Peter Hills

The University of Hong Kong | HKU

The adoption of solar photovoltaic systems is often constrained by various sociotechnical barriers. In this paper, we identify and differentiate barriers to photovoltaic among three groups of potential adopters in Hong Kong: individuals, businesses, and the public sector. A total of 55 interviews were conducted to collect the data for the study. Th...

Smart grids (SGs) have been widely recognized as an enabling technology for delivering sustainable energy transitions. Such transitions have given rise to more complex government-utility-consumer relationships. However, these stakeholder relationships remain largely under-researched. This paper critically examines and explains the role of incumbent...

Environmental education and awareness training can help to develop and encourage a transition to a greener corporate culture. A series of environmental education and awareness training programmes of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC) (Hong Kong) was used as a case study to assess how learning transfers through nature-based...

Cities have increasingly become the focal point for climate change initiatives. However, how cities respond to climate change challenges and through what mechanisms have remained largely unexplored. This paper develops a framework for local governance to examine and explain climate change initiatives in cities. Based on the analysis of 20 climate c...

The policy challenges associated with global warming, the prospect of increasingly expensive fossil fuels, and the recent re-emergence of serious concerns about the safety of nuclear power after the Fukushima accident in Japan are encouraging many western and Asian economies to develop smart grids (SGs) as a component of their energy policy portfol...

Smart grids present major potential benefits in terms of economic, environmental, and social considerations. The deployment of smart grids however requires not only technological advancement but also the ability to overcome many regulatory barriers. This chapter brings regulator perspectives—an area that is under-explored—into the field of smart gr...

The smart grid landscape is extremely dynamic as the contributions in this book have demonstrated. We have focused on some of the latest technological developments and the importance of various stakeholder perspectives. We have also provided a variety of international case studies that have allowed us to explore the latest policy developments from...

Smart Grid Applications and Developments’ enriches understanding of today’s energy and climate challenges. It demonstrates how solutions require not only technological advances, but also political sensitivity; well-informed policy analysis, an improved understanding of stakeholders’ perceptions, and innovative interdisciplinary collaboration. Provi...

This paper examines relationships between collaborative governance and technological innovation. Collaborative governance is a key strategy for this form of innovation but remains underresearched. This paper explores how and to what extent collaborative governance can contribute to technological innovation by means of a case study of wind energy in...

This article offers an exploratory and descriptive analysis of the characteristics of inter-disciplinary sustainability studies (ISSs). The paper explores the academic and disciplinary nature of inter-disciplinary inquiry and studies themes, imperatives and methodologies, together with institutional characteristics. Our analysis of 70 articles publ...

SUMMARY This study reports the findings of a 3-year investigation into dimensions of trust in governmental capacity to deal with environmental risks (air pollution, sustainable development, waste, and water). We explore if levels of trust in Hong Kong correspond with the two-dimensional structure identified in the research of Poortinga and Pidgeon....

This paper brings together the key concepts of policy learning and central–local relations to examine how the efficacy of sustainability policies can be improved, with a particular reference to pricing policies for wind energy in China. Based on our comparative case studies of three provinces, Guangdong, Shanghai and Xinjiang, we critically examine...

‘Smart Grid Applications and Developments’ enriches understanding of today’s energy and climate challenges. It demonstrates how solutions require not only technological advances, but also political sensitivity; well-informed policy analysis, an improved understanding of stakeholders’ perceptions, and innovative interdisciplinary collaboration. Prov...

This chapter examines the motivations, processes, and outcomes of the development of smart grids in South Korea through the perspectives of governance and innovation systems. Drawing on desktop research and semi-structured interviews, this chapter has two major findings. First, the development of smart grids in Korea has been shaped by various fact...

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Innovation plays a key role in driving industries to gain competitive advantage. Increasingly, open innovation is considered a key driver to help industries accelerate the rate of innovation through exploitation of the free flow of internal and external knowledge and expertise. With the external input of expertise and knowledge, industries can acqu...

This paper reviews and discusses the debate over the effectiveness of environmental regulation in promoting industrial Technological Environmental Innovation (TEI). Using the innovation-friendly regulatory principles adapted from Porter and van der Linde (1995a, 1995b), this paper demonstrates how properly designed and implemented environmental reg...

Consumers have a major role to play in smart grid technologies which can be instrumental in addressing climate change and energy challenges. However, little is known about how consumers perceive, and how they might respond to the opportunities that smart grid technologies offer. This paper reports the results from a Hong Kong survey (n=505). It con...

This study examines partnership characteristics, network behavior, and publicness in the complex policy arena of sustainable development (SD). The study is set in Hong Kong, a city moving away from command-and-control policy instruments to the use of partnerships and stakeholder engagement. It is contended that network partnership characteristics o...

