SUSTAINABLE PRACTICE|SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL BY HEATHER A. LINHARDT, HKA SUSTAINABILITY COORDINATOR


With its new BEAM Platinum-rated building, Hong Kong Academy has made a commitment to sustainability. As a part of that commitment, HKA has created the position of Sustainability Coordinator to implement educational and operational aspects of sustainability. I’m excited to be the first person to serve in this role and to shape new opportunities for HKA to build out its own sustainable practices and to provide leadership to others in this arena.


At HKA, sustainability is a lens for all we do. Lenses are extremely helpful tools. They can magnify what we see and help us to identify detail we might otherwise miss. When combined to make a telescope, they allow us to see clearly things that are far away. Fundamentally, a lens changes the viewer’s perspective and improves the viewer’s understanding.


At HKA, sustainability is both: a way to see things better and a way to better see things that are beyond our campus. And ultimately, the goal is for HKA to be able to


do better because the school community sees better. As students, teachers, administrators, and families, we can join together to embed sustainable practice in our school and to provide leadership to other schools as well.


Our effort has just begun, but the programme is already on its way. One of our first initiatives will be a glass recycling programme in Sai Kung. Any one who has lived in Hong Kong knows how difficult it can be to recycle glass here. But HKA is committed to recycling glass and to offering glass recycling to the community.


Looking beyond our campus, HKA students recently presented at the Plastic Free Seas Youth Conference. The purpose of this conference was to educate students about strategies to achieve a plastic free ocean and to equip them to mobilise their peers in this effort. HKA’s delegates learned that their action can make a difference. As a result, they will be educating our community and helping manage our waste


reduction system at HKA. Winston Churchill once said, “If we are together, nothing is impossible. If we are divided, all will fail.” Sustainability is a community effort. By working together to develop and maintain sustainable practices, the HKA community can make a better school, a better Hong Kong, and even a better world.


PHOTO: HKA Primary School students recently gathered at Repulse Bay beach with about 1,000 other kids, teachers, and volunteers to make this outline of a shark in the sand for ‘Kids Ocean Day’. Organised by the Ocean Recovery Alliance, the event spotlighted the plight of sharks being killed for shark fin soup. The design of the shark was based on original drawings from two Hong Kong school children, and the characters to the right say, “Save Me”.


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