A Green Campus, Ecological Heritage and a History of Expansion — HKUST

Perched on a hillside overlooking Clear Water Bay, the HKUST campus enjoys an ecological setting that is rare among Hong Kong universities: it sits beside a natural woodland belt and a bay, and has drawn seawater directly from the bay to cool the campus since its founding. From 2019, the University has gone further, systematically advancing its "Sustainable Smart Campus" initiative, turning the campus itself into a living laboratory for research into green buildings, energy management and biodiversity conservation.

---

# 1. Sustainability Strategy and Net-Zero Targets

# 1.1 The Overall Framework

HKUST has drawn up a Net-Zero Action Plan targeting net-zero Scope 1 & 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2045^※.

Near-term milestones:

# 1.2 Recent Energy Performance (2023–24 Academic Year)

According to data published on the HKUST Sustainability website^※:

• Annual energy consumption of approximately 101 million kWh
• Annual GHG emissions of approximately 40,466 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent
• Scope 1 & 2 emissions down about 38% from the 2014 baseline^※

# 1.3 Energy-Saving Measures

In 2023–24, the University replaced 5,842 light fittings with LED units and motion-sensing systems, achieving average electricity savings of around 60%^※. Five lifts were also retrofitted with regenerative-drive upgrades, cutting their energy use by about 30%^※.

Renewable energy: new rooftop solar panels of roughly 158 kW were installed (up 6% on the previous year); by 2022–23, cumulative on-campus renewable generation had exceeded 9.5 million kWh^※. Experimental projects include a 160-square-metre photovoltaic green-roof test bed, elastocaloric cooling technology (prototype trials of a 200 W refrigerator and a 500 W air conditioner), and passive radiative cooling experiments.

EV charging: roughly HK$40 million has been invested to upgrade car parks, equipping about 30% of spaces (some 360) with EV charging facilities of at least 7 kW^※.

# 1.4 The Race to Zero Action Plan: A Local First

Building on the phased energy targets, HKUST has in recent years published a systematic net-zero roadmap. According to University announcements, HKUST has unveiled the first comprehensive Net-Zero Action Plan among local universities, adopting "Race to Zero" as the overarching framework^※. The plan's core commitments can be summed up in three sets of figures:

• Net zero by 2045: zero Scope 1 & 2 GHG emissions across the campus;
• 2035 interim target: a 50% reduction against the baseline^※;
• Progress already made: emissions have fallen by roughly 34% since the first Sustainability Master Plan was published in 2014^※.

To support the roadmap, HKUST has pledged about HK$30 million over the next eight years to trial new climate-tech solutions on campus^※, continuing its long-standing "campus as a testbed" approach. The campus's 2.5 MW solar photovoltaic system is the largest among comparable institutions in Hong Kong^※, and payments received through the Feed-in-Tariff scheme recycle capital back into low-carbon innovation.

On the frontier issue of embodied carbon, HKUST has also set concrete targets: according to the announcement, the Martin Ka Shing Lee Innovation Building, opening in 2025, carries embodied carbon below 500 kg CO₂e/m² — an improvement of about 30% over Hong Kong's baseline of 800 kg CO₂e/m²^※. In other words, the University's decarbonisation efforts now extend beyond operational energy use to the "construction phase" carbon footprint of building materials and site works — among the more advanced approaches in Hong Kong higher education.

In terms of the University's founding narrative, the phrase "the first comprehensive net-zero action plan among local universities" extends HKUST's habitual self-positioning as a "first mover" — the same "first" narrative it has used for blockchain credential verification and the Sustainable Smart Campus. Any contentious or critical external discussion is, per our archive's rules, not reproduced here.

---

# 1.5 Seawater Cooling and the Central Chiller Plant — A "Natural Air Conditioner" in Place Since Day One

Among all the energy-saving measures, the one most distinctive of HKUST — and the earliest implemented — is the central cooling system that has drawn directly on the waters of Clear Water Bay since the University opened.

