Sustainability Visit by Beijing and Guangdong Ecology and Environment Officials

Together with HKUST senior management, the HKUST Sustainability / Net-Zero Office welcomed two delegations of senior officials in late October 2025: one from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and another from the Department of Ecology and Environment of Guangdong Province. The visits served as a platform to showcase HKUST's leadership in sustainable development, sustainability education, and research, climate action planning, and to explore new avenues for collaboration in achieving net-zero goals.

The delegations engaged in a series of presentations and campus tours designed to highlight HKUST's practical and research-driven approach to sustainability, aligned with its ambitious target of achieving Net-Zero carbon emissions by 2045.

The tours featured several key sustainability initiatives in action:

• Elastocaloric Cooling Device: The world’s first kilowatt-scale device offering a promising solution to combat climate change and accelerate low-carbon transformation of the global cooling industry.
• Exchange with HKUST Student: Journey sharing by founder of a NatureTech start-up from seedling to startup with support from the university.
• Green Building Innovations: The officials visited HKUST's green buildings to learn about strategies for reducing embodied carbon through the use of recycled construction materials.
• Energy-Efficient Data Centers: The Information Technology Services Office demonstrated the liquid immersion cooling technology in the HPC4 high performance computing facility, explaining its significant energy savings over traditional air-cooling systems.
• Waste-to-Resource Systems: The Campus Services Office presented the campus's integrated food waste management facility, showcasing the process of sorting, grinding, and dehydrating food waste, along with the recycling of process water.

A dedicated technical sharing session underscored HKUST's contribution to the green building field, focusing on driving change through cutting-edge pilot projects and trials, while reducing carbon emissions:

• Professor Kenneth Leung presented the achievements of the HKUST Sustainability / Net-Zero Office, as well as the implementation roadmap of the HKUST net-zero action plan.
• Professor Arthur Lau shared the approach of the sustainability education at HKUST, showcase of graduate paths and various outreach programs to the community.
• Professor Fei Chen presented his research work on the next-generation global urban weather prediction model and applications via collaborations with different organsiations including government departments in Hong Kong, China and beyond.
• Professor Christine Loh highlighted HKUST’s executive education on sustainability as well as stakeholder engagements with the industries.
• Professor Zhi Ning introduced next-generation sensing technologies for monitoring smart building environments and indoor air quality.
• Professor Walter Zhe Wang shared his work on optimal chiller sequencing for large commercial buildings, presenting successful field test results from both the HKUST campus and a shopping mall in Shanghai.
• Professor Xiang Changying presented his research on building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) materials, demonstrating how solar technology can be seamlessly incorporated into construction for direct energy generation and cooling energy reductions.

The visits concluded with productive discussions on potential collaborative projects, reinforcing a shared commitment to advancing sustainability policy, research and application across the Greater Bay Area and beyond.