CUHK’s primary mission is to enhance the well-being of people via our education, research and knowledge transfer endeavours. However, inspiring others to put knowledge into practice need not happen only in the classrooms—with some 8,000 staff and over 160 buildings on campus, a long-lasting impact can also be made by engaging the University workforce.

Recognizing the potential of staff engagement, in 2012 the University launched the Green Office Programme (GO!), a programme that aims to promote and institutionalize green office solutions. Fulfilling the Programme’s basic requirements is simple—offices just need to fulfil at least half of the actions in a ‘GO! Checklist’. It is found that many offices’ quest for excellence extends to the eco-friendliness of their workplaces, and a number of them are also eager to share their green ideas and tips via their Checklist comments to help other offices go greener.

While over 90% of the 180 offices participating in ‘GO!’  fulfilled the programme requirements last year, some offices have gone beyond the requirements of ‘GO!’ to implement additional green measures in their offices. In December 2016, in conjunction with the submission of the ‘GO! Checklist’, the Campus Planning and Sustainability Office organized the ‘GO!’ Green Awards—the second such event since the launch of the Programme—to gauge the state of adoption of ‘GO!’ measures in offices and to acknowledge the commitment and contribution of these green pioneers. At a ceremony officiated by Prof. Fung Tung, Associate Vice-President and Chairman of the Committee on Campus Sustainability on 26 April 2017, awards in the areas of ‘Energy Conservation’, ‘Waste Reduction’, ‘Green Purchasing’, ‘Awareness and Engagement’, ‘Greenest Office’ and ‘Best Green Idea’ were presented to 13 CUHK offices:

Three offices with the highest combined scores for all actions in the ‘GO! Checklist’ as well as additional actions listed received awards in the ‘Greenest Office’ Category:

All three ‘Greenest Office’ winners have implemented various notable or innovative measures: The Estates Management Office installed a timer for the water boiler in its pantry, and is also doing a trial run of an energy-efficient ‘LED tube’ as a new option for office lighting systems; The Graduate School Office has dramatically decreased the quantity of printed prospectuses from 3,600 copies in 2015 to 2,000 copies in 2016, reduced the number of prospectuses sent to its Mainland branch office ten-fold, and is encouraging prospective students to check the University’s programme information online; the Department of Social Work reduced its A4 paper usage by 15% via more intensive use of Blackboard and other electronic tools, setting a print quota for graduate students, and helping users keep track of how much paper they are obtaining from the inventory.