# Why Seawater Cooling from the Outset?

The Clear Water Bay campus is surrounded by the sea on three sides, and its planners seized on that geographic advantage: seawater-cooled central refrigeration was a pioneering technology adopted in the University's early years, serving the air-conditioning of the academic buildings from the start^※. Compared with conventional air-cooled chillers, the waters of Clear Water Bay stay cooler year-round than Hong Kong's summer air temperatures, so heat exchange is more efficient, and the bulky cooling fans normally arrayed on rooftops become unnecessary — a significant saving in both energy and noise. It was an unusual engineering decision for a Hong Kong university in the 1990s.

The central chiller plant works on a simple logic: centralise the heat exchange, distribute through pipes. Chillers cool chilled water to a set temperature and pump it through an underground network to air-handling units (AHUs) in each building; the warmed return water then goes through a condenser loop that discharges waste heat to the seawater of Clear Water Bay, with the warmed seawater released back into the bay at a regulated temperature to avoid thermal pollution^※. Residual heat from the condenser water is reused to provide hot water for campus facilities^※, coupling cooling with heating in a single system.

# The 2012–2015 Expansion: From Academic Building to District Cooling

In the early years, the central chiller plant served mainly the Academic Building. The turning point came in 2012, when the University planned the eight-storey Cheng Yu Tung Building (CYT)^※ and faced a choice: build a separate air-cooled system for the new building, or expand the existing seawater plant to serve it too. The University chose the latter, converting the plant into a district cooling system covering multiple buildings.

The works ran from 2013 to 2015^※. Core measures included replacing three of the original nine chillers with units roughly 18% more efficient^※ and extending the piping network to connect the Cheng Yu Tung Building. The expansion also reserved connection capacity for the later Shaw Auditorium (opened 2021), and the district cooling system ultimately came to cover the Academic Building, the Cheng Yu Tung Building and the Shaw Auditorium as its main users, with connection designed into the Jockey Club i-Village, which opened in June 2026^※.

The verifiable energy and cost benefits are as follows:

Mark Hodgson, then Vice-President for Administration and Business, said of the project: "It is a testament to the University's commitment to be a global leader in sustainability education and to put this vision into practice."

# The 2016 Asia-Pacific Energy Award

In its 2016 judging, the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) presented its Energy Project of the Year Award for the Asia-Pacific Region to HKUST^※, for a project officially titled "A Successful and Sustainable Energy Efficiency Upgrade by Remodeling of Central Chiller Plant to a District Cooling System". The AEE is one of the world's most authoritative professional bodies for energy engineering; the award confirmed that the project met recognised industry standards across energy savings, cost reduction and environmental benefit.

At an institutional level, in 1997 HKUST became the first institution in Southeast Asia to adopt the energy-performance-contracting mechanism^※ — under which a contractor that successfully cuts the electricity bill shares the savings with the University, using commercial incentive to drive long-term efficiency.

# Recent Cooling-Tower Upgrades and Water Recycling

Rising seawater temperatures from global warming have reduced the efficiency of pure seawater heat exchange. In response, HKUST has installed four cooling towers on the Library roof, each with a heat-exchange capacity of roughly 4,900 kW (about 19,600 kW in total), as auxiliary heat-rejection capacity for the seawater cooling system^※. The towers use evaporative cooling: outdoor air contacts a falling film of water directly, dissipating heat into the atmosphere through evaporation, lowering the condenser-water temperature and easing the load on the main chillers. This dual-track arrangement — seawater as the primary medium, cooling towers as backup — keeps the system operating efficiently even in extreme heat. According to a technical-visit record of the Hong Kong branch of IMechE, the cooling-tower upgrade is estimated to save around 1.8 million kWh of electricity a year^※.

The cooling towers must continuously "bleed off" water to keep its quality within the acceptable limits specified in the operating code of the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD)^※. That bleed-off water is not simply discharged: it is piped into the Library's toilet-flushing system, closing the water loop. The design-day water saving is about 5.865 cubic metres; in 2022 the measured annual bleed-off totalled roughly 8,724 cubic metres, reused for flushing at an average flow of about 0.784 litres per second^※.

