Using the environmental protection daily measures in Park Island, Hong Kong as a case study, this research investigates various daily green measures that have been adopted in a private residential estate and explores how those measures has demonstrated outstanding green management in estate that raise the environmental protection awareness for residents. Design/Methodology/Approach : This paper identifies environmental protection measures adopted in estate management to raise environmental awareness for all of the residents. The objectives of environmental protection measures aimed at demonstrating the green management in estate and how to educate and encourage residents to support in daily green living. Authors conducted twenty-five in-depth semi-structured interviews with respondents so as to fully understand their views towards the green management in estate. Findings : Green facility management in estate, green measures in estate restaurant, green workshops and activities in clubhouses, and green events were perceived by all of the study respondents as interesting, interactive and influential, which raised environmental awareness, encourage residents to participate in environmental protection while they are living. Practical Implications : Based on the insights gained from respondents, positive influence are contributed by green facility management in estate, green measures in estate restaurant, clubhouse green workshops and activities, and clubhouse green events to demonstrate environmentally friendly estate management and raise the environmental protection awareness and encourage residents to take part in green practices. Estate management and residents should join hand in hand in daily environmental protection. Originality/Value : This paper urges for the importance of all residents and all estate management companies to engage in daily environmental protection for sustainable development. The aim of such an episode is to arouse all stakeholders of estate to participate in daily environmental protection wholeheartedly for sustainable development.
As global warming begins to alert the awareness of the need for greater environmental conservation, energy efficiency, and better places to live and work becomes more prevalent [
The setting for the present study was effective environmental measures adopted in daily estate management of Park Island, Hong Kong. Park Island named as “the leisure vacation island” is a private residential area situated in Ma Wan, which is located in the north-east part of Ma Wan. Park Island consists of over 5000 residential units with 35 blocks and 3 large clubhouses. In Park Island, over 40,000 sq・m are covered with greenery with gardens and mini farms, taking up nearly 40% of the site area. Since vehicle restrictions are set in Ma Wan to limit the emissions, the project by and large is described as a “pollution-free green city” which promotes one-stop green building and management [
・ Pro-environmental behavior: Environmental behavior that changes the availability of materials or energy from the environment or alters the structure and dynamics of ecosystems or the biosphere in environmentally responsible way [
・ Personal moral norms: An individual’s sense of personal moral obligation to engage in pro-environmental behavior.
・ Perceived behavioral difficulty: An individual’s perceived amount of effort required to perform the behavior [
Over the years, concerns related to the environment have progressively escalated [
The term event is used for describing different activities designed for different purposes. It can be public or private, commercial or charitable, celebratory or commemorative activities which bring people together to share an experience and produce a measurable outcome [
Resident’s involvement to live green should be a norm. We need to change their ways, their behaviors and their value to care about environmental protection and sustainability must become the social norm. Along with the term community, it is said that public participation is considered the centerpiece of the democratic process [
Research on environmental measures in estate contributions has traditionally employed a variety of deductive processes, testing a plethora of hypotheses and pre-determined theories. Green promotion event researchers have typically approached the problem from a positivist perspective, utilizing quantitative research techniques such as surveys and questionnaires, and processing data with the help of statistical data analysis tools. While mostly deductive in nature, such research tools tend to measure a set of predetermined hypotheses, searching for answers to the “what” questions and not allowing for any additional factors to enter the researcher’s process of reasoning [
Park Island was selected in this study because it was the first largest eco-friendly residential area in Hong Kong. The management of Park Island is dedicated, devoted and determined towards environmental protection and promotion which produced significant results such and being named the most energy-efficient residential estate by Friends of the Earth. The respondents were the residents in Park Island community. The sample group comprised fifteen female and ten male respondents, all aged 18 - 65. Their education levels were secondary [
Data collection took place in the estate. The researcher undertook one-to-one in-depth semi-structured interviews lasting approximately 40 minutes at nearest restaurant. Respondents were given information about the purpose of the study and written consent was obtained. Topics and questions were designed to elicit responses regarding each participant’s attitude, feelings, perceptions and pro-environmental protection behavior after attending environmental protection activities, exploring general themes proposed by the environmental behavior and personal moral obligation literature. The main interview questions are seeking the residents’ views, thoughts and feelings on the green measures, strategies, events and activities in clubhouse operations and management.