This paper describes the process of transitioning to a low-carbon hydrogen economy in the United States and the role of transition management (TM) in this process. Focusing on the transition process for hydrogen-based energy and transport systems in the United States, especially California, this study outlines the key characteristics of TM that hav...

This paper examines the motivations, processes and outcomes of the development of smart grids in South Korea through the perspectives of governance and innovation systems. Drawing on desktop research and semi-structured interviews, this paper has two major findings. First, the development of smart grids in Korea has been shaped by various factors i...

Wind power is potentially a key energy option that can assist China in meeting its sustainability goals but at present plays only a limited role in the country's energy system. Wind resource assessment (WRA) has been identified as a key impediment to the further development of this energy source. This paper examines whether collaborative governance...

This paper reviews and discusses the debate over the effectiveness of environmental regulation in promoting industrial Technological Environmental Innovation (TEI). Using the innovation-friendly regulatory principles adapted from Porter and van der Linde (1995a, 1995b), this paper demonstrates how properly designed and implemented environmental reg...

This paper reviews and discusses the debate over the effectiveness of environmental regulation in promoting industrial Technological Environmental Innovation (TEI). Using the innovation-friendly regulatory principles adapted from Porter and van der Linde (1995a, 1995b), this paper demonstrates how properly designed and implemented environmental reg...

This chapter describes the process of transitioning to a low-carbon hydrogen economy in the United States and the role of transition management (TM) in this process. Focusing on the transition process for hydrogen-based energy and transport systems in the United States, especially California, this study outlines the key characteristics of TM that h...

Cross-border relocation of the production lines of Hong Kong companies to the Pearl River Delta Region (PRDR) of China relocates the pollution source geographically. In contextualizing corporate social responsibility (CSR), more and better collaborations on environmental management between Hong-Kong-based companies and their supply chains within Ho...

This paper explores the role of trust in environmental governance and its role in facilitating collective action through public participation in making decisions on environmental policies in Hong Kong. Opinions from key stakeholders with regard to the environmental performance of the Hong Kong government and public participation in Hong Kong were c...

CSR in a Chinese context is still driven mainly by the leading Western brands and a few locally based (indeed, more often Hong Kong based) companies that have a brand and image to protect. However, the government is now also promoting CSR as the private sector's contribution to a ‘harmonious society’. Supply chain pressure and local government init...

Renewable energy, although capable of making a significant contribution to the achievement of sustainable development, has, however, failed to reach its full potential in most countries. A major challenge of the sustainability transition is how to translate sustainable development from a concept to effective implementation. However, the mechanisms...

The concept of extended producer responsibility (EPR) has been incorporated into environmental policy by a growing number of governments. Inspired by EPR initiatives of the European Union, China has also enacted similar legislation, known as China RoHS and China WEEE. Despite high expectations, the actual influence of EPR legislation on product des...

The environmental performance of Hong Kong's businesses is currently perceived as rather poor. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular are mostly unaware of the environmental impact of their business. Government and professional bodies have recently started to develop various initiatives to improve the SME sector's awareness of envi...

Whilst ecological modernisation theory emphasizes the potential for modern societies to recognize and respond to their environmental impacts by finding new ways of governing environment–economy relations, concepts of policy learning focus on the scope for new forms of environmental policy to be generated within and transferred between different con...

Voluntarism and partnership are exerting an increasingly powerful influence over developments in environmental policy in Europe, USA and elsewhere but have yet to figure prominently on the environmental agenda in Hong Kong. This project used a series of extensive interviews of all stakeholders including government departments and business-related a...

Over the past decade, processes of environmental reform have been increasingly shaped by cooperative management between businesses, government and NGOs. This paper provides results of extensive interviews to assess cooperative environmental relationships between businesses and NGOs in Hong Kong and the barriers and positive drivers for these partne...

The electrical and electronics (EE) industry has come under increasing pressure to adopt extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies through the introduction of the European Union's Directives on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and the Restriction of Use of Certain Hazardous Substances (ROHS). Based on the findings of 50 questi...

Hong Kong's businesses have been slow to embrace environmental management principles, particularly in the SME sector. This article analyses key barriers and incentives to engaging Hong Kong businesses with voluntary environmental initiatives and compares their relevance for companies of different sizes. As in other countries, SMEs show a much lower...

The focus of this contribution is the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of China, and more particularly the processes of environmental reform in the region. The authors discuss developments in environmental policy over the past three decades and explore the utility of Ecological Modernization Theory as a basis for future environmental...