The "cooling systems" served by the central chiller plant account for roughly 20% of the campus's annual electricity use^※ — the single largest end-use on campus (the Academic Building and the chiller plant together account for about 72% of annual consumption) — making continued optimisation of the cooling system one of the key paths to the 2028 sustainability targets. On the technological frontier, an SSC project is trialling passive radiative cooling paint: applied to the outer surface of cooling-tower tanks, it radiates heat to space through the atmospheric infrared window, lowering the temperature of the circulating exchange water and, in principle, further reducing cooling energy demand. The project is still collecting experimental data; commercialisation remains to be verified.

---

# 2. Sustainable Smart Campus as a Living Lab

# 2.1 Background

The "Sustainable Smart Campus as a Living Lab" (SSC) initiative was formally launched by the University on 19 February 2019, with initial funding of about HK$50 million over three years^※. The goal is "to transform the campus into a testbed for learning, experimenting and advancing smart innovative ideas that address real-world challenges", with the wider hope of inspiring Hong Kong's development into a sustainable smart city.

The first round selected nine pilot projects, covering: facial-recognition user experience in the Library; a visual-arts installation on healthy behaviour; a real-time big-data platform tracking pedestrian flows; a 100% renewable-energy micro-grid; and indoor navigation and bus analytics.

# 2.2 The 100% Renewable-Energy Micro-Grid

In spring 2019, polycrystalline solar panels were installed on the roof of the CYT (Cheng Yu Tung) Building, linked to an innovative e-fuel storage system, forming an independently operable "smart micro-grid" on campus^※ to verify the feasibility of 100% renewable power supply on a subtropical urban campus.

# 2.3 The Large-Scale Solar System

HKUST has announced Hong Kong's largest campus solar-power project, with expected annual generation of around 3 million kWh — equivalent to the yearly consumption of more than 900 three-person households — and an estimated carbon reduction of about 1.5 million kg over 25 years^※.

# 2.4 The Smart-Campus Monitoring System

The University has deployed a campus-wide network of electricity sub-meters, enabling real-time monitoring of air-conditioning, electricity-use patterns and renewable generation, and providing the data backbone for carbon-emissions management. It has also developed a Green Lab programme that optimises the operation of laboratory fume hoods, and begun drafting procurement guidelines for ultra-low-temperature freezers.

---

# 3. Green Building Standards

# 3.1 Net-Zero Building Policy

HKUST requires all new buildings to meet a net-zero building standard, following BEAM Plus Platinum low-energy design and renewable-energy requirements; design teams must document in writing how they will enhance ecological value, and must conserve existing ecosystems and woodland resources^※.

# 3.2 Buildings with Green Certifications

---

# 3.5 Waste and Water Management

Beyond energy and buildings, HKUST has adopted concrete and comparatively early measures on waste reduction and water conservation, several of them among the first in Hong Kong higher education.

# "No Bottled Water" Campus: The Bottled-Water Ban from 2017–18

HKUST was among the first Hong Kong universities to go "disposable-bottle-free". According to University sustainability materials, from the 2017–18 academic year, HKUST banned the sale and distribution on campus of disposable plastic bottled water in containers under 1 litre, aiming to become a "disposable-bottle-free campus"^※. To support the ban, staff and students are encouraged to carry refillable bottles, and more than 150 water dispensers have been installed across campus^※.

The ban is a bold move — not a nudge to "use less" but a flat prohibition on selling small bottled water, cutting off the source of disposable plastic bottles by institutional means. The supporting network of "more than 150 water dispensers" ensures the ban does not become an inconvenience. This "ban plus infrastructure" combination is a telling example of how HKUST puts sustainability into the concrete details of daily life.

# Food-Waste Recycling and Composting

On food-waste management, according to University materials, a food-waste collection and recycling scheme was launched in the canteens in September 2016, later extended to junior staff quarters and office pantries^※. In 2020–21, HKUST joined the "Food Waste Source Separation Scheme" organised by the Hong Kong Productivity Council, converting 389 tonnes of food waste into animal feed and compost^※. The campus has also acquired a composting machine capable of converting up to 100 litres of organic waste into compost, together with a shredder and a blender to process organic waste^※.

