We will use this in tutorial sessions – so come prepared!!

Some guides
1. Please create a post for completing two tasks by clicking + and add your tutorial group number + group member's name (e.g. A1-Mathew Pryor, Kaia Li, Michelle Wong) as the Subject
2. Your answer will be released before tutorial / workshop
3. You are encouraged to read and like your classmate's answer, or leave comment to them

One of the key ways to achieve this is to focus on developing technologies that reduce our need for resources or directly address environmental issues. It is important to consider the impact of technology on both the environment and society before we put the new technology into use, this ensures technologies to be used in a responsible and ethical manner.

For instance, one of the reading showed that one of the six transformation to achieve the UN SDG is to ensure universal access to modern energy sources. Currently, the dominant use of fossil fuels is contributing to global warming, so it is important for us to shift towards modern renewable energy technologies. That would help save human from suffering from the consequences of global warming.

2. The recent technological development of green roofs might help Hong Kong achieve the UN's sustainability targets. Green roofs refer to growing vegetation on the roof of a building. They provide multiple ecological benefits, including reduction in the urban heat island effect, improvement in air quality, and enhancement in biodiversity. In addition, they can help reduce energy consumption by insulating buildings naturally. In Hong Kong, green roofs can be installed on both new construction and extant constructions. Therefore, Hong Kong can develop sustainable infrastructure and reduce its environmental impact by incorporating green roofs.

Technology creates a virtuous circle where the leave-no-one-behind principle is applied. To promote education and gender equality, online communications platforms (i.e., zoom) introduces access to education opportunities to isolated rural households, then tertiary education accelerates adoption of new technologies with new talents.

Recent advancements in FinTech can potentially help improve financial inclusion through offering more affordable, efficient, and sustainable financial services to people of any level of income.  Another benefit, start-ups by young entrepreneurs will have a more effective financial funding from investors. The current digital currency is many core foundations of technological ideas like the metaverse, these encourages advancement in various industries, encouraging industrial sustainability.

 

Example of recent technological development /advancement within your SDG area that might help hk achieve the UN’s sustainability targets.

The most interesting one is the AI advancements in the recent year namely ChatGPT, wide range of application fields from painting and programming are being innovated. Although this technology is still in development and needs polishing, the implications are undeniable. For example, Notco the vegan industry where the artificial intelligence can utilize its data and assemble a vegan recipe by analysing the chemical components of the meat counterpart. This corresponds to our SDG 9 where industries in the Hong Kong should be more sustainable, the citizens of Hong Kong can be further encouraged into a flexitarian diet with a higher compositions of plant-based food products, helping the domestic meat-alternative industry grow, gain more investment and formal support from the Hong Kong government.

Indeed, technology has the power to aid us in overcoming some of the most significant issues affecting modern civilization. The question of whether it will "rescue us" is complicated and dependent on a variety of variables.

On one hand, technical developments hold the potential to alleviate many of the urgent problems we face, such as poverty, disease, and climate change. In addition, improvements in medical technology may result in improved health outcomes and increased access to healthcare for individuals all over the world.

On the other hand, applying technology as a remedy also comes with significant problems. For instance, technical advancement may result in employment losses and other economic upheavals. Also, there are worries about the potential for technology to be abused, such as through cyberattacks or the distribution of misinformation.

In a nutshell, whether technology will "rescue us" depends on our ability to strike a balance between its advantages and disadvantages and to make responsible and moral use of it.

2. Recent technological development

The Internet allows women to gain knowledge earlier and increase social mobility. This can bridge the gap with men. Also they can use the Internet to search the laws that are protecting them and find help on the Internet.

Moreover, the Internet lets people get in touch with the difficulties brought by gender inequality and LGBT. This can also increase people’s acceptability of LGBT and reach the goal of gender equality. 

Computerized and automated business mode also helps contribute to gender equality in the job opportunities to male and females.

For example, the computerized and automated logistics systems. Male are often said to be having a stronger body than women. This, in the past, job opportunities for warehouse keepers are only offered to male due to its heavy work.  Now, robots, delivery belts and computers helps the company to do heavy work, such as transporting heavy and dangerous products. Such technology makes the job of warehouse keeper easier and hence, even women can handle it. Therefore, there more jobs of warehouse keeper opens for females now, UPS and DHL is a good example to it.

 

However, there are some existing technology that could alleviate the problems of the poor consumption habits. Cat-HTR™ technology (Catalytic Hydrothermal Reactor) is a world-first, advanced recycling process that uses supercritical steam (water at elevated temperature and pressure) to convert plastics back into the chemicals and oils from which they were made.

