OREANDA-NEWS. August 20, 2013. CLP would like to make the following statement on Greenpeace’s proposal put forward this Monday and protest staged at CLP Eco Home:

CLP Eco Home, located at Sai Yeung Choi Street, is an information centre devoted to CLP’s promotion of energy efficiency and energy saving education to the public. CLP always respects various groups’ freedom to express different opinions. However, we regret the actions taken by Greenpeace today (15 August), in which members of the group intruded into CLP Eco Home, occupied the passages for a prolonged period, causing much inconvenience to our visitors. It is also regrettable that some members made an attempt to climb out from the building’s roof top, posing high safety risks to themselves as well as the pedestrians.

CLP took the initiative to conduct an Energy Saving Workshop for eight green groups including Greenpeace on 28 June to explain views and exchange ideas on promoting energy saving. Subsequently, we responded to all of Greenpeace’s suggestions in writing. CLP shares a common goal with green groups in promoting energy saving to the community at large, although we take different means to achieve the same goal. We note Greenpeace has explicitly declined the invitation to take part in CLP’s public education programmes. We therefore believe any further meeting with Greenpeace would not help reach a consensus.

Over the years, CLP has been listening carefully to public views on promoting energy saving and we note there are different views from different stakeholders. CLP’s various energy saving programmes are designed to be practical, workable and able to raise customers’ awareness of energy saving. A proposal aims solely at giving out subsidies by one company to call for energy saving while ignoring the importance of encouraging a change in behaviour or promoting energy saving public education can hardly be sustainable. The fact that some media commentaries today raised doubts about the effectiveness of the proposed subsidy further reveals the proposal’s flaws.

CLP is firmly committed to energy efficiency and conservation. We have been promoting energy saving through various channels, including energy audits, public education, energy saving tips, information and tools as well as energy saving competition. We work closely with our customers and the community to help them use energy efficiently, with the objective that CLP Power Hong Kong Ltd they will choose to adopt a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. It remains our belief that energy saving should start from individual thinking and behaviour, followed by long - term practice in order to achieve effective and sustainable results.

It should also be noted that setting energy saving targets and achieving energy efficiency require concerted efforts from all sectors in the community to change their energy consumption behaviour and habits. Hong Kong’s unique market environment and constraints such as weather conditions, economic conditions and population growth also need to be taken into consideration. The costs and benefits involved in the implementation of energy saving programmes should also be balanced in a practical manner.

CLP will, as usual, continue our efforts in promoting energy saving. We will strengthen cooperation with various organisations who share our views to further conduct community-wide public education programmes. All stakeholders’ views and suggestion, including those of Greenpeace, will be taken into consideration.