A number of social surveys on environmental issues have been conducted in Hong Kong over the past 20 years but none has investigated processes of environmental reform from a stakeholder perspective. This paper reports on the findings of a survey of 120 representatives of eight stakeholder groups conducted in 2003. This exploratory study had two mai...

This paper focuses on the role of environmental innovation in the context of the development of ecological modernisation theory and as a driver for firms to gain competitive advantage in the market. While ecological modernisation theory offers a variety of theoretical and prescriptive viewpoints on the mechanisms through which modern societies resp...

Within a framework of ecological modernization theory this paper focuses on the process of environmental reform in Hong Kong. It argues that there is significant inertia within the environmental policy process in Hong Kong, but that with leadership from the business sector there exists the potential for positive change. We identify ways to further...

Seven serious pollution episodes occurred in Hong Kong during the winter and spring seasons of 1996–2002 with NO2 and/or PM10 concentrations exceeding the Hong Kong Air Quality Objectives. Analyses were made with respect to general meteorological and synoptic conditions, air mass back trajectories, satellite images and PM10 chemical species charact...

Few researchers have studied world cities from the perspective of sustainable development. This paper argues that in this era of globalization cities should aspire to be great cities, rather than just world cities. Great cities are places with an enlightened mode of governance; where technological and economic advancement sustain global and local d...

China has been at the forefront of initiatives designed to translate some of the outputs of the 1992 Earth Summit into reality. It was the first country to produce a national Agenda 21 (in early 1994). Since then, a conscious attempt has been made to integrate sustainable development considerations into the country's national development strategy....

This paper explores various dimensions of ecological modernisation in the context of developments in environmental policy and technological innovation in the Asia-Pacific region. It argues that models of ecological modernisation emerging in the region will differ from those developed elsewhere, particularly in Europe. Nonetheless, ecological modern...

Hong Kong's response to the imperative of sustainable development has been ambivalent, confused, and lacking in urgency. The principles of sustainable development have been publicly endorsed at the highest political level in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HBAR). However, the SAR stills lacks a sustainable development strategy and has...

For the past 20 years, environmental policy in Hong Kong has been driven by responses to a variety of local problems resulting in an array of environmental ordinances and supporting regulations addressing air, water and noise pollution problems, waste management and the use of EIA in the development planning process. Hong Kong's approach to environ...

Economic, political and institutional reform has significant implications for environmental regulation; however, the linkages between them have received little attention in the research literature or in governmental studies until very recently. This paper analyzes the impacts of economic—political reform on environmental regulation in China by exam...

Summer pollution episodes in Hong Kong are related to the passage of tropical storms close to the territory. Between 1994 and 1999, there were six territory-wide ozone episodes in Hong Kong during which the Hong Kong Air Quality Objective for ozone (240 μg m−3, 1 h) was violated. The maximum O3 concentration for the period was 334 μg m−3 recorded i...

This paper focuses on the changing political context for the resolution of transboundary environmental problems involving Hong Kong and the neighbouring Pearl River Delta Region (PRDR) of Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China. Awareness of possible transboundary movements of pollutants between the Mainland and the former UK colony initiall...

This paper focuses on efforts to promote environmental education and community mobilization around environmental issues in Hong Kong. It is primarily concerned with efforts directed at the broader community (i.e. the population as a whole) rather than with environmental education through formal school and college curricula. The paper draws on a rec...

The city of Guangzhou, in Guangdong Province, China, faces major problems in the development, implementation and application of a comprehensive water pollution control strategy. Since the 198Os, discharges of industrial wastewater and domestic sewage have increased dramatically, resulting in a continuing deterioration in the quality of urban water...

The city of Guangzhou, in Guangdong Province, China, faces major problems in the development, implementation and application of a comprehensive water pollution control strategy. Since the 1980s, discharges of industrial wastewater and domestic sewage have increased dramatically, resulting in a continuing deterioration in the quality of urban water...

Widely reported indicators of biodiversity within the pressure-state- response paradigm largely comprise (i) lists of 'threatened' species, (ii) threatened species as a percentage of total native species (a state indicator) and (iii) statistics on the proportion of terrestrial or marine areas designated as 'protected' (a response indicator). It is...

Over the pase decade, the term 'sustainable development' has emerged as the principal concept in the development field. The concept emerged in the 1970s and was first promoted in the international environmental and development communites with the publication of the 'world conservation strategy' (1980). It was popularized by the Brundtland report, '...

The Pearl River (Zhujiang) is the largest river system in southern China. The river, which is approximately 2200 km long, discharges into the South China Sea through an extensive deltaic area to the west of Hong Kong. Water quality in the river is under threat from a variety of sources associated with industrializationand urbanization in the Pearl...

