Page 9 - ICE 2023 Ebook file

ICE Breaker 2023 Knowledge – Hong Kong Association

Annual conference 2022

“Surviving the climate crisis:

how prepared is the construction industry?”

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By Stanley Cheung

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more photos
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The ICE HKA Annual conference 2022 “Surviving the climate crisis: how prepared is the construction
industry?” with about 400 online participants was successfully held on 29 April 2022 despite the 5th
wave of Covid-19 pandemic in Hong Kong.

It was our privilege to have Mr Ricky Lau, JP, the Permanent Secretary for Development (Works) of the
HKSAR Government and ICE Representative for Hong Kong, to preface the Conference with his opening
address. He highlighted the grave importance of climate change and its consequences, and shared with
us the critical roles of infrastructure and the construction industry in tackling the climate crisis through
de-carbonization, innovation in construction and improving our city’s resilience.

This year, we were very honoured to have Mr Wong Kam Sing, GBS, JP, Secretary for the Environment,
HKSAR Government; and Mr Ed McCann, President, Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) as our keynote
speakers. Mr Wong showed us the impacts of global warming and unprecedented extreme weather
with recent incidents in Hong Kong, e.g. Hato, 2017 and Mangkhut, 2018. He also introduced the
Hong Kong’s Climate Action Plan 2050 which brought together the overall strategies, plans, targets and
actions for Hong Kong to achieve carbon neutrality before 2050. Mr McCann, on the other hand, shared
his enlightenment on how increasing efficiency and productivity is the key to rising to the challenge
of tackling climate change. He also encouraged us, as engineers, to develop our skills in the use of
techniques and technology to collect and manage data, to communicate more effectively, to design and
plan optimally, and to manage our operations effectively, because effectiveness and efficiency within our
sector are key to both reducing carbon emissions and addressing the impact of climate change.

Apart from the keynote speakers, we were also pleased to have Dr Daman Lee from CLP Power Hong
Kong Limited; Mr Simon Booker from PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited; Mr Dong Chen and Mr Desmond
Lee from Cundall Hong Kong Limited; Dr Bruce Chong from Ove Arup & Partners Hong Kong Ltd; Ms

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