Further questions and prompts were included to enquire their feelings, perceptions and attitudes after environmental protection activities, in order to identify any specific circumstances which may have contributed to a participant’s pro-environmental behavior and personal moral obligation to engage environmental protection. The interviews were digitally recorded and summaries were written up. Responses were analyzed using manual coding, scanning the recordings and flagging emergent themes and common views [
Over the years, Park Island management has committed to implement various environmental protections measures to educate residents to adopt green living in every facet of their daily lives.
7-color recycle bins with instruction has been placed next to the service management office to educate the residents how to do recycling properly. Air jet hand dryers have been installed in the toilets of the clubhouse instead of using paper hand towels for residents to dry their hands after washing. Notice has been posted to remind residents to bring their own towels and self-contained water bottles for waste reduction. In addition, the estate implements effective green measures through daily operations. LED lighting is installed at the ceilings and curtains are used for sheltering from sunlight as well as helping to spread daylight to the clubhouse. Besides, two heating pumps in the indoor swimming pool are installed to regulate both of the water temperature and indoor temperature of the pool. In general, only one heat pump is activated in the swimming in order to save energy. In the purpose of energy saving and maintain energy efficiency, the start time of heating pimp is specially arranged and the indoor air temperature can be adjusted by normal air flow.
“The 7-color recycle bins are put in estate that really alert and encourage residents to participate in daily recycling”.
“I appreciate they keep monitoring the start time of heating pimp, energy saving and introducing energy efficient materials such as energy saving LED light bulbs”.
Owing to encourage residents to reduce the use of disposables and cultivate good habits of recycle, various practical actions are educated and promoted. No paper cup―the disposable paper cup will not be provided in the Chinese tea corner. Residents are recommended to bring their own water containers. No straw and no plastic tableware posters have been placed. Straw and plastic tableware are not encouraged to use. On-loan services of “Take-away Reusable Lunch Box”― residents can borrow a reusable lunch box at the clubhouse for take-away and say “No” to disposable plastic. The excerpts below show the feedback of those practical measures adopted in restaurant of clubhouse.
“I am so proud to see the management taking the lead to protect and promote green living environment, as they have demonstrated a socially responsible company, they are very aware of the daily duties to protect the environment. As such, they are firmly committed to sustainable development and to bring a cleaner environment to our residents, employees and the community in everyday and for long term”.
“We appreciate the measures and rationale of green living in clubhouse. So we stop using straw in restaurant. We bring our own bottle for taking water and bring food container to take away food leftover so as to reduce plastic disposables.
Furthermore, education workshops and exhibition display board were displayed in Green Green Club about the awareness of air-quality. Moreover, through organizing different environmental themed workshops, children can learn about environmental awareness and creativity in a funny and creative ways. Most impressive is they organize various interactive, informative and interesting educative environmental activities such as “Environmental Protection Pioneer Campaign”, “Environmental Protection Workshop”, “Food Waste Composer Visit” have been organized in Park Island from time to time to educate and encourage residents to live green. The excerpts below show the positive influences of green management in estate to all those residents.
“I appreciate management have implemented and promoted various environmental measures/activities to reduce disposables and no plastics for protecting environment and reduce wastage. Management takes a good initiative to encourage residents to take part to contribute to protect the earth through their daily operations in restaurant and reading corners”.
“A number of environmental facilities were visited such as the food waste decomposer and workshops are arranged to our kids. Our kids and I gained a better understanding of environmental protection and promote green living.”
“Environmental protection pioneer workshops and games were organized to educate our kids in their spare time”.
Motivating the community to engage voluntarily is the key to success. Small steps and large collection can make a better world for all living creatures. Through sustainability by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing waste products, increasing recycling, etc. both small steps and large collective actions, they showed how such efforts can make a big impact to the community and a better world. Management implements various classes and activities to educate and influence residents to take an active role in responding to environmentally friendly measures.