Technology alone cannot save us from all the challenges that we face today, such as climate change, poverty, inequality, and political instability. While technology can offer potential solutions, it is not a panacea for all our problems. We must recognize that technology is a tool, and it is up to us to use it in a way that benefits humanity.

2. With the advent of online learning platforms, students can learn anywhere, at home, or in school. As teaching has become more engaging, different games have been added, such as Kahoot and Quizlet. Students will be more engaged and passionate about learning when this happens, and they will learn more in lessons. Moreover, Google meet, Zoom, and Microsoft teams allow learning to be more flexible, and lessons can be recorded. This can also increase the quality of education given to children by creating whiteboards, breakout rooms, and allowing students to interact with teachers while on the go. 

2.(SDG12, sustainable consumption and production; Focused area: plastic wastes in the food and packaging sector)

One of the challenges in sustainable plastics manufacturing is the simple fact that recycling plastic is expensive and resource-intensive. As a result, it’s often a lot cheaper to just produce single-use plastics, despite the long-term environmental risk they post. But that may soon change, thanks to a new technique developed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The new method, which was published in the journal Science, uses specific catalysts that enable plastics to be broken down at near room temperature, significantly lowering the cost.

On one hand, we can use technology to innovate new technology to diversify our basic needs. For example, new technology may arise that we can preserve our food longer and safer. We also need more efficient technology to generate sustainable energy. However, on the other hand, technology can also cause harm to the environment as well as both our physical and mental health. 

Another perspective is communication. Through electronic devices with advanced technology, we can express our ideas and communicate with others. However, people might be addicted to online communication, instead of focusing on face-to-face communication, and they may suffer from loneliness easily.

 

2.     Find an example of a recent technological development/ advancement within your SDG area that might help Hong Kong achieve the UN’s sustainability targets.

The mobile industry contributes to SDG 5 by increasing women's access and use of mobile & internet technology to enhance their lives and increasing women's participation and leadership in the technology industry. For instance, AI can identify unbiased selection to support inclusivity. Moreover, the AI-enabled remote work platforms targeted at women. 

2.
SDG: Clean Water and Sanitation 

To strengthen the development and application of smart technologies in water quality monitoring, modelling, and data visualisation, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) established an integrated smart technology centre in 2021, namely the Smart Water Science Centre (SWSC). The SWSC is equipped with advanced computing servers and high-performance computing clusters, which allow the integration of data and information acquired from smart monitoring systems, modelling projects, and the routine monitoring program, into the SWSC’s database. An integrated Geographic Information System (GIS), a 3D data visualisation platform and thematic web applications are newly developed and connected to the database as a one-stop platform, which saves effort in extracting, compiling, and consolidating information from different data sources, and facilitates more efficient comparison and analysis of data. In addition, it also provides a holistic visualisation of the temporal and geographical water quality information based on the consolidated historical data, real-time online monitoring data, and model predictions of the future conditions of Hong Kong and its adjacent waters for planning and EIA purposes. And the enhanced monitoring of water quality can help achieve the goal of clean water and sanitation through a more accurate and integrated analysis of water quality in Hong Kong.

2. Hong Kong has started introducing electric buses to replace buses operated with gas.  Not only does this reduce the expense on gas, using electric public transport is more environmentally friendly as it produces less CO2 and other pollutants. In Hong Kong where most people travel by public transport, introducing electric public transportation can greatly benefit the air quality and reduce carbon emission in this city which in turn improve overall health of the citizens.

Due to current technological acceleration in nearly all fields, it has been quite evident that technology affects both adversely and positively many aspects of life. Hence, whether technology can save us or not is a controversial topic. However, if applied grammatically (through consideration of humanism, theory and research), it can support the world very well and therefore benefit humanity. To reach that level, there needs to be a harmonical balance between the government, countries and especially the general public (because, as individuals, we can make significant changes too) to collaborate in the right direction. The sooner this gets realised, the better we can prevent a crucial future failure caused by an unbalanced use of technology harming the environment, health, economy and lots more.

 

2. find an example of a recent technological development / advancement within your SDG area that might help Hong Kong achieve the UN’s sustainability targets. 

Our group’s (B6) SDG is number 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030. An important and quite intriguing example of a recent infrastructure facility for this area is the water-cooled systems (WCS) through sea water (water taken from the harbour). This is done by cooling towers as a method of heat disposal during chilled water production. This will satisfy one of the eight targets of SDG 6 as a sustainable energy-efficient system that will reduce carbon emission (alongside 6.3 (nm), as sea water can be used for flushing as well).

2. One of the technological advancements helping with clean water and sanitation is membrane distillation. It is a separation process where a micro-porous hydrophobic membrane separates two aqueous solutions using low-grade thermal energy, in which only the vapor molecules can pass through the microporous hydrophobic membrane. It could be used for the treatment of saline water and waste water with high rejection factors. 

