Vincent Lau

Vincent Lau

Hong Kong EIA and SEA

Vincent Lau: V
Isabelle Ng: I
Natasha Cheng: N

N: Hi. My name is Natasha and I am a double major in environmental society and sociology at Pitzer.

I: Hi! My name is Isabelle, I am a double major in environmental policy and organismal biology at Pitzer. So basically we’re here to interview you because we are interested in gathering stories and insights from local leaders who have experience with working to promote environmental sustainability and bring changes to our community. So we are hoping you can tell us more about your background and what you would identify as some of the most important projects or struggles that you have been involved in and then we can continue on the conversation.
So just start off telling us about yourself and your work and projects that you have been apart of.

V: My name is Vincent Lau. Background wise, I got my Bachelor’s degree with distinction from the University of Alberta in mechanical engineering. I went on to get my Master’s in acoustics at the University of Alberta too. I then spent the first 7 years of my career in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada in architectural acoustics and environmental noise control. Then, in the last 17 years I have been working for the Environmental Protection Department in Hong Kong. I work on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), and environmental planning.
So I’m going to share with you about my experience and your topic on actually facilitating changes to reform local policies etc. along the lines of sustainable development. Actually I have presented papers in the Inter-noise Conference in Toronto, and the International Conference on Pollution in the Metropolitan and Urban Environment (POLMET) in Hong Kong. My presentation at the POLMET Conference is very much related to your topic actually. It was a case study of sustainable urbanization through the EIA process, and if you look it up, it’s about the housing development of 60 hectares in Ma On Shan with both ecological and archaeological resources in the area that were identified and preserved.
So with that background, I’m going to discuss your topic in a general manner. And then I will go into our system in HK about our SEA system and EIA Ordinance, as well as talking about the town planning process. So, at this point, is there anything that I have missed?

N: Um no. But we do have a couple questions to start off our discussion. So what would you identify as some of the most difficult hurdles that you have encountered on the way? How you have managed to fix those situations?

V: Oh, the most difficult hurdle is when the proponent forgets to think about environmental sustainability at the onset. Since they have been doing the project for such a long time, they get so wrapped up in meeting their goals that they forget to apply common sense on the environmental side. By the time they submit a proposal, they are so fixed on what they want that they forget to look at the other more environmentally friendly options to achieve the same goal. By then, it is not easy to convince the project proponent to make substantial changes to the design, which has gone a long way.

I: When you refer to “them”, who are you referring to?

V: I refer to in general, the project proponents.

N: I see.

V: yeah because we are on the government’s side, we are the regulatory authority right? In our system we need to approve the proposal or at least comment on the proposals, so that is what I am referring to.

N: And are these projects government projects or private projects?

V: They are both. My job is to guide them when they have difficulties and problems about their solution options. By the way, I want to congratulate you on the topic of your project, because it is about the effective ways to reform local policy, and to raise awareness while utilizing resources. In the summary of your project, it does not only mention about all these objectives for sustainable development, it also puts an emphasis on ways to achieve a sustainable environment, which is the heart of the issue. As an engineer, it is particularly meaningful to me because an engineer has great concerns for the means of getting something done.

I: Thank you.

V: And If I may, I’m going to share with you one of the slides [Slide A] that I sent you. Do you have it?

N: Yeah, I do. Here I got it.

V: Let me discuss this topic of facilitating changes and reforms in a more general sense. Almost all developments will be facilitated at different degrees by the government, who tries to achieve environmental sustainability during the course of development. For example, environmental sustainability by way of smart growth, protection of open space, wise management of water and waste, solar energy and good city planning, etc. We must begin planning from the higher level of policies, programs, and plans, while we still want to follow up at the lower project level. Then you consider the question: How do you affect the hands of the government? The government can be self-motivated or affected by external forces. The external forces can certainly affect the government, because it does not want to be criticized. I think this applies to all governments. The external forces could be the parliament members, the district councilors, who have major input to the government. The public can also be an external force to the parliament members in Canada, or the senators in the States. They do not want to be criticized for not listening to the public. Every vote counts, and you can affect the election results. Other external forces include green groups, the expert groups, scholars, and the general public. This is the key message in my slide. Moving on, I’m now going to share with you some key elements of the environmental scrutiny system of Hong Kong, i.e. the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and the EIA Ordinance, etc. These systems all demonstrate that the public influences the process to make changes in the outcome. Everyone can make a difference. Other than these aforementioned factors in my slide, education is also an influencing factor. Just take you as an example; aren’t you studying the topic on sustainable environment and how to effectively change the outcome? Also, I should elaborate that, although this slide says government, it does not necessarily have to be the government. It can also be a big private company. Again, a private company can be self-motivated or motivated by the public force. The public force can affect their position and decision as well.