"389 tonnes of food waste turned into feed and compost" is a quantifiable achievement: organic waste that would have gone to landfill becomes a useful resource, embodying the idea of regenerative systems. The same philosophy runs through one of the six design principles of the Guangzhou campus (see Architecture and Sustainable Design of the Guangzhou Campus^※).

From the standpoint of the University's founding narrative, measures like the bottled-water ban and food-waste recycling are less "grand" than solar arrays or the net-zero plan, but they sit closer to the daily lives of staff and students — bringing sustainability down from "institutional strategy" to the micro-level of every bottle of water and every plate of leftovers. They are the Sustainable Smart Campus idea extended into the texture of everyday life.

---

# 4. Landscape Conservation and Biodiversity

# 4.1 Biodiversity Governance

HKUST has established a Biodiversity Steering Committee that meets every two months to review campus greening operations and devise measures to enhance ecological value^※. The University has also adopted a "Tree Planting and Felling Policy" requiring that timber from removed trees be put to sustainable use.

The fit-out of the new Student Center is a showcase of "recycled wood": because construction of the Martin Ka Shing Lee Innovation Building required the removal of acacia trees (Acacia confusa) that had grown on the site for years, the University processed the timber and reused it for the step-risers, benches and standing desks of the new Student Center when it opened in December 2023^※, giving the trees "a life that continues in another form".

# 4.2 The HKUST Biodiversity Map

The HKUST Biodiversity Map is a collaborative project of students and staff, aiming to build an interactive map showing the distribution of habitats for the campus's various species^※.

As of the project's current stage, the map has recorded more than 187 individual species records, covering four categories — butterflies, birds, coastal marine species and trees — each with its own explanatory notes^※. The project is led by Prof. Cindy Lam of the Department of Ocean Science and Helen Wong of the Office of the Dean of Students, and includes four biodiversity field routes through which students can take part in the form of field studies.

# 4.3 Ecological Sustainability Research Projects

Several ecological restoration projects under the Sustainable Smart Campus programme are worth noting:

• Oyster-reef restoration: the project "Restoration of Marine Ecosystems with Smart Oyster Reefs", led by Larry Li and Dean Chan, conducts oyster-reef restoration along the campus shoreline^※.
• Birdwatching: projects led by Cindy Lam and others, including "You Will See a Birdwing" (round six), systematically record migratory and resident birds on campus.
• Pond upgrades: "the pond water-treatment system upgrade" project has improved water quality in campus ecological water bodies.
• Internet of Tree Things: led by Wang Yu-Hsing, this project uses sensors to monitor the health of campus trees in real time.

# 4.4 Composting and Soil Management

HKUST maintains a dedicated space in the LG7 conservation area for storing landscape waste and on-site compost; shredded leaves cover bare soil to retain moisture and add natural nutrients; flower beds receive compost, and "compost tea" is being trialled on lawns — closing the loop on garden waste^※.

---

# 5. Marine Science Research Facilities

HKUST is the only university in Hong Kong that manages a coastline, and among the very few in Asia — some sources say the only one in Southeast Asia — with a waterfront marine research facility on its campus^※.

The Department of Ocean Science (OCES) runs the Ocean Research Facility (OCRF) on the campus waterfront, providing direct access to the eastern waters of Hong Kong for field sampling. Principal research directions include:

The main field-study areas span the Pearl River estuary, Hong Kong's inshore waters and the deep South China Sea. The campus shoreline itself lies in relatively pristine eastern waters of good quality, providing unusually convenient close-range conditions for several coastal ecology research projects.

---

# 6. Major Expansion Projects in Recent Years

# 6.1 Medical Education and Research Complex

On 28 April 2026, HKUST held the groundbreaking ceremony for its Medical Education and Research Complex^※, marking the formal start of construction of Hong Kong's third medical school.

