HKUST NET-Zero action Plan 2045:

2024 / 25 progress update

Adopted since 2024, the Net-Zero Action Plan serves as a strategic guide for HKUST to realize our commitment to achieving net-zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 2045.

In 2025, HKUST has released the 2024 / 25 Progress Update. In the past year, a key achievement was the development of our net-zero building standards for new buildings and renewal projects, in view of our fast growing campus building footprint. The new Research Building 3 will adopt this for its design and construction. A showcase of our efforts is evident in the new Martin Ka Shing Lee Innovation Building which is expected to be one of Hong Kong’s lowest embodied carbon buildings at less than 500 kg CO_2-e/m² or 30% less than the Hong Kong Green Building Council’s absolute embodied carbon baseline for non-residential buildings. It will also be the first new building at HKUST to pilot granular energy data collection to achieve room-level energy monitoring. In the area of net-zero research, HKUST has also been at the forefront with academic partnerships with China Meteorological Administration to enhance early warning systems for disaster preparedness, and Technology and Engineering Center for Space Utilization of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CSU.CAS) for climate change monitoring.

To demonstrate our commitment, $30 million will be committed over the next eight years to pilot new climate tech solutions under a “Living Lab” approach, using the campus as a testbed for innovation and education.  The investment is financed by Feed-in-Tariff payments from the university’s 2.5 MW solar PV system, the largest institutional system of its kind in Hong Kong.