“Sometimes it just takes a willingness to spend a little more money!” – How Swire Properties integrates environmental considerations into their business and why Mr. Fong wishes Alaska in Hong Kong.

Stephen K.K. Fong, General Manager, Swire Proper-ties Ltd., Hong Kong, China

One of Swire Properties' core values, the social respon-sibility statement, reads like this: 'To be sensitive to the concerns of the communities in which we operate, showing leadership when required and, at all times, respecting the environment which we share.' Many enterprises around the world and a few in Hong Kong are trying to address current social, cultural and environmental issues by taking more responsibility than required by law and engaging in so called Corporate Social Responsibility or Citizenship pro-grams. Some of them are successful; others lack genuine management support and, therefore, the priority setting and financial resources. If the Chairman supports the efforts, like at Swire Properties, success is much more likely.
We met Mr. Stephen Fong, Swire Properties’ General Mana-ger, in a modern conference room on the 33rd floor of One Pacific Place with a breathtaking view overlooking parts of Hong Kong Island and Victoria harbor. He ex-plained to us why the basis for all of Swire Properties new buildings is a long-term commitment to community building (investment strategy) and not a short sighted trading strategy. With great passion, Mr. Fong demonstrates on his laptop how, by using leading edge architectural software, Swire avoids potentially adverse environ-mental impacts to its operations. It makes sure no material gets wasted and delivers state-of-the-art design.
After five years as general manager at Swire Properties, Mr. Fong is proud of having contributed to further increase the focus on sustainability at Swire and we are delighted to see a convincing example of a responsible Executive. Can more be done? Of course, always, but it’s a matter of committing and starting, in the first place.
This site gives you an impression of what we talked about with Mr. Fong. You might be able to read more about him, but also about the interesting new projects of Swire in Hong Kong as well as in mainland China in our book “MyImpact”.

Stephen Fong’s selected quotations:
“I have always found pleasure in developing unused, dor-mant land that nobody was interested in. I prefer to pre-serve old buildings rather than tear them down.”

“When it comes to environment we are far from perfect and we have made a lot of mistakes. We used to discard building waste – and it can make up to 25% of the material - to landfills. Today, we are able to separate it and recycle most of it and we are bringing down the waste percentage dramatically. The point is to learn from mistakes and always try to do your best.”

“Sometimes it just takes the willingness to spend a little more money. Obviously, we are not in the business of destroying money. I just believe that there are ways to incorporate both needs – the ones of the business and the ones of the environment.”

“Lately I spent some time in Alaska and was amazed by the crispness and freshness of the air there. It was awe-some and beautiful. Why should we not be able to im-prove the really badly polluted air in Hong Kong and the surrounding mainland China region?”

“I guess my main motivation is to contribute during my lifetime to a good place to live for my three children. I would also want to make a positive difference in the city I live in.”

Some background on Stephen Fong:
Stephen was born and educated in Sin-gapore and after further education in the USA, he made a career as a hotel developer. Extensive assignments and travel around the world followed before, five years ago, he settled in Hong Kong to take up his position at Swire Proper-ties.

Some background on Swire Properties Ltd.:
Swire Properties is a wholly owned subsidiary of Swire Pacific Limited, a Hong Kong listed company within the Swire Group and is one of Hong Kong’s leading property development and management companies employing over 2.000 staff.
The core business activities of Swire Properties consist of the planning, design, construction, sale, letting and management of commercial and residential properties.
The current portfolio of Swire Properties encompasses an extensive portfolio of investment properties (over 12 mil-lion square feet of office and retail premises are managed) and trading properties (developed and sold around 30.000 residential units).

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) at Swire Properties:
With all its activities Swire tries to show its long-standing commitment to environmental protection and health & safety in all aspects of its work. The awareness of the social and community implications of its work has let to social responsibility becoming one of its corporate values that are adhered in all aspects of Swire’s business.
To bring its social responsibility statement into life, Swire focuses on a few key areas, most notably the environ-mental sensibility. The company is committed to ensuring that environmental considerations are an integral part of decision-making, management and culture. Environmentally responsible measures and initiatives en-hance the quality of life of the community in which the new developments are undertaken.
Swire Properties was the first property development and management company to employ a designated Environ-mental Affairs Manager. It has an Environmental, Health & Safety Steering Committee made up of representatives from various departments, to develop initiatives and to communicate the environmental policies of Swire Group and Swire Properties.

If you would like to engage with the work of Stephen Fong or get to know more about Swire Properties please visit www.swireproperties.com,
or for more specific possibilities contact joanna.stefanska@myimpact.ch or wolfgang.hafenmayer@myimpact.ch