“No Air Con Night” is a territory-wide energy saving campaign started in 2010 to promote the wise use of air conditioning held by Green Sense. We aim to bring out the importance in reducing greenhouse gases emission and saving energy through this event.

In the post COVID era, we resume face-to-face environmental education activities in schools and more activities for the public are coming.

The purpose of the school seminars is to raise the understanding of the climate change and extreme weather, and threats to human being and the ecology. Energy saving actions are encouraged to change the boiling future.

On the other hand, serial air-con-free outdoor events will be held in the Autumn, including: Tsui Hang Night Safari, Parent-child Play at Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve, Astropark Stargazing Night, and Green Camping Experience Day. All are welcome to connect with the nature, and enhance the interactions with the natural environment.

Online registration is not necessary this year. We hope for everyone to ease the “global boiling”, by wisely use of energy in order to reduce the greenhouse gases emission.

We should rethink the energy consumption habits that may rapidly affect our environment. Take a step in turning off the air conditioning while the outdoor temperature is below 27 degree Celsius!

More about No Air Con Night 2023: http://greensense.org.hk/noaircon

To call for more “low carbon” actions, such as wisely use of air con and energy, less meat, more vegetables and less food miles, walk more and drive less, we present these “low-carbon” habits at the mini game booth, relating the actions to the arctic iceberg and polar bears.

We believe, not only parent-child groups can enjoy the mini game, but also the general public may rethink their daily lives and carbon emission. The “very hot” days after the mid-autumn festival are the signs of global warming. It cannot be eased by staying at air-conditioned indoor all day and night. Instead, some cooling methods are also introduced at the promotion booth. Photo props are also provided at the booth. Everyone is welcome!

The event details are listed as below:

No Air Con Night 2022: Mini Game Booth at Citywalk
Date: 24 – 9 – 2022 (Sat)
Time: 14:00 – 17: 00
Venue: Nature Walk A, G/F, Citywalk, Tsuen Wan
Citywalk is the venue sponsor of this event

No Air Con Night 2022: Mini Game Booth at Infinitus Plaza
Date: 30 – 9 – 2022 (Fri)
Time: 12:00 – 16: 00
Venue: Shopping Arcade Atrium, G/F, Infinitus Plaza, Sheung Wan
Infinitus Plaza is the venue sponsor of this event 

More about No Air Con Night: http://greensense.org.hk/noaircon

“No Air Con Night” is coming for the 13th year in 2022. We call for turning off the air con on that night, in cooling down the Earth. Some people may start to reduce the use of air-conditioning at home by joining the campaign.

sThis year, we continue to promote the idea of “Turning off the air con when the outdoor temperature is below 27 degree Celsius”. Let “No Air Con Night” be a connection to the nature, to let everyone of us feel the weather and seasons’ change, in order to tackle the climate change and global warming.

We believe a change starts day-to-day. To ease the Global Warming and extreme weather, we are responsible for reducing the greenhouse gases emission and implementing green living. When we rely on cooling our room temperature by air con, the weather will be hotter and hotter, which is trapped in a vicious circle. A better way to cool down is turning off the air con.

In the coming August to October, public engagement activities such as a slogan competition (Chinese only) 《無冷氣夜標語創作比賽》is for all ages with prizes. And “No Air Con Night mini game booth” will be held in September.

Please follow Green Sense Facebook Page for more details.

More about No Air Con Night：http://greensense.org.hk/noaircon

Territory-wide campaign “No Air Con Night 2021″ is coming for 12 consecutive years. We call for turning off the air con on that night, in cooling down the Earth. Some people may start to reduce the use of air-conditioning at home by joining the campaign. Therefore we encourage the member of the public to “Turn off the air con when the outdoor temperature is below 27 degree Celcius”. Let “No Air Con Night” become a habit, not only for one night! It can be today, tomorrow and every night!

