Enabling Low Carbon Living in Shek Kip Mei (ENLOCALI)

Discoverers’ Brief:

Faculty and Students Guide

17th April 2013

Overview 1. The Sham Shui Po District

– Information – Snapshots – Existing Low Carbon Initiatives

2. Timeline of fieldwork 3. Data Collection

– Questionnaire – Observation List

4. Undertaking Visits 5. Student Learning

– Stakeholders’ Workshop – Fieldwork Diaries

The Sham Shui Po District

• The lowest median monthly domestic household income of Hong Kong’s 18 districts – HK$11,003 – (Kowloon average HK$15,035)

• Highest percentage of over 65 year olds (16.3 %)

• Public rental housing population approx. 60,000

Source: Census and Statistics Department (2006)

Estates in the Sham Shui Po District

Estate Year of intake

No. of block(s)

No. of rental flats Flat size (m2) No. of

households Authorized population

Chak On Estate 1983 4 1900 11.3-39.1 1800 4100

Nam Shan Estate 1977 8 2800 23.1-46.5 2600 6900

Pak Tin Estate 1975 20 8800 30.6-38.8 8300 23400

Shek Kip Mei Estate

1976, 2006, 2012

17 9200 11.5-55.7 8000 20600

Tai Hang Tung Estate 1984 9 2100 17.7-50.1 2000 5000

Tai Hang Sai Estate 1995 8 n.d n.d n.d n.d

Source: Hong Kong Housing Authority (2012)

Snapshots in the Sham Shui Po District

Air pollution survey in Sham Shui Po (2011) • Carried out by the Clean Air Network (CAN) • Focuses on outdoor air pollution • About 70% of citizens surveyed think air pollution will be a threat to their health

Existing Low Carbon Initiatives Green Delight in Estates (since 2005) • Aims at raising environmental awareness of Public Rental Housing dwellers • Organisations involved:

Housing Authority (HA), Friends of the Earth (FoE) & Green Power • Estates involved:

Tai Hang Tung Estate, Pak Tin Estate and Chak On Estate

Jan-Aug 2012 •Recruit and Brief Student Leaders •Contact Sham Shui Po District

Councilors to introduce project and seek their support

•Conduct pilot tests and analyze the findings

•Compilation of Discoverers’ Brief

Timeline of fieldwork

Jan-Aug 2012

Sept-Nov 2012

Dec 2012

Apr 2013

Jan-Mar 2013 Dec 2012

• Stakeholders' Workshop

Apr 2013 • Dissemination Workshop:

Launching of Residents’ Brief and presentation of findings

Jan-Mar 2013 • Analysis and evaluation of

data

Sept-Nov 2012 • Field visits •Analysis of data from

demographics and surveys •Demonstration and test of

particular energy and water saving technology

• Set up website •Getting some residents and/or

commercial tenants of particular housing estates to use the website

Data Collection

Primary Data

Power Meters

Observation List Questionnaire

1. Questionnaire to explore current practices in relation to energy, water, air quality and environmental awareness

2. Observation list to assess the flat/shop physical condition (lighting, ventilation, indoor temperature, indoor greening, orientation and surrounding environment)

3. Power meters to check the consumption of specific household/shop lighting fixtures and appliances

Criteria Questions

Background

1. How many people from the following age groups live in your apartment? 2. How big is your apartment ? 3. How much were you charged in your latest electricity, Towngas and water bills

respectively?

Energy

4. How many fluorescent lights (non-incandescent) do you have in your apartment? 5. How many LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights do you have in your apartment? 6. During hot weather, how many hours do you tend to have air-conditioning on at

home? 7. Do you regularly turn off lights when you leave the room and not leave your

appliances on standby? 8. What temperature do you usually keep your home at?

Water 9. How many times per week do you use the washing machine on average? 10. How do you describe the amount of water you use during your shower/bath? 11. Which flushing water do you use in your apartment?

