Jian Luo
Monash University
Gitanjali Bedi
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The integrated waste management facility has the capability to reduce more the 90% of total waste. It helps the company to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of clean energy and sustainable cities and communities.
The integrated waste management facility is a comprehensive system for treating municipal solid waste. It will adopt a proven certified waste to energy technology with its air-cooled grate, heat recovery boiler, and advanced combustion control system certified by ISO 9001 quality standards. Also, the facility will also use an advanced flue gas cleaning system, ensuring that the facility’s emissions will comply with European Standards.
Mark Luo, the project manager of the facility, described detailed information that "the facility can process 3200 tons of mixed municipal solid waste per day, including glass, plastics, ferrous and non-ferrous metals. In this process, 3000 tons waste per day will be converted into electricity, and 200 tons waste per day will be sorted and recycled."
As a wholly owned subsidiary of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), the FonKwang Company is supported by a special research team of its parent. The researchers design and test the power plant equipment that includes waste heat boilers, flue, air condensers and conveyors. Specifically, the developed technology of automatically sorting the garbage, burning and gas purification will be adopted in the waste management facility.
As Hong Kong currently lacks waste management facilities, the company consider this project as its priority and aims to solve a waste disposal problem for the Hong Kong society. Meanwhile, the company attaches great importance to this project and is committed to building the high-quality facility and providing long-term maintenance services. Although this project is challenging, its success is the realization of the company’s strategy.
As a company executive, Mark Luo and his team have always adopted a policy of sustainable development, and they consider protecting the environment and social responsibility as an important strategy of the company. Moreover, as a once-heavy polluting company, they have been doing a lot of research on how to dispose of waste materials effectively, including steel and building materials.
On the other hand, since the establishment in Hong Kong in the 1990s, the company has been concerning about the scarcity of land resources and the seriousness of waste management issues in Hong Kong. Mark Luo shared his view that "conventional domestic waste treatment is mainly landfill. It brings pollution to the air as well as the soil, and it takes up a lot of lands.
As the amount of land in Hong Kong is limited, the traditional treatment for waste will not benefits communities in the long run. As a result, they came up with the idea of building an integrated waste management facility. At the same time, the environmental department of the Hong Kong government inspires the company to research the waste management, including the adoption of waste treatment technology and the location of waste treatment equipment.
In the short term, completing this project can help the company to expand the business. However, due to a large amount of engineering quantity and long construction time, the company may lose other projects, which leads to the high opportunity costs. On the other hand, as the social and investor expectations are changing, it will gradually push companies to adopt the sustainable model (Eccles, Perkins & Serafeim, 2012).
In the long run, the company may gain more opportunities in participating in the environment protection projects which meet the social expectations. This positively encourages the company to focus on business strategy regarding the environment and social sustainability.
Furthermore, the innovation probably raises people’s awareness of protecting the environment and drive towards a greener Hong Kong. There is evidence that the importance of waste-to-energy technology is sharing with the public in Hong Kong, which promotes their awareness of different environmental issues (Swann, Downs & Waye, 2017).
Regarding profitability, the company expects to make a profit and invests in technology facilitating their future projects. From the social benefits, the company's reputation will improve. The high sustainable firms are capable to attract better human capital and engage in innovating process, which helps the company to be more competitive under the constraints of social and environmental issues (Eccles, Ioannou & Serafeim, 2014).
Therefore, the company may attract more investors and take on more projects. As for the employees, they will have a sense of accomplishment in their social responsibility, contributing to form a company culture of sustainability. More importantly, some innovated thought of the project can be shared with the peer companies, which indirectly promotes the whole industry's emphasis on the research of innovated sustainable development.
By using the integrated waste management facility, it will reduce the need for landfills, which indicates that the land and the water will be protected. Significantly, the residue (mainly dust) generated after the garbage is burned is only about 2% of the total amount of waste before combustion. During this process, most of the heat energy created will be converted into electricity.
According to Mark Luo, the waste management facility will be able to produce about 380 million-kilowatt-hour electricity per year to facilitate the households, which achieves the goal of renewable energy and sustainable cities and communities. Compared to electricity production facilities from fossil fuels (except natural gas), the waste to energy facilities produce lower emissions (Psomopoulos, Bourka & Themelis, 2009).
Moreover, the flue gas cleaning system of the facility can remove the harmful gases and odors generated during the combustion process and reduce approximately 0.4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which contributes to preventing the climate change.
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FonKwang Development Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of The China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), is committed to providing the most professional services and products to customers in various industries, including power plant equipment (waste heat boilers, flue, air condensers, conveyors), metal minerals, commercial buildings, theme parks, modules and fire protection equipment. It has won the trust and support of customers at home and abroad with its most advanced equipment and technology, high-quality and efficient project management and timely and quality service.
