Ice-cold office tombs and flying freezers

Stepping into a Hong Kong bound Cathay Pacific airplane is like coming home; the organization is perfect, the hostesses are immaculate – and it is freezing cold onboard.

I always bring an extra sweater whenever I fly in any of Cathay’s flying freezers and I have never understood whether the cabin temperature is arctic because of customer demand or because they want to prepare the passengers for Hong Kong’s ice-cold offices, public transport and shopping malls.

In Hong Kong, the air-conditioning always works, regardless of the weather. In winter it is equally cold inside and outside the office tombs, in the summer the difference can be like experiencing an ice bucket thrown at you.

Sun Hung Kai Centre, where TNS is located, has a centralized air conditioning system; so from the ground floor restaurants to the top floor (occupied by the owners - the Kwok family), rich or poor, everybody must endure the cold.

Now that the warm weather is returning, cold offices come at substantial health cost. Hong Kong workers often catch a cold, but since they are very committed to their work, they take a Panadol or antibiotics to keep going. It’s no wonder that Hong Kong is among the highest antibiotic users in the world and there’ll come a day when we’ll have a Super Bug which will resist any medicine designed to kill it.

Economically, excessive air conditioning means increasing cost as well and with a more volatile climate predicted we are likely to have colder winters and hotter summers. Electricity suppliers HKE and CLP anticipate growing demand and are planning extra capacity, for which they are asking their customers to pay in advance; a great business model – when you want to grow your revenue, charge your customers a higher price for the same product to pay for planned investments.

Higher electricity prices leads to lower consumption, and thus lower pollution. However, the government, seconded by CLP and HKE, has proposed a more complicated solution: subsidize electricity usage for low income households and small businesses, so they will keep using more, hence consumption and prices can keep going up.

If we fly north, we can witness a different model. Japan suffered a shortage of electricity after the Fukushima nuclear reactor exploded last year. The government made it mandatory for all companies to reduce electricity usage by 15%, at minimum.

In good Japanese collective fashion, everyone participated in the setsuden (energy saving) campaign; Tokyo dimmed its neon lights late at night, computers were switched off earlier and temperature in the offices was set at 22°C instead of the customary 18°C.

The Hong Kong public will likely react along the lines of the Japanese approach, judging from previous years’ participation in the Earth Hour campaign by WWF. Earth Hour took place on March 31, when people were encouraged to turn off their lights for an hour. TNS has been tracking the public’s participation in the campaign for WWF, showing that 55% of Hong Kong individuals participated in Earth Hour last year and a further one third had considered participating, but could not for various reasons.

So, it seems like the majority of the Hong Kong population is prepared to make some sacrifices for the greater good.

In addition, if big businesses, from Cathay Pacific to Sun Hung Kai to the MTR will allow Hong Kongers to work and travel at the temperature of 22°C, we’ll spend less money on electricity and more on what really matters. We will be healthier, happier and more satisfied passengers.