Green and bear it

If you think making your flat environmentally friendly means getting rid of your furniture and spending vast amounts on a wind turbine for your balcony, think again. Opening a window, or putting two plastic bottles of water in your toilet's cistern can halve your electricity bill and help save the planet's natural resources without costing you a cent.

Based on government figures, Friends of the Earth calculates that, whereas Hong Kong's population grew 19.9 per cent from 1992 to last year, residential demand for electricity increased 86 per cent. Per capita water consumption is 140,000 litres per annum, the equivalent of flushing your toilet 48 times a day, which a Water Supplies Department spokesman says is 'on the high side'. It compares with 55,000 litres per annum for British households and 91,000 litres for families in Toronto.

'Back in the 1970s, when we had the world energy crisis, Japan launched an energy-saving campaign, but it wasn't until 1995 that Hong Kong set up an energy-saving programme,' says Hahn Chu Hon-keung, environmental affairs manager for Friends of the Earth. 'The government thought economic growth was more important than energy saving.'

Under the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department's (EMSD) Energy Efficiency Scheme for Buildings, of the 1,822 certificates issued to 735 building venues since the scheme began in 1998, 887 have been awarded to 200 new buildings, of which only about 40 are non-government buildings. An EMSD spokesman describes private participation in the scheme as 'not very encouraging [but] private new buildings, especially prestigious commercial buildings, are generally following the Building Energy Codes'.