Fortune REIT also embraced the Hong Kong SAR Government’s initiatives to reduce waste. Since the launch in the second-half of 2022, through Fortune REIT’s participation in the Reverse Vending Machine from the Recycling Fund, 12,478 bottles were diverted from landfill. Other waste reduction initiatives rolled out include the installation of food waste compost machines in two of its malls, as well as a program for shoppers to exchange Fortune+ points for Fill n Go bottles, a waste initiative to provide environmentally-friendly personal care products and laundry products via vending machines at selected Fortune Malls.

Tackling Food Waste

At present, Hong Kong faces a food waste catastrophe with food waste from restaurants and wet markets disposed at landfill. Food waste constitutes about 30% of Hong Kong’s landfill. Besides unnecessarily filling up our limited landfill, when food waste decomposes, it produces methane, which is more damaging to climate change than carbon dioxide. To tackle this issue, the Environmental Protection Department unveiled its Food Waste Management Strategy. This strategy involves reduction at source, food donation, food waste collection and recycling at facilities.

Food waste collection was rolled out in Fortune Metropolis to collect food waste from food and beverage tenants since December 2022. Due to the positive response from tenants, Fortune Malls expanded the pilot scheme at eight Fortune Malls. During 2024, 351.5 tonnes of food waste was collected, equivalent to avoiding 219.7 tonnes of GHG emissions.

The Property Manager educated tenants on how to sort food waste and rolled out tenant recycling stations with dedicated food waste bins. By sorting their food waste, tenants could also save on municipal solid waste disposal fees. The collected food waste will be transformed into energy at O-PARK1, which is a renewable energy generation plant which turns waste into energy. It is the first organic resources recovery centre in Hong Kong which adopts anaerobic digestion technology to convert food waste into biogas for electricity generation. The residue by-product from this process can be produced as compost for landscaping and agricultural use.

This case study serves as an example of how Fortune Malls utilises its platform to promote sustainable practices, actively collaborating with tenants to create a greener future.