stay up to date on the advancement of technology. CIC-ZCP together with the “MiC Resources Centre”, “Building Information Modelling Space” (BIM Space) and the “Construction Innovation and Technology Application Centre” (CITAC) have formed the "iHub”. The brand new “i-Hub” exhibits advanced technologies and materials to promote the application of innovative techniques and solutions in the local construction industry. While the “Modular Integrated Construction” (MiC) approach is widely adopted nowadays, this method was once doubted when introduced to Hong Kong several years ago. Back in 2018, CIC pioneered the development of MiC by constructing Hong Kong’s first MiC-constructed building in CIC-ZCP, giving a lead to the industry that this “factory assembly followed by on-site installation” method is favourable to improving construction productivity, safety and sustainability. There are more than 60 local construction projects adopting MiC so far, including the Temporary Quarantine Camps built in Lei Yue Mun Park and Penny’s Bay.
