Connections | Hang Lung

Hang Lung Partners with a Startup to Develop an Innovative Approach for Green and Low-carbon Buildings

Feature Story | Jun 30, 2023

Westlake 66 in Hangzhou is the first commercial development project to use low carbon concrete bricks in mainland China and Hong Kong

Embodied carbon constitutes 11% of global carbon emissions and approximately 75% of a building’s total emissions over its typical 60-year lifetime*. In 2022, Hang Lung’s scope 3 emissions were about 72% of its overall emissions, with embodied carbon emissions from building materials being the largest source of emissions. As the impact of embodied carbon is fixed at the time of construction and cannot be reduced once the building is constructed, reducing embodied carbon is a major challenge for the global building and construction sector.

Hang Lung strives to accelerate the global sustainability agenda by tackling this major challenge through innovation as climate resilience is one of Hang Lung’s four sustainability priorities. To reduce Scope 3 emissions, the Company recently joined hands with a startup company, CLEANCO2, to launch a two-year strategic collaboration that deploys new technology such as low carbon recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and CLEANCO2 carbon storage concrete bricks (low carbon concrete bricks) at the Westlake 66 development in Hangzhou.

The collaboration will see CLEANCO2 low carbon concrete bricks used to cover the secondary partition walls of the basement of Westlake 66 in Hangzhou, making it the first commercial development project in mainland China and Hong Kong to use these bricks.

The Company and CLEANCO2 have completed a small-scale pilot project with the low carbon RCA at Westlake 66 in Hangzhou and are now evaluating this process at a medium scale, using 150 tons of waste concrete. We look forward to introducing innovative solutions to other projects, and sharing the technology and achievements with industry peers to jointly promote green and low-carbon development.

Hang Lung Properties and CLEANCO2 ink a two-year strategic collaboration to apply innovations to reduce embodied carbon at Westlake 66, Hangzhou and other Hang Lung projects. (From left) Representatives from Hang Lung Properties include: Mr. Louis Tong, Deputy Director – Project Management, Mr. Adrian Lo, Director – Project Management, Mr. John Haffner, Deputy Director – Sustainability; and Representatives from CLEANCO2 include: Mr. Zhao Chao, CEO, Professor. Wang Tao, Zhejiang University, and Mr. Jack Liu, COO

CLEANCO2 introduces the innovations of low carbon recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and feature of CLEANCO2 carbon storage concrete bricks

CLEANCO2

The technology developed by CLEANCO2 originated from the State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization (CEU) of Zhejiang University. In 2020, CLEANCO2 and CEU jointly built the “Zhejiang University-CLEANCO2 United Laboratory of CO2 Mineralization Utilization Technology”, the first CO2 mineralization utilization experimental base in mainland China, with the potential to achieve large-scale industrial production globally.