We believe a change starts day-to-day. To ease the Global Warming and extreme weather, we are responsible to reduce the greenhouse gases emission and implement green living. When we rely on cooling our room temperature by air con, the weather will be hotter and hotter, which is trapped in a vicious circle. A better way to cool down is turning off the air con.

In the coming August to September, public engagement activities such as a lyrics competition of《夏日熱辣辣—無冷氣版》https://youtu.be/znbGpYaTGfc, “No Air Con Week Writing Competition”, “Creative Cooling Method Challenge” are for all ages with prizes. Please follow Green Sense Facebook Page for more details.

More about No Air Con Night：http://greensense.org.hk/noaircon

Over 90,000 households support the 11th No Air Con Night

Turning off the Air Con, Cooling the Earth

The “11th No Air Con Night” was successfully held on 9th October, 2020, Friday. This annual energy saving event aims to promote green practices and encourage people to bear the responsibility as a member of the earth village.

Easing global warming starts with a simple action! We are happy to announce that over 90,000 households have signed up for “No Air Con Night 2020”! With reference to an air con consuming 1kWh of electricity per hour, turning on the air con for 8 hours would equate to emitting around 4.43kg of carbon emission. Referring to the participation date of 90,000 households in this year’s “No Air Con Night” (from 7pm to 7am the next day) would decrease electricity consumption by 1080MW, while reducing 598 tons of carbon emission.

This year, with the significant support from 49 Universities and Higher Education Institutes, and 287 Schools (including 55 Secondary Schools, 115 Primary Schools and 117 Kindergartens), thousands of students, staff and parents have the chance to understand the importance in saving energy and the practice of green lifestyles. Some schools also held different kinds of energy saving activities in response to this campaign.

Moreover, 246 companies and organizations have pledged to join “No Air Con Night 2020”. Over 1400 buildings and housing estates have called for the support from their colleagues, residents and tenants, and some of the property management offices to turn off the air con. They posted No Air Con Night posters, stickers and display the paperless promotion on the e-panels.

It is our honour to gain the generous support from the Hong Kong Observatory and Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, and having dozens of Government departments and related organizations, such as the Transport and Housing Bureau, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, Buildings Department, etc., to actively promote our event to their Civil Servant teams. We are also grateful to have the support from over 57 District Council Members. They have published posts on the social media to show their supports.

Apart from political, business and educational parties, we have specially invited a rapper from HKGolden Music to perform the theme song and filmed music video for “No Air Con Night 2020”, arousing support from the general public! This year we also invited Sham Lok Yi, a local artist and Green KOL, to film a promotional video for “No Air Con Night”. In the video, Sham introduced different creative methods for cooling down when not using the air con. She also encouraged us to save energy and reduce carbon emission, as well as joining the “No Air Con Night”.

This year, celebrities of different sectors have supported “No Air Con Night”, including:

• Mr. PANG Yiu Hung, JP (Director of Electrical & Mechanical Services (Ag.)
• Dr. CHENG Cho Ming (Director of HK Observatory)
• Mr. LAM Chiu Ying (Former Director of HK Observatory)
• Futou Annie (Musician)
• Mr. MOK Ho Kwong (Founder of Natural Network)
• Ms. SHAM Lok Yi (Artist)
• Miss Cecilia CHOI (Actress)
• Ah Jeng (Radio DJ)

More about the participation list: https://en.noaircon.com/participation

Apart from inviting celebrities to support “No Air Con Night”, we are also aware that a number of public figures, including radio presenter, writer, and artist, have encouraged the public to join the event on their social media pages. Meanwhile, various online information platforms helped to promote this year’s “No Air Con Night”. We are motivated by the active responses public figures and the media have shown towards the event, which also reflects our society’s increasing awareness towards environmental issues.

This year, under the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measures, we launched a new online activity for “No Air Con Night”– “Party Guess with the Polar Bear”, which allowed us to interact with the public via social media. In a video clip, an actor in a “Polar Bear” costume demonstrated a list of movements representing environmentally friendly and climate change messages. Dozens of participants got the correct answer and will receive a reusable umbrella bag. The reusable umbrella bag is an environmentally friendly gift and can substitute single-use umbrella bags. Through this activity, we hope participants and the public can learn to use the air con responsibly, to save energy and to mitigate global warming. We would like to thank the participants who joined this activity.