N: yeah.

V: Culture affects the result of development as much as education does. I used to live in Vancouver, Canada for about 16 years since 1980. Recycling was already common for every household there some 20 to 30 years ago. However, it may not be as common and deep rooted in Asian cities. Our lifestyle and culture are important. The quality of education and culture affect the quality of substantial comments and constructive criticism. In my experience, substantial and constructive criticisms can change the system and affect the outcome of each and every proposal.

N: Cool! How did you become involved into the environmental field, considering you had a mechanical engineer background? And, why did you eventually end up working for the Environmental Protection Department?

V: When I worked as an acoustical engineer, half of my work was related to environmental protection, specifically from a noise perspective. But as I worked on my career on the environmental noise aspect more, I wanted to expand my interest on environmental protection beyond noise. Coincidentally, an opportunity in the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department opened up. At the time, I had the opportunity to work only on noise control or to work on EIA, which covers all areas on the environment including ecology, fishery, visual impact, landscape impact, water and air pollution, waste management, land contamination, archaeological resources and cultural resources, etc. I eventually picked EIA, considering it has a wider coverage on the environment.

I: Cool. When you deal with environmental issues in HK, specifically to create these plans and projects, how does your perspective, with a mechanical engineer background, differ from other’s, with different backgrounds?

V: So your question is that whether my background as an engineer plays in the process?

I: Yeah, how your role as a mechanical engineer plays a role in the process of environmental planning.

V: On one hand, the engineering background helps me understand the pros and cons of various physical designs and options. This way, I can ask smart and challenging questions leading to a better solution environmentally. On the other hand, I apply my engineering background to expand my knowledge base. In the future, you may experience that what you have learned through your studies may not necessarily be applied directly to your field of work. You have to learn new things and new systems. In my case, I need to keep abreast on the environmental planning and the environmental scrutiny system.

I will show you on my slide [Slide B] about the environmental scrutiny pyramid and the three areas that I work on, i.e. the SEA system, the EIA system and the town planning system. I have to apply extensive knowledge in the environmental area covering all the aspects that I mentioned to you. Sometimes it might even be in an area that I don’t have a lot of background from my previous studies. But eventually, I learn and gain new knowledge on the job, for example, ecology. Currently, I’m working on a project that requires me to present a lot of comments and ask a lot of questions about options. Why does the project go in this direction? What ecological resources may be affected? You need to expand the horizon of your knowledge on your own. When I graduated from university, the dean told us that we hadn’t learnt anything, but only learned how to learn. That should be the approach we should take.

I: Do you mind elaborating a little on what SEA and EIA is and how they differ from one another?

V: Certainly. If you look at the slide with the pyramid, on the right hand side it illustrates the environmental scrutiny system/tools that I work with, to achieve a positive outcome on environmental sustainability. On the left hand side, it illustrates the corresponding levels of urban planning that our environmental scrutiny process links up with, from the fundamental level of policies, programs, and plans, to the final individual development or project. At the policy level, it could be a study for using Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in Hong Kong; or it could be a study on the railway transportation for Hong Kong in connection to the Mainland. On the less fundamental scale, it may be making outline zoning plans. I’m sure they have similar plans in the U.S. Another less fundamental level (near the top of the pyramid), it could be a single development project.

Essentially the pyramid illustrates the following. EPD’s strategic environmental assessment (SEA) system scrutinizes the environmental aspects of the policies, programs and plans, at the most fundamental level. For major landuse plans/proposals, through EPD’s own SEA and EIA systems and the town planning process that EPD participates in, we carry out the environmental scrutiny. On the other less fundamental level, i.e. at the project levels, EPD’s EIA system provides environmental scrutiny on major development projects. For less major development projects not governed by our EIA Ordinance but controlled by the Town Planning Ordinance, EPD provides comments in the town-planning process. There may be similar systems in the U.S. The key point is that in all of these urban planning systems, there are corresponding environmental scrutiny systems built in, which allow for a lot of opportunities for public contribution to influence a reasonable outcome.

Allow me to further explain our system in the other slide [Slide C] that I sent you. In Hong Kong, I consider that we have a very advanced EIA system and SEA system. We developed these systems, and they are under our direct input. On the other hand, the town planning system publishes statutory landuse zoning plans and provides statutory approvals for individual land use projects. This system is under the ambit of the Town Planning Board (TPB), and EPD only provides advice to the TPB.