According to Goldblatt [
Management encourages the community to reduce waste at source by donating usable resources to the charities through “Rewarding Recycling Campaign”, “Green Efforts Give Great Rewards Event”, “Environmental Campaign Day”, “Green Day Event”, Environmental Protection Carnival” and “Second-hand Bazaar”, helps to spread the message of fully cherish and utilize materials and adopt a green lifestyle. It raises public awareness of the importance of waste reduction and to encourage the public to make good use of resources, making the world a greener place to live. The excerpts below show the interactive, interesting, influential and inspiring green events for residents.
“The meaningful and inspiring events tailored made were launched for all ages of residents. It nurtures the awareness of environmental preservation and sustainable development for next generation. The objectives of environmental protection activities are for demonstrating environmentally friendly estate management and raise the environmental protection awareness and induce greater community involvement to live green”.
The results of in-depth interviews revealed inspiring insights from respondents’ perspectives regarding the experiences and benefit contributions of environmental protection activities which were derived the values, attitudes, feelings, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations from respondents through engaging various environmental protection actions to achieve the perceived outcome of sustainability and green globe. Based on the result, environmental protection activities was perceived by all of the study respondents as a fun, educational, influential, informative, interactive and meaningful event. It inspired respondents to embrace positive environmental attitudes and engage in pro-environmental behavior in their daily lives. It raised environmental awareness and moral obligation to engage in environmental protection, induced greater pro-environmental behavior for sustainability. Based on the insights gained from event respondents, lots of contributions are contributed by educative environmental protection activities for nurturing residents to commit in environmental protection, inducing greater pro-environmental behavior for sustainable development.
This study aimed to investigate various green strategies, measures and activities that have been adopted in a large private residential complex and explore how those strategies has demonstrated extraordinary environmentally friendly estate management that raise the environmental protection awareness for residents to live green in everyday of their lives.
The efforts to combat climate change touch on every part of our lives and should be the responsibilities of all residents, management companies and governments. The issue of climate change can only be sufficiently addressed with wide participation from the governments, different sectors of the businesses and residents. The researchers were delighted to learn that educative environmental protection activities were perceived by all of the study respondents as educative and effective, which demonstrate environmentally friendly estate management and raise the environmental protection awareness and encourage residents’ involvement to live green. The results of this study appear to suggest that all the residents, estate management companies and governments should actively engage in environmental protection for sustainable development.
The findings of this study have significant implications for estate management. Based on the results of this research, the following are suggestions to induce greater pro-environmental behavior from event attendees.
・ To recycle aluminum cans, glass bottles, and newspapers as well as water. Water recycling is reusing treated wastewater for beneficial purposes such as toilet flushing.
・ To make sure recycling bins are enough and clearly marked.
・ To estimate and order the right amount of food and beverages for event participants to avoid food wastage.
・ To coordinate with environmental promotion organizations to organize more interactive environmental protection activities regularly.
・ Take own bottle and boxes for drinking and take own box to contain take away food.
・ To stop using straw while drinking.
・ Take bath in less than 10 minutes.
・ To participate all the daily environment measures wholeheartedly.
Like all research, this study has a number of limitations which the authors attribute to the relative weakness of interviews to present valid, reliable and trustworthy empirical evidence. Since this study has adopted a qualitative approach, sample size is not a significant issue, despite the small sampling size of interviewees. The focus has been on generating insights on the perceptions of various green measures in clubhouse of Park Island. The research findings should not to be generalized to the population at large since this was never the intention of the researcher. As this study has employed in-depth interviews as the main mode of data collection, the efficiency and effectiveness of this study will depend to some degree on the researcher’s ability to assist participants to derive their thoughts, feelings and experiences in their perception of green management in estate. The findings are based on the interviewee’s views about how they view the various daily green measures adopted in Park Island. Consequently, it is recognized that the results of this study present a snapshot of thoughts and feelings amongst a specific group of respondents at environmental protection daily measures in Park Island, at a particular point in time. Although the authors make no claims regarding the generalization of the results, this study has indicated a concentration of the benefits generated by daily environmental protection measures in Park Island. This finding should be of interest to property management whose is committed to sustainability in daily management.
The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
Kong, A., Kwan, M. and Liu, D. (2019) Committed to Sustainability in Daily Management. Open Journal of Business and Management, 7, 480-491. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojbm.2019.72032