Indoor Air Quality

12. Do any family members smoke in the flat? 13. Do you think the air quality in your flat is affected by vehicles and roads nearby? 14. Are there any exhaust fans installed in your flat?

Environmental awareness

15. How often do you recycle these items? Paper, plastic, cans 16. Do you know whether there is any renewable energy generation in Shek Kip Mei? 17. If yes, what type(s) of renewable energy generation are you aware of in Shek Kip Mei?

Questionnaire

Adequacy of natural light Total number of light bulbs

& fluorescent lights

Indoor temperature Ventilation

Observation List

Energy Efficiency Labels: Air conditioner/Refrigerator Water Efficiency Labels: Washing machines/ Shower/Water tap

Indoor greening Busy road nearby

Undertaking Visits

Undertaking Visits

• Students distributed promotional material into the mailbox of each household

Undertaking Visits

Student Learning

• a discovery-led, innovative project of local interest and impact in the field of environmental public policy and management

Pursue

• an understanding of the existing approaches, gaps in knowledge and implementation of low carbon living in localities

Demonstrate

• social awareness of City U faculty and students and contribute to the quality of life of deprived communities through knowledge dissemination

Raise

• basic research data in a systematic way

Analyze

• ability to set ideas in a wider context, to sustain them long-term, and to reach some conclusions

Exhibit

Stakeholder Workshop – 8th Dec 2012 Students presented their work to the District Councillor (Mr Tsung Po-shan) and Shek Kip Mei residents

Group 1 Slides

Group 2 Slides

Group 3 Slides

Fieldwork Diaries

Students were asked to critically reflect on their experiences and ideas through a weekly fieldwork diary. For example: • How has your experience of participating in the project

changed your perception of low carbon living? • What difficulties have arisen in undertaking the work? • How might you take forward this work in the future? • What have you gained personally from the Idea

Incubator project?

Initial uncertainty:

Understanding Low Carbon Living

“For visiting flats every week, we were excited to imagine what would happen during the visits – would the households refuse to let us come in? Will we meet some kind households? Our first visit is in a few days and we are looking forward to it”

“We have done different flat visits and it helped me realize people would live a low carbon lifestyle mainly to save money”

“We discovered that the questionnaire is too simple to collect data… so our group has added more questions related to carbon emissions and family size in order to get more meaningful data”

Becoming aware of the concept of low carbon living:

Awareness of other factors – such as education

Practical Challenges Overcoming the challenge of gaining access to residents: “The response from residents is little, passive or even negative. This is quite different from what we expected at the beginning. We had distributed about 3,000 leaflets and DC office said the response was near zero”

“Since the location of the sockets of the refrigerator and television are behind the refrigerator and the table respectively, we can’t set up the power meters”

Being inventive in order to measure energy consumption:

Involvement in a Practical Project “As a pilot scheme student leader, it offers me a glimpse about how to organise a project, from meeting and communicating with DC offices, contacting the households, to designing posters, leaflets and certificates, etc. To sum up our project, it provides me with an invaluable first-hand experience of visits to local families. Apart from theory learnt from textbooks, it is good to have something practical”

"This meaningful project provides us with experience that cannot be obtained from textbooks. I hope in the future we can have other projects like this in other subjects or that this project can be expanded to a larger scale”

“Through the incubator, I had a lot of experience like how to arrange visits and to interview people. Moreover, I have the chance to know more about different life style of Hong Kong citizen”.

References • Hong Kong SAR. Census and Statistics Department.

(2006). Basic Tables for District Council Districts: Hong Kong 2006 By-Census. Retrieved March 22, 2013 from the World Wide Web: http://info.hktdc.com/econforum/tdc/tdc080203.htm

• Hong Kong SAR. Housing Authority. (2012). Estate Locator. Retrieved March 22, 2013 from the World Wide Web: http://www.housingauthority.gov.hk/en/global-elements/estate-locator/search.html

Q&A