On April 8, the government's HK$450 million building energy efficiency funding scheme was launched with HK$300 million for sponsorship of more than 1,600 projects. Owners are being encouraged to upgrade their buildings with more energy-efficient lighting, power supply, air conditioning, lifts and escalators.
In his latest policy address, the chief executive said that Hong Kong has the responsibility to meet the challenge of climate change by evolving into an economy based on low energy consumption and low pollution. Given that 89 per cent of total power consumption is from the type of building services mentioned above, anything that can make buildings more power-efficient seems an appropriate initiative.

To guide the general public in identifying and selecting higher-efficiency appliances and to raise public awareness in energy saving, the government has also implemented an energy efficiency labelling scheme.

As of November 9, every manufacturer or importer of certain "prescribed products" (currently room air conditioners, refrigerators and compact fluorescent lamps, but more are expected to be added) will be required to register their products with the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department and carry product energy information labels on all products marketed in Hong Kong.

While these initiatives are timely and favourable, they are unnecessarily limited in scope and effect. Far greater potential benefits - environmental, health and economic - can be achieved when the focus goes beyond mere energy efficiency.

Take lighting as an example. As technology advances, a matching vocabulary has emerged to describe not only how much energy is consumed, but how well. "Luminous efficacy" is the amount of light that a source generates relative to the power it uses. "Lumen maintenance" refers to how well the lamp maintains its light output over time, while the "colour rendering index" measures the ability of a light source to reproduce the colours of various objects faithfully.

Also important are the raw materials and energy used in production, delivery, recycling and waste disposal.

To help people take a more lifecycle-oriented approach, there are a number of credible and capable "ecolabelling schemes" in Hong Kong to evaluate and certify overall environmental performance that complies with International Organisation for Standardisation guidelines.

These schemes, together with some 35 comparable programmes around the world, investigate and determine the top environmental products in an ever-expanding range of goods and services. They then grant a licence to the relevant industries and businesses to use these official ecolabels.

A more ambitious and broader strategy to improve environmental performance could incorporate existing tools like the ecolabelling schemes and other similar initiatives.

Linda W.P. Ho is the chief executive officer of Green Council