HK Declaration

In May 2010, the Presidents and Vice-Chancellors of the eight publicly-funded universities in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) added their collective voice to educators around the world by signing the Hong Kong Declaration and establishing the Hong Kong Sustainable Campus Consortium (HKSCC) under the Heads of Universities Committee (“HUCOM”).

The Hong Kong Declaration includes a statement of principles regarding

• the importance of climate change and sustainable development for the universities’ core mission of research, teaching, and knowledge exchange;

• the ethical obligation of educators to provide students, as the future leaders and decisions makers of society, with a thorough understanding of the nature of environmental, social and economic sustainability challenges;

• the opportunity for universities to serve as models within the community; and

• their responsibility to work across the community to forge appropriate solutions.

The document further commits the signatories’ institutions to

• establishing targets for the reduction of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water use, and waste; and

• incorporating relevant issues in the teaching curriculum; and reporting regularly on key environmental performance measures.

A public announcement of the signing of the Hong Kong Declaration and the formation of the HKSCC was made by the Acting HUCOM Convenor Professor Way Kuo, President of City University of Hong Kong, and HKU Vice-Chancellor, Professor Lap-Chee Tsui, at the opening plenary session of the C40/Climate Dialogue conference on 3rd November 2010 in Hong Kong.

In an effort to broaden awareness in the wider community of the importance of sustainability in higher education and the role of Hong Kong universities in this regard, the HKSCC hosted a booth at the “Youth Summit” at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts on Sunday, 7th November 2010. The booth highlighted the work underway at the member universities to address local issues related to climate change.