In addition, with the advancement of technology, Artificial Intelligence could be used for the analysis of real-time data which could be put in place for predictive maintenance, anticipating and preventing pipes malfunction. 

Besides, VR provides realistic travel experiences. With a virtual field trip, students can feel as though they are at the location and can get a better sense of the scale and the surroundings. This could be learning about the history of a famous ancient castle and visiting a monument or the environment and visiting a nature reserve. Hence, enhancing Target 4-7: Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship.

Target 4-A: Build and Upgrade Inclusive and Safe Schools can also be achieved through VR. Having limited land and space has always been an underlying problem in Hong Kong. So, when expanding a school to build more sports grounds seems rather difficult. School authorities may consider implementing VR for students to experience different sports so that physical health is not neglected.

On one hand, we can use technology to innovate new technology to diversify our basic needs. For example, new technology may arise that we can preserve our food longer and safer. We also need more efficient technology to generate sustainable energy. However, on the other hand, technology can also cause harm to the environment as well as both our physical and mental health. 

Another perspective is communication. Through electronic devices with advanced technology, we can express our ideas and communicate with others. However, people might be addicted to online communication, instead of focusing on face-to-face communication, and they may suffer from loneliness easily.

 

2.     Find an example of a recent technological development/ advancement within your SDG area that might help Hong Kong achieve the UN’s sustainability targets.

The mobile industry contributes to SDG 5 by increasing women's access and use of mobile & internet technology to enhance their lives and increasing women's participation and leadership in the technology industry. For instance, AI can identify unbiased selection to support inclusivity. Moreover, the AI-enabled remote work platforms targeted at women. 

In my opinion, the answer is both, it can both save us and destroy us. 

We all know how important technology is for upcoming industries and recently been focusing on sustainable development which can benefit the earth. From technology, new alternatives can come up to have a sustainable future 

For eg: the public electric transports ..they eliminate all the local particulates including SOx, NOx and CO2, all major issues from the cities today. 

Moreover, there are negative impacts of the growing technology as well if people choose the easy way out. For eg: technology from depleting the natural resources could destroy the planet but if the same technology is switched to renewable energy technology, a way more sustainable future can be seen. 

Technology will save us if we apply it in an appropriate context and assess its potential benefits and risks.

Technology facilitates social development and helps us achieve SDGs. Widespread internet connectivity enables people to exchange information and communicate with others, transportation development makes commuting more efficient, power generation technology ensures electricity supply, etc. For achieving SDGs, social media platforms help publicize the SDG concepts and draw people’s awareness. Technology also provides platforms for young people to collaborate to achieve SDGs. Digital technology improves resource efficiencies, support the circular economy, enable zero-carbon energy system, etc.

However, the rapidly developed technology also increases the potential of some risks. The development of AI increases the unemployment rate. The digital revolution causes threats to people's privacy. Only when we assess these pros and cons of technology and try to minimize its negative effects can technology truly save us.

2. SDG-9 industry, innovation and infrastructure. 

①Nanoscale 3D printing technology which is a game changer today has enabled for precision manufacturing of biomedical and photonic devices. This technology has increased speed to 10000 times and reduced cost by 98% 

Just like these there are more innovations seen in Hong Kong to have a sustainable future like cultivating fintech talents, enhancing web security etc.

② Biodegradable technology

The reason for production industry is now called a disaster for society is that almost all the products produced nowadays proceed with several complicated procedures, making them exquisite and lengthening their life span. Yet, a long life span also means that these products are difficult to degrade and decompose, accumulating in landfill sites or marine and waiting for their end of life. 

Hence, to solve this problem, the company nowadays would like to seek out a way to regulate the lifespan of the products,  not as long as possible, but easy and green to decompose after using it. Biodegradation is a new technology that is investing in this purpose. 

For example, a Hong Kong company invested in a biodegradable mask; with the outbreak of Covid-19, the demand for masks has risen rapidly. Yet, masks are necessities, while it is produced from a mixture of materials of plastic and cotton, which are difficult to decompose, resulting in serious concern about pollution. There’s news showing that numerous abandoned masks are floating in the ocean, blocking the insolation of marine and trapping the animals. 

In this case, biodegradable can highly help with this issue by degrading the mask efficiently and environmentally friendly after we use it for a day.

In the future, technology would prevent a food crisis. For instance, it can improve farming and food quality. New technology allows us to improve the quality of meals and farming, whereas green revolution technologies allowed farmers to produce more food with less land. Our reliance on agrichemicals can be reduced, soil quality can be improved, and food can be made more nutrient-dense thanks to precision farming technologies and biotechnology advancements. This indicates that we may still get more out of our food system with fewer inputs while putting less stress on the natural resources of the planet.

