Carbon Neutrality during Construction Period - O⬝PARK2 Demonstrates Vision of Sustainable Construction for Construction Industry

The growing importance of environment protection implies the shared responsibility across different industry, including the construction industry. In recent years, the industry has leveraged more resources into sustainable development, aiming to build a liveable city with higher sense of satisfaction. Ir Thomas HO, Chairman of the CIC, joint by council members Ir Rocky POON and Prof. Jack CHENG, visited the Organic Resources Recovery Centre Phase 2 (O⬝PARK2). They explored how it become the first project in Hong Kong to achieve carbon neutrality during construction period, setting an example to lead the industry.

Carbon Neutrality Commitment Reveals Dedication to Low-carbon Construction

Food waste accounts for over 30% of the municipal solid waste disposed in landfill in Hong Kong every day. To address the alarming situation, the Hong Kong government has built more waste-to-energy facilities, enhancing the overall food waste treatment capability and alleviating the pressure on landfills. This includes the development of Organic Resources Recovery Centre Phase 1 and 2. With higher food waste treatment capacity, O⬝PARK2 is expected to be commissioned in 2024, its construction has adopted multiple advanced methods to implement low-carbon construction. O⬝PARK2 will be able to treat 300 tonnes of food waste per day. By using anaerobic digestion technology, it can generate biogas from food waste and further generate electricity from biogas. After deducting its own consumption by operation, O⬝PARK2 can export about 24 GWh of electricity to the grid per year, which is equivalent to the power consumption of about 5,000 households. With the decrease in use of fossil fuel for electricity generation together with the reduced amount of organic waste landfill, the operation of OPARK2 is estimated to reduce 67,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Benefiting from the “Design, Build Operation” pattern, O⬝PARK2 successfully become the first carbon neutrality project of China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong) Limited (CSHK). The project team issued the first Carbon Neutrality Commitment in November 2021, pledged to achieve carbon neutrality during construction period through sustainable management, technological innovation and supporting voluntary emission reduction projects. Dr Jason CUI, Assistant Design Manager of O⬝PARK2 said that, an Integrated Design Approach (IDA) was adopted at the design stage, taking the long-term O&M requirements throughout building life cycle into consideration. “Experts with different expertise such as food waste treatment process, civil engineering, structure, surveying and low-carbon construction were called up to discuss and plan how to simplify construction procedure and thus enhance energy efficiency.” The project also extensively applied building information modelling (BIM) technology and integrated the CIC Carbon Assessment Tool with the BIM model in an innovative approach, facilitating the carbon assessment during the design and construction stages, and empowering the management and monitoring carbon emissions from building materials and construction procedures through an effective manner.

Considerable Carbon Emission Reduction – Not only the Green Procurement but also Technological Innovation

Developing a sustainable supply chain also plays an important role in contributing to the O⬝PARK2 low-carbon construction. The project’s major construction materials are concrete and rebar, as pointed out by Dr CUI, therefore the team paid great attentions on more environmentally friendly and low-carbon materials worldwide in the supply market. The so-called “Green Concrete”, utilised in O⬝PARK2, can replace 60% of cement from the concrete with Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS) – an industrial byproduct, and achieved the overall carbon emission reduction with a potential of 53%. The “Green Rebar” that O⬝PARK2 procured is manufactured by means of the Electric Arc Furnace with 100% recycled content, resulting in a carbon emission reduction potential of nearly 67% because of utilising low-carbon raw resources and production method simultaneously. Moreover, it is the first project in Hong Kong construction industry to apply this so called “carbon dioxide mineralized concrete carbon fixation bricks” based on Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technology that proactively absorbs and stores carbon dioxide and demonstrates the performance of carbon negative.

Besides, digitalisation technology has been extensively applied in O⬝PARK2 construction site for management with higher accuracy and efficiency and flexibility towards carbon neutrality. C-SMART Site Management Platform is able to perform all in one management including construction personnel, safety, materials, site environment and progress, concentrating the site into a smart and digitalised hub. CSHK also independently developed the “Carbon Neutrality Cloud Platform” which can automatically collect and classify all the existing carbon emission data and deliver the prediction of the emission data for the follow-up construction, serving for digitalisation of the carbon audit.

Recognition has been earned by O⬝PARK2’s multi-pronged approach in green and low-carbon construction. The independent carbon audit by a third party organisation denoted that the project successfully achieved a carbon reduction of 4,408 tonnes (as of the end of 2022), delivering a significant increase by 30% compared to that of the target in the commitment. To accelerate the exploration of carbon neutrality in construction industry, CSHK cooperated with Core Climate, a brand newly established international carbon marketplace from Hong Kong Exchange at the end of 2022 to implement this trailblazing carbon trading, to successfully offset the verified carbon emission recorded between the commencement and the date of June 30th 2022 by utilizing the verified carbon units. The remaining carbon emission will be offset with another carbon trading by the completion of the construction, achieving the carbon neutrality during the construction period. The successful low-carbon exploration by CSHK has done the construction industry a great favour for the sustainable development.