Perhaps I can refer to the Cardinal Principal that you and Professor Steinberg may be familiar with, as illustrated by my other slide [Slide D]. It is that if you want to achieve good environmental outcome, it is much better to avoid protected/sensitive areas, and therefore avoid the impact. It’s about options at the early stage. At the high level of designing strategies, programs and plans is when our effort is the most productive. As you move down the table in the slide, the lower level is the land use plans. If you move down further, the chance of avoidance may not be there anymore, because you are limited to the geographic location. Therefore, you are limited to minimizing the impact and mitigating the works. From this slide, I hope you can see the value of SEA and the EIA system, which try to capture and deal with the problem from the very beginning of the planning process, at the more fundamental level (as shown by the slide of the pyramid).

The purpose of the SEA system is to steer the big positions (of the policies, programs and plans) towards environmental sustainability; while the EIA system aims to steer the major projects/developments (including those in Schedule 3 under the EIAO) to become environmentally friendly, and we will also contribute to individual landuse plans and development applications under the town planning system.

SEA might be a terminology that you are not familiar with. To understand it, just read it backwards, i.e. EAS – environmental assessment on strategies. Strategies could be policies, programs, or plans. This is the definition that you will find on our SEA website,“SEA is a systematic process, with multiple stakeholder involvement, for analyzing and evaluating environmental implications of proposed policies, programs and plans, for assisting in the strategic or planning decision-making, and for following up strategic or planning decisions.” In fact, our SEA and EIA websites will give you more details, e.g. our SEA Manual. For example, our SEA Manual shows that our SEA system originated back in the period of 1988 to 1992, when the government started to require proposal submissions to include specific paragraphs on environmental implications. Since then, SEA in HK has mainly studied three kinds of strategies. For example, one type is territorial land use planning and an example of that is Territorial Development Strategy Review (TDSR) completed in 1996. The second type is the transportation strategies and policies. Examples include the Port and Airport Development Study back in 1989, the Railway Development Study in 1993, the Third Comprehensive Transport Study in 1999, and the Second Railway Development Study in 2000. The third type of SEA that we study is sectorial strategies and policies. For example, there was a Landfill study.

In the TDSR, one of the key achievements was to eliminate a lot of ecologically sensitive areas from development considerations.

My slide [Slide E] with the flow chart “SEA Study Process in HK” is very relevant to your topic because it shows that comments from the public and the “Advisory Council on the Environment (ACE)” can improve the proposal environmentally in each round of study via public consultation. In each round, upon consideration of EPD’s advice, the study will be subject to comments from the ACE (consisting of experts, scholars and academics in the environmental area) and the public. Comments from the ACE and the public will go back to the proponent for making appropriate amendments. This goes back to how the public can affect the outcome and contribute changes. The study can in fact go through a number of rounds/loops, as illustrated by this other slide [Slide F] for the Hong Kong 2030 Study. In fact, this loop with public contributions happened 4 times in the Hong Kong 2030 study completed in 2008. In the first round the Study presented the baseline review and the identification of key issues. If some key issues are missed, EPD, ACE and the public can tell them to go back to improve. The second round was about the actual examination of key issues. Again, a comment that a better assessment method should be used could lead to an improvement or modification. The third round was about the formulation of development options. A comment of “What about new options of… ” could steer the outcome. The last round was about making the decision and recommendation, also allowing for a lot of opportunities for the public and ACE to make a difference and contribute. Specifically for HK 2030, there were press conferences, public forums, design competitions, exhibitions and focus group workshops, etc., for the public to participate. Do you have any question about the SEA system? After your questions, I will give you a 5-minute explanation about the EIA system.

N: So for the pyramid, about the hierarchy of the SEA system and EIA system, this is all specifically for Hong Kong right?

V: I think you will find similar pyramids in the U.S. or other countries but as far as I know, the system in Hong Kong is very advanced in terms of SEA and EIA. So should I give you a 5 minutes run-down on the EIA system?

N: yeah sure.

