Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government Chief Secretary Henry Tang said here Wednesday the HKSAR government requires the new government complex development project at Tamar to achieve the highest environmental assessment level.

Responding to inquiries by the Legislative Council here Wednesday, Tang said the Tamar project is an environmentally sustainable project, with a number of environmentally-friendly measures and energy-saving building services features, including energy efficient and renewable energy installations.

According to the highest level of the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method, the new HKSAR government complex will have to reach the highest performance criteria for sustainability issues relating to the buildings' planning, design, construction, commissioning, management, operation and maintenance.

Such criteria include hygiene, health, comfort and amenity; land use, site impacts and transport; use of materials, recycling and waste management; water quality, conservation and recycling; and energy efficiency, conservation and management.

After commissioning, the HKSAR government will conduct a carbon audit on the complex and implement an emission-reduction campaign to cut its greenhouse gas emission.

"As it is a design-and-build contract, the scope for changing the design is fairly limited. But we will continue to consider the possibility of incorporating more energy-saving facilities in the project provided the overall program is not affected and no extra funding needs to be sought," Tang said.

The construction of the new HKSAR government complex at Tamar, with an appropriation of 5.2 billion HK dollars (671 million U.S. dollars), began in February 2008 and is due to complete in 2011.

Source: Xinhua