Buildings in Hong Kong and perhaps elsewhere take up a significant portion of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions. Having committed by the HKSAR Government to reduce the carbon intensity of Hong Kong by 50-60% by 2020 compared with 2005, the building sector has an undeniable role to play. Despite that building environmental assessment (BEA) tools are increasingly used to evaluate the environmental impacts of building facilities in the local industry, their effectiveness in the carbon reduction were still unknown. This study therefore aims to reveal the local practices and industry practitioners’ perceptions on reducing buildings’ carbon footprint in general, and to explore the capability of the BEA tool adopted in Hong Kong, namely Building Environmental Assessment Method (BEAM Plus), for carbon footprint evaluation in particular. An interview survey was carried out with twelve local industry experts to achieve the research aims. The results of interview survey indicated that the awareness and concern of building carbon footprint were still very limited in Hong Kong. This might due to the insufficient endeavor from various stockholders especially the government and private developers in promoting and adopting low carbon strategies for buildings. Besides, there was a predominant view among the interviewees that the BEAM Plus is not adequately comprehensive to assess the buildings’ carbon footprint. Adopting a holistic framework for assessing the carbon footprint throughout the entire building lifecycle is thus desirable. Copyright © 2012 IAHS.