V: ok. If you look at our EIA website, you will see that our EIA Ordinance became effective in 1998. It is an ordinance “to provide for assessing the impact of certain projects and proposals, for protecting the environment and for incidental matters”. Our ordinance first identifies designated projects that are controlled by the ordinance (i.e. requiring an environmental permit for its construction and operation), e.g. major roads, railways, airport and port facilities, and certain industrial activities, etc. You can find a more detailed explanation on our EIAO website. At this point, I would like to focus on this flow chat [Slide G] regarding our EIA system, particularly the two horizontal arrows on public input. When the private sector or the government carries out or plans a designated project, they have to submit a project profile, including a description of the project, to EPD under the ordinance. At this stage, the public can provide input on the project profile. This might highlight certain issues that are considered important and EPD will consider the public input in drafting the EIA Study Brief for the proponent to follow in preparing the EIA report. Once the proponent prepares an EIA report, we examine it and exhibit the report (if it meets the requirements of the Study Brief and the EIAO Technical Memorandum) for public comments for a second time. Before we approve the report, we have to consider the public comments to make sure nothing significant is missed. And in the eventual approval of the report, we have to issue an environmental permit, including conditions that the proponent has to comply with. You must note that we do not have to approve proposals/EIA reports not meeting the relevant requirements and standards. Also, it is not uncommon that some of the conditions in the environmental permits are originated from comments of the green groups, the general public, and ACE. This shows that the power of the public can have a positive environmental outcome to future development projects. So that is basically what I would like to share with you on the EIA Ordinance. The key point is that our statutory EIA system takes the public comments seriously. There is actually a legal requirement to allow the public to provide comments in the EIA Study Brief preparation stage and the EIA review stage. These public comments again, may lead to the eventual conditions in the environmental permit.

In the interest of time, I will give you a 2 minute description on the town planning system. Like I said, we have 3 processes on environmental scrutiny on planning, all requiring serious considerations of public comments. One is the SEA, the other is EIA, and the third is the town planning system. While both the SEA and the EIA systems are under our direct ambit, EPD is only the adviser under the town planning system. Under the Town Planning Ordinance, EPD only provides comments, and it is mainly the Town Planning Board to draw the outline zoning plans and make decisions on planning applications on individual land use development. It is important to note that the town planning system also has statutory requirements for the public consultation and public comments at various stages, for consideration before decisions are made, including the determination of approval conditions. That is a general description on the town planning system, and details can be checked from the website of the Planning Department/Town Planning Board. Do you have any questions?

I: I have a question about getting public input before publishing/ getting the EIA report approved. What do those public input come in form of? Are people writing written responses to you or is it a discussion based? Do you guys have meetings with green groups? Essentially, how do you receive their input?

V: Right. Good question. We have a period of 30 days for the public, including the green groups, to provide comments on an EIA report. They are allowed to provide their comments by physically submitting it or through email, fax, mail, etc. So there should not be any barrier on submitting the comments.

I: So how is the public made aware of these projects?

V: The EIA Ordinance requires specific applications be advertised on the newspapers. On the EIAO website, we post all the applications. Of course, because of what I call “the power of the public”, the project proponents most of the time carry out their own public consultation, in addition to the public comment requirements in the EIA system. To manage the public opinion, the project proponents, whether the government or the private sector, carry out a lot of public consultations and a lot of PR work on their own.
So do you have any question, especially on the key point on how the public can make a difference to the environmental scrutiny system in Hong Kong that I want to share with you?

N: Yeah, that was great and I think that’s all we need.

V: ok. If you still have any question after this, feel free to email me. Today we don’t have that much time to go into a lot of details. To sum up however, I consider that education, culture and the way of life are the roots of making changes. Such can be transformed into the behavior and quality of certain groups, like green groups, experts, scholars like Professor Steinberg, and the public, etc. Through their influence on the politicians, these groups can all affect the government and the big corporations to think green, to think environmental sustainable developments. I tried to describe how HK’s environmental scrutiny system, including EPD’s advanced SEA and EIA systems, contributes to environmental sustainable development at various levels. A key point is that it is much more effective to steer the government and corporations in their early stage on formulation of polices, programs and plans, rather than affecting them on individual projects to be spun off after their policies/programs/plans are formulated. In EPD’s SEA system and EIA system, we have ensured many opportunities for the public to provide their comments at early and key stages, so that we can avoid and minimize environmental impacts as far as practicable. A similar mechanism is built in the town planning system. Both the government and the big corporations have to value the public input. Personally, I am seeing that many changes can be achieved if the public input is of substance, informed, and makes good sense.

N: Thank you! One last question, do you think there is an increasing trend in Hong Kong towards a more environmentally sustainable city?

V: Honestly I think the outcome is increasingly positive and the level of public involvement has been increasing. The spotlight and the public attention have been increasing so the chance of a project heading towards a wrong direction environmentally is diminishing. The level of environmental scrutiny by the public is increasingly high indeed.

I: Thank you for taking your time to speak with us. When we have the chance to transcribe what we have discussed here, we will send it to you before we publish it.

N: Thank you so much!

V: Thank you for giving me the chance to share with you my views and experience. Again I would like to congratulate you on your work in this very realistic and practical aspect of environmental sustainability.

I: Thank you and have a great rest of the day! Bye.

V: Bye.