2.

Food import in Hong Kong is necessary as we cannot produce enough to fulfill everyone, and that could cause lots of food waste due to bad storage management, especially fruits. However, by extending the shelf life of perishable goods, shelf-life extension technologies help to reduce food waste during the consuming stage. For instance, Apeel makes plant-based sprays that reduce the deteriorating process. In a trial test, avocados sprayed with Apeel had a 50% reduction in wasted fruit. Therefore, this innovation could help Hong Kong to prevent food waste more sustainably.

2. E-learning is a great example of how technology improves our life. It made learning widely accessible, allowing people who sick and those who are less fortunate to take classes without physically attending the class

1. We benefit from using technology on daily basis. The topic over whether technology is preserving or destroying our natural world has always been hotly debated. While everything will have both good and bad consequences, we should see the improvement of technology as an opportunity, but not a harm.    

Innovation is needed to safeguard human being, while innovation requires tremendous amount of concise data. The improvement of technology can withstand this difficulty by applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to collect different samples for developing different technology that can benefit human beings.              

 Simultaneously, the development of new Technology should also be suitable to the occasion, it should be produced according to societal norms, so it can merge to the society more effectively.

2. Our SDG topic is Zero Hunger. 

This goal is really so hard to achieve, however, to greatly alleviate this problem, there are so much way to do so. Actually, this can be solve by applying one of the technology we heavily use in daily life —— refrigeration. In many developing countries, there are many farmers growing excess crops during growing season, and throwing them all due to withering, finally ended up with food shortage during dry season. In 2017, one of the NGO has provided access to electricity and some cooling machine to some developed countries, which has increased 30% of the food supply. And when the application of cooling technology in all developing country I s possible, it can feed and solve hunger problem fro the vast majority of those 1.2 billion of people who faced food insecurity today.

 

2. The introduction of a eHealth system in Hong Kong can help us achieve our SDG goals in the ‘Good Health and Well-being' aspect. It is an Electronic Health Record Sharing System in full, allowing authorized healthcare services providers in Hong Kong to share and access patients' electronic health records. It can let doctors view every operation, vaccinations, and medicines that a patient has received in the past, thus preventing medical mistreatments and incorrect diagnoses due to incomplete health records, enhancing the efficiency in our health system so we can be more ready than ever in combating diseases.

1. We benefit from using technology on daily basis. The topic over whether technology is preserving or destroying our natural world has always been hotly debated. While everything will have both good and bad consequences, we should see the improvement of technology as an opportunity, but not a harm.    

Innovation is needed to safeguard human being, while innovation requires tremendous amount of concise data. The improvement of technology can withstand this difficulty by applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to collect different samples for developing different technology that can benefit human beings.               Simultaneously, the development of new 

Technology should also be suitable to the occasion, it should be produced according to societal norms, so it can merge to the society more effectively.

      

2.Our SDG topic is Zero Hunger. 

   
This goal is really so hard to achieve, however, to greatly alleviate this problem, there are so much way to do so. Actually, this can be solve by applying one of the technology we heavily use in daily life —— refrigeration. In many developing countries, there are many farmers growing excess crops during growing season, and throwing them all due to withering, finally ended up with food shortage during dry season. In 2017, one of the NGO has provided access to electricity and some cooling machine to some developed countries, which has increased 30% of the food supply. And when the application of cooling technology in all developing country I s possible, it can feed and solve hunger problem fro the vast majority of those 1.2 billion of people who faced food insecurity today.

From water purification to renewable energy generation, from medical use to communication during a pandemic, technology continues to be an imperative tool for sustainable development to us. Solutions which we now consider sustainable would not exist without the research and development of advanced technology. 

 

Newer technologies have always created more opportunities for sustainable development to humans.

 

As is a common theme across various issues, the misuse and overuse of technology has led to numerous unsustainable consumption practices which damages the environment. However, the solution lies in incentivizing efficient usage rather than arguments of whether technology will save us. Technology is a core foundation for sustainability.

 

Q2

HK Government is taking forward other waste-to-energy facilities. O·PARK2 located in Sha Ling, North District is under construction and is expected to be commissioned in 2024, with a treatment capacity of 300 tonnes of food waste per day. O·PARK2 will adopt advanced technologies to convert food waste into biogas and fertilizer. In addition to providing electricity and heat for its own facilities, the surplus biogas will be used for production of electricity. About 24 million kWh surplus electricity can be generated annually, sufficient for use by 5 000 households.