ENG-2006 — Page 338

282 The Environment

Land Use Planning

For major land use planning studies, a Strategic Environmental Assessment is required to incorporate environmental considerations into the formulation of land use plans. Under the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance, an EIA must be carried out as part of the engineering feasibility study of urban development or redevelopment projects with a study area of more than 20 hectares or involving a population of more than 100 000 people. These environmental assessments form an integral part of the planning studies and help identify major environmental issues and possible mitigation measures for inclusion in the land use plans.

Environmental Management and Sustainability

The new review of the Territorial Development Strategy entitled Hong Kong 2030: Planning Vision and Strategy, which began in September 2000, contains a strategic environmental assessment study which addresses long-term environmental sustainability issues. Public engagement took place throughout the study process.

The Government promotes environmental management in both the public and private sectors, through the Green Manager Scheme, environmental auditing, environmental management

management systems (EMS) and environmental performance reporting. All bureaux and departments have appointed Green Managers, most have regular environmental audit programmes and some hold ISO 14001 standard certificates. All bureaux and

All bureaux and departments publish annual reports of their environmental performance. Starting

Starting from 2007, all annual environmental performance reports will incorporate, where appropriate, the principles of the 'Clean Air Charter' which the Government supports to improve Hong Kong's air quality.

To provide continuing support to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to carry out their EMS programmes, the EPD has produced user-friendly ISO 14001 EMS support packages for the construction and electrical/electronic sectors to follow. These packages were updated in November 2005.

Rural Developments

The Government is committed to improving the quality of life in rural areas and to ending or removing land uses that downgrades the rural environment. The facilities for sewage disposal in the rural areas of the New Territories are also better than before and are still being improved. In 2006, the Government earmarked an additional $2.1 billion to enable the connection of the domestic discharges from a further 245000 people living in 383 villages and other unsewered areas to public

sewers.

Cross-boundary Cooperation

Environmental pollution transcends administrative boundaries and Hong Kong and Guangdong have worked together on environmental matters for over 20 years. To strengthen this collaboration further, a Joint Working Group on Sustainable Development and Environmental Protection was set up in 2000. In December 2006, the group held its seventh meeting to review progress and to discuss the plans for 2007.