• Location: the main Clear Water Bay campus
• Architecture: led by the globally renowned firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), in collaboration with local architectural consultant Wong Tung & Partners Limited (WTPL)^※
• Scale: eight storeys comprising a three-storey podium and a five-storey tower, with a total floor area of about 6,000 square metres^※
• Design highlights: a "jewel-box" triple-glazed low-emissivity facade; the podium houses an auditorium, library, dining facilities, classrooms and exhibition areas, while the upper floors contain faculty offices and research laboratories; spacious atria on the third and sixth floors; a large stepped outdoor amphitheatre overlooking Shaw Plaza; and cascading landscaped terraces^※
• Cost: about HK$2 billion (roughly US$256 million), funded by HKUST itself^※
• Timeline: foundation works were completed in mid-April 2026; completion is expected in mid-2028, with the inaugural cohort of 50 medical students entering in the 2028–29 academic year and the first graduates expected in 2032^※
• Interim role: the building will serve as the medical school's temporary home until the permanent campus in the Ngau Tam Mei Development Area (northern Metropolis) is ready — expected in 2033–34 — at which point the school will move there in full.

# 6.2 Jockey Club i-Village

The Jockey Club i-Village formally opened on 11 June 2026, providing 1,551 undergraduate places, funded by a donation of over HK$203 million from the Jockey Club Charities Trust, with a floor area of about 35,500 square metres^※. Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects in collaboration with Leigh & Orange, the hexagonal layout embeds four blocks into a sloping site with a height difference of about 25 metres. A pedestrian bridge at the top level connects the southern residential blocks with the northern academic zone, repairing a long-standing and awkward division in the walking experience between the two parts of campus. Solar panels and connection to the campus central chilled-water system are integrated into the design, and the project holds a BEAM Plus Platinum provisional rating.

# 6.3 Martin Ka Shing Lee Innovation Building

Located near the South Gate, the Martin Ka Shing Lee Innovation Building broke ground in November 2022, with a design capacity of about 5,100 square metres of net usable floor area and expected completion in the second quarter of 2025^※. The building focuses on interdisciplinary fields including robotics, artificial intelligence, data science, sustainable living and health sciences, and uses sustainable materials such as low-carbon concrete and recycled steel reinforcement, together with passive energy-saving design and a rooftop photovoltaic system.

# 6.4 New Student Center

The new Student Center opened in December 2023, next to the North Gate and the Red Bird sundial^※. It features study cubicles, Nap Pods and open learning spaces, with a strong emphasis on biophilic design: large windows bring in natural light and indoor plants purify the air. A 13-month tracking study involving nearly 400 Nap Pod users found that about 40% of users fell asleep successfully, 94% rated their sleep quality "fair or above", and 77% felt their energy was fully restored.

---

# 7. External Collaboration and Outreach on Campus Sustainability

HKUST has worked with the Environmental Protection Department to develop a greenhouse-gas emissions calculator, helping Hong Kong financial firms improve the quality of their sustainability reports^※. The University runs on average about 30 Sustainable Smart Campus guided tours a year (between June 2024 and August 2025), hosting secondary-school groups and industry visitors and turning campus sustainability practice into a public education resource.

The University also helps organise the annual "Climate, Weather and Water Forum", providing academic input into net-zero policy for Hong Kong and the wider Greater Bay Area, and runs industry-academic collaboration with Sino Group on its 2050 net-zero roadmap.

---

# 7.5 Further Reading

• For the engineering history of the seawater-cooled central chiller plant since the University's founding, the 2013–2015 district-cooling conversion and the 2016 Asia-Pacific energy award, see Seawater Cooling and the District Cooling System (Section 1.5 of this article is a summary of it)
• For the scale of donations and naming histories of green-certified halls such as the Jockey Club i-Village and the Global Graduate Tower, see Register of Donors and Named Buildings
• For the two-phase roadmap of the Medical Education and Research Complex and SOM's architectural design, see Groundbreaking of the HK$2 Billion Medical Tower

---

# 8. Items Not Found

• Systematic survey report on the intertidal zone of Clear Water Bay: related research projects exist (oyster reefs, bird monitoring, etc.), but no systematic public report specifically on the campus intertidal zone was found. This item is noted as not found.
• Campus museum / exhibition space: HKUST has a visitor information centre and a Center for the Arts, but no dedicated permanent museum or specimen exhibition space was identified. This item is noted as not applicable.

---