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PAST CHAIRPERSON’S MESSAGE
GENERAL MANAGER’S MESSAGE
Prof John NG Cheuk-yee Past Chairperson BEAM Society Limited
BRAVE NEW WORLD*
The BEAM Society Limited (BSL) owes its humble birth to
the former BEAM Society in 1996 after the early green building
movement in Hong Kong in the 1980s. It was led by passionate
industry leaders and professionals who shared a vision for a sustainable community and a green liveable built environment in harmony with nature. It serves all those people lucky enough to call this great city home.
When I compare BSL’s 10th Anniversary achievements with the 5th Anniversary, the results are indeed amazing. The number of registered projects has exceeded 1,500; assessed projects per year doubled from 100
to 200; not to mention the increased robustness and improved quality of service offered by our 50 strong staff. BEAM Plus has proven itself as the most popular and recognised brand for Hong Kong’s green buildings. Further, the Society is now steaming into digitalisation and automated assessment, an unfulfilled dream while I was at the helm.
Green Building is not just about buildings. Its goal is about creating a green and sustainable built environment to improve quality of living, health and to maximise joy. In this past year, amid the COVID-19 crisis, socio-political landscape, trade disputes, and extreme weather and natural disasters, our need and longing for these things have only become more pressing.
People are eager to get back to “normal” – to return to their past ways of living, working, and playing. Unfortunately, the reality is that the world will not be the same. The pandemic and climate change will leave no one untouched. Future cities need to be reimagined and reshaped, and so does green building. COVID-19 asserts that the direction of green building is right. The initial
goal remains unchanged, but there will certainly be new agendas as we sail into new and turbulent waters. I can only begin to imagine what these might be: the health and wellness performance of the built environment, green infrastructure and communities, control and mediation of common pathogen exchange in the built environment, accelerated coalition of physical and social resilience, a smart city and new forms of remote relationships, respecting humanness in social-distancing, and so on.
The new world will be fascinating and answered by the actions we take today. Let us work together. Bravely.
Prof John NG Cheuk-yee Past Chairperson (2012-2017) BEAM Society Limited
*Tribute to Aldous Huxley
Ir CS HO General Manager BEAM Society Limited
Time flies. The steady but impressive growth of the BEAM Society
Limited (“BSL”) in the last decade is amazing, so is my journey embarked on BSL since 2014.
It has been a fruitful decade for the development of BSL. I would like to highlight some of the important milestones at BSL.
We are devoted to optimising the BEAM Plus assessment tools. The revamped Version 2.0 for BEAM
Plus Existing Buildings and BEAM Plus New Buildings were introduced in 2015 and 2019 respectively.
I am honoured to have participated in their major revision exercises. During the process, we engaged a wide-ranging of stakeholders to seek their feedback and proactively responded to the changing market needs. I am also thrilled to witness the birth of new members of the BEAM Plus family including BEAM Plus Neighbourhood and BEAM Plus Data Centres, which is expected to be launched in 2021.
Integrity, consistency and efficiency are the core values of BSL. Having become a public body in 2016, the BSL has come under the jurisdiction of the relevant provisions for public bodies under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance, in order to safeguard the public interest and integrity of the Association. Technical Review Committee (“TRC”) was reformed in the same year to achieve greater organisational effectiveness and efficiency by decentralising the original roles and authorities of TRC into multiple committees each tasked with clearly defined and specific duties.
Our commitment to maintaining high corporate governance standards is the key to success. BSL was accredited with ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems, ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems & OHSAS 18001:2007 Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems in 2018. The BSL not only complies with ISO standards when performing building assessment, but also highly values the wellness of staff members. Regular internal and external audits are performed to ensure our daily operations meet the ISO standards.
The launch of the Assessment Automation System, iBEAM, in 2021 will be another major milestone achievement of BSL. The new e-Submission platform is designed to automate the current assessment process in entirety to achieve increased efficiency, enhanced consistency, higher productivity/throughput, less human-dependent and increased robustness in preventing corruptive or irregular practices.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank the current and past Board of Directors for their strategic directions and trust. My heartfelt thanks also go to all committee members and our strategic partners including HKGBC, BEC and PGBC for their staunch support and contribution.
To meet future challenges, our team of devoted staff will continue striving to deliver the best to the journey towards a greener, sustainable community.
IrCSHO General Manager BEAM Society Limited
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