An Imperative Effort to Respond to Rapid Changes on a Global Scale
HKU and HSBC jointly launch
"Partnership for Sustainability Leadership in Business"
[Hong Kong] In response to rapid social-ecological changes on a global scale—climate change, resource scarcity, social exclusion and change of customers' aspirations— and the United Nations' call for actions to attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many businesses have risen to the challenges and taken actions to contribute to sustainable development. To support and further enhance these efforts and the business sector's role in promoting sustainability, The Centre for Civil Society and Governance (CCSG) of The University of Hong Kong, with support from The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC), has initiated a four-year action research project—"Partnership for Sustainability Leadership in Business (PSLB)". This Project is the first-of-its-kind collaborative endeavor leveraging the strengths of academic institutions, businesses, regulators and the community at large to support the business sector, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Hong Kong and the region, to build Sustainable Value Chains (SVC) and to promote the SDGs.
The Project is led by Professor Wai-Fung Lam and a group of sustainability experts, with the aims of promoting collaboration and partnership between large corporations and SMEs through knowledge transfer, capacity building, network development, and building resilience against sustainability challenges.
The Project has engaged the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) and the Business Environment Council (BEC) as Project Collaborators, and researchers of the Faculty of Business and Economics, HKU (FBE) as Research Collaborators.
As SMEs account for 98% of Hong Kong's corporations and 45% of the territory's total workforce, they are a major player in the economy. Many SMEs, however, lack the knowledge and experience in integrating and implementing sustainability measures in their operation. Faced with numerous sustainability challenges, ranging from global climate change and resource scarcity, to stringent regulation and unexpected disruptions in their global supply chains, SMEs often find themselves incapable of tackling these challenges effectively. Compared with big corporations, SMEs in general are less able to absorb risk due to thin resources and funds. This Project strives to foster collaboration between large corporations and SMEs, and to improve SMEs' preparedness in taking on sustainability challenges, with a view to supporting the business sector of Hong Kong to create SVC.