This paper focuses on the relationship between environmental regulators and industrial enterprises in China. There are widely recognized ‘implementation gaps’ in the Chinese environmental protection system. Previous studies have attributed such gaps to a combination of factors including legislative shortcomings, poorly designed policy instruments,...

Hong Kong's coastal zone is under considerable stress as a result of continuing population growth, large-scale infrastructure developments, extensive land reclamation projects, the ineffective control of various types of pollution, and a growing problem of cross-border pollution associated with rapid development in neighbouring parts of Mainland Ch...

This paper focuses on the role of marine parks and reserves in the conservation of Hong Kong's coastal environment. This environment is under serious threat as a result of pollution of marine waters and habitat loss associated with urbanisation, large‐scale reclamation projects, and inadequate treatment and disposal of sewage and industrial effluen...

Hong Kong has enjoyed more than 20 years of almost uninterrupted economic growth and the territory is widely recognized as one of the most successful of the newly industrializing economies. Economic success has, however, brought with it a variety of environmental problems including deterioration of air and water bodies and the loss of terrestrial a...

This paper focuses on the application of sustainability concepts in Hong Kong. It briefly reviews the evolution of environmental management approaches in the territory and discusses the continuing tension that exists between the desire to promote economic growth and the need for the formulation of environmentally sustainable development strategies....

A household energy survey in Hong Kong confirmed that domestic energy consumption is dominated by modern fuels. Household spending on fuels typically amounts to less than 3% of monthly income. Delivered energy use per household per month averages 1.77 GJ and per capita use 0.37 GJ. Electricity accounts for more than half of fuel expenditures and en...

This paper focuses on the changing environmental context for energy decision-making in the region since the first oil price shock of the early 1970s. It summarizes the evolution of energy planning and policy-making systems in Asian developing countries over this period, considering the basic elements and objectives of energy policy. The discussion...

Worldwide increases in energy use are the largest source of rising emissions of CO2. In the past, Europe and North America were the regions with the largest emissions. The rapid rate of industrialization, combined with population growth, has led to substantial increases in energy use in the developing countries of Asia and the Pacific. If present t...

Issues related to developing country sources of greenhouse gases are likely to be among the most difficult and contentious matters in any concerted international attempt to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases. Biomass sources of such gases as methane and carbon dioxide come largely from lower income nations and represent particularly difficult pr...

Despite continuing controversy, sufficient concern over global climatic issues exists to call into question development paths based on the steadily expanding use of fossil fuels, particularly coal. We examine fossil carbon emissions by fuel type and consuming sector in four lower income Asian nations in the context of their national energy plans an...

Laissez-faire policies in Hong Kong have produced rapid development in the colony at the expense of environmental quality. This article details the principal environmental problems (air, water, land, and noise pollution), describes how environmental awareness has grown and how environmental monitoring programmes have been set up. Environmental qual...

This paper focuses on the role of environmental impact assessment in the planning of New Town development projects in Hong Kong. The scale and complexity of such projects inevitably give rise to a wide-range of economic, social and environmental concerns. New Town planning appears for the most part, however, to have reflected a preoccupation with e...

Provides a detailed overview of the Chinese petroleum industry, including statistical data, map and analysis of policy, problems, etc.-C.Barrow(CDS)

One of 3 volumes of case studies of ILO/Norway Project on Social and Economic Effects of Petroleum Development Programmes in Non- OPEC Developing Countries (the other case studies are of Brazil and Peru). Examines the Chinese petroleum industry, its historical development and present activities (includes maps); organization and National Petroleum P...

Examines some of the salient features of Hong Kong's environmental crisis, reviews and evaluates government responses and offers observations on possible future developments. -after Author

This paper focusses on the role of urban planning and urban planners in the development and implementation of solid waste disposal policies. The paper argues that an urban planning perspective represents an important, indeed essential, component in the design of solid waste disposal policies. Given their central concern with the management of land...

Examines the UK coal industry's relationship with the land-use planning system. Emphasis is placed upon the history of new developments under the 1974 Plan for Coal, especially at Selby and Belvoir. Provides a comprehensive review of planning issues related to changes in the geography, technology and environmental impact of coalmining.-D.Spooner

In March 1983 the Hong Kong government announced its intention to introduce the world's first electronic road pricing system (ERPS) to regulate the use of the territory's roads by private vehicles. The ERPS represents an intensification of the government's private vehicle restraint policy begun the previous year.

Despite an increasing interest in energy, certain aspects of the relationship between energy systems and policy-making and regulatory systems have remained relatively neglected. One such important area is the relation between energy land-use planning and this book is directed towards filling a gap in the available literature. It attempts to investi...