In the past 9 years, we have host a “No Air Con Night” ceremony in an outdoor air-con-free venue. This year we cannot host a ceremony due to the pandemic, but we are glad that different sectors have still shown their understanding and support for this event.

We thank all of you to turn off the air con and cool the Earth together! Please continue to support the “No Air Con Night” and sustain in the wise use of energy!

Green Sense “No Air Con Night” is an annual energy saving event that aims to promote green practices and encourage people to bear the responsibility as a member of the earth village.

Due to the uncertainty affected by the prohibition on Face Covering Regulation and the Emergency Regulations Ordinance, the Day and Night of No Air Con cum ceremony will be cancelled. Still the “No Air Con Night 2019″ will be continued.

Until 6pm on 4th Oct, over 80 thousand households are pledged to join the “No Air Con Night 2019. 13 Universities and Higher Education Institutes, 303 schools (56 secondary schools, 120 primary schools and 127 kindergartens) take part in No Air Con Night. There were thousands of teachers and students pledged to act greener. Some schools also held different kinds of energy saving activities during this week in response to this campaign.

The 10th No Air Con Night is also supported by 243 companies and organizations which promote this campaign to their staff. Nearly 1000 buildings also encourage residents and tenants to join. Some property management companies are to turn off the air con at some areas of buildings and estates tonight.

Green Sense encourages participants to rethink the usage of air con, by turning it off at home at least for one night. All of us should also be more considerate to others as well as plants and animals, before each and every action. We will continue to strive for a greener and righteousness city together.

Local green group Green Sense has long been paying close attention to urban environmental issues. Multiple scientific surveys have been conducted on both individual and organizational misuse of air conditioning in order to urge Hong Kong to reduce its electricity consumption and carbon emission. Surveys and researches examining air conditioning systems in various transport means and public places such as shopping malls were done throughout this decade.

Research background

According to ‘Hong Kong Energy End-use Data’ 2019 published by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, commercial buildings account for 66% to the total electricity consumption, of which 30 percent is used in air-conditioning. Specifically, energy consumption by end-uses in office for air-conditioning accounts for 55%. ^[1]This reflects that air-conditioner is inseparable with offices.

In addition, studies showed that the temperature in offices affects the working efficiency and productivity, even the relationship among colleagues. ^[2]However, 40% of workers cannot adjust the temperature in offices.^[3]

In order to arouse public awareness in wise use of air conditioning, we recently conducted a survey to investigate whether the air conditioner is probably used, the relationship between the air conditioner and working efficiency, and factors affecting one’s decision to adjust the temperature.

Methodology

In July and August 2019, we, with the help of volunteers, conducted street questionnaire in 5 commercial districts, namely Central, Admiralty, Quarry Bay, Kowloon Bay, and Kwun Tong. A total of 506 valid responses were collected. All results and graphs are available here.

Major findings

1. Half of the respondents feel too cold in the office, around 90% of them agree that the temperature affects their working efficiency. (Figure 1)
2. When feeling cold in the office, 70% of respondents passively adapt to it, which means they wear jackets or drink warm water. Only around 10% of respondents ‘actively take action’ to turn down the air conditioner. (Figure 2)
3. 60% of respondents cannot adjust the temperature of the air conditioner owing to the central air conditioning system (Figure 3). Among the respondents feeling cold in the office, 65% cannot turn down the air conditioner. (Figure 4)
4. The outdoor temperature ranges from 29°C to 35°C during the survey. Yet, nearly half of the respondents wore long sleeves. (Table 1)

Table 1

Results

Valid responses amounted to 506. The target group of the survey was residents working in the office. Summaries of responses of the 11 questions in the questionnaire are as follows:

1. (Q1) 50% of the respondents feel “very cold” and “cold”; 42% feel “moderate’; only 8% feel “hot” and “very hot”. This indicates the temperature setting of the air conditioner is too cold, which do not comfort the workers
2. (Q2) 47% of respondents consider 24-26°C as the most comfortable temperature, which is similar to the government’s proposal of turning the air conditioner to 25.5°C; Following by the option “21-23°C”, which 42% agreed with it. Only one respondent reflects that there is no air conditioner in the office. The results reflect that air conditioners have already been part of our working environment.
3. (Q3) 86% of respondents’ working efficiency is affected by indoor temperature. From the scale “0” as no effect to “4“ with great effect, 43% of them selected “3” and 25% select “4”. The average is 2.43.
4. (Q4) When feeling cold in the office, 76% of respondents wear jackets; Following wearing jackets are drinking warm water (24.7%) and turning down the air conditioner (22.9%). Other methods include turning on the heater, using an electric blanket, etc. Turning on the air conditioner while using these devices create wastage of electricity.
5. (Q5) 11% of respondents had conflicts with colleagues because of the temperature of the air conditioner.
6. (Q6) Only 40% of respondents can adjust the temperature of the air conditioner. This implies that even feeling cold, they cannot turn down the air conditioner.
7. (Q7) The major reason for the above situation is attributed to the central air conditioning system (71%). Moreover, 14% and 13% of respondents answered ‘do not know how to adjust the temperature’ and ‘have no authority to adjust’ respectively.
8. (Q8) The number of questionnaires collected in each district
9. (Q9-10) The sex and age distribution of the respondents
10. (Q11) 47% of the respondents wear long sleeves on that day

Conclusion and suggestion

Turning on the air con while wearing long sleeves is definitely a waste of electricity. Global warming is increasingly serious. Hong Kong, as a coastal city, will bear the brunt of global warming in rising of sea level. Therefore, it needs a stronger action to reduce carbon emission. As commercial activities consume the most in terms of electricity, at the same time the use of air conditioners accounts for a high proportion, it could be a way to combat global warming. Reducing electricity usage can even prevent the government to buy electricity from mainland China, which enables Hong Kong to have a more stable and sustainable electricity supply.

With the aim of raising public awareness in reducing the usage of the air conditioner, together with the above findings, the following are some of the recommendations to the government, companies, and individuals.

The Government:

• Promoting casual dressing to work, like conducting a Pilot Scheme in governmental offices
• Encouraging companies to participate in the government’s Energy Saving Charter
• Following the Indoor Air Quality Certification Scheme and IAQ Certification Scheme for Offices and Public Places, encourage companies to comply with the listed standards, like setting the indoor temperature in between 20 to 25.5°C and speed of air movement. Suitable indoor temperature could help improve the indoor air quality

Company:

• For companies using the central air conditioning system, they should reflect the needs to turn down the air conditioner to the property management offices
• Apart from meeting clients, “smart casual” instead of “formal” dress code is suggested, to reduce the usage of the air conditioner
• Using fans to assist the air conditioner, which can reduce the electricity consumption of the air conditioner
• Installing shading curtain, or applying window film to prevent direct exposure to sunlight

Individual:

• Actively request for turning down the air conditioner instead of passively adapt to it
• Prevent the use of heaters or electric blankets to avoid further wastage
• Drinking water and using mat to reduce reliance on the air conditioner

Follow-up actions

• We shall continue to examine and monitor the public air con usage, and carry out further studies when necessary.
• Results of the survey would be widely promoted in our annual energy saving event No Air Con Night along with the message and related information of using air conditioners smartly

No Air Con Night 2019

Until 16th September, 13 universities and tertiary institutions, and 224 kindergartens, primary and secondary schools (102 kindergartens, 85 primary schools, and special schools and 37 secondary schools) have registered to participate in No Air Con Night 2019. Participating institutions have also promoted this green event on their campuses. In addition, more than 190 companies and organizations, as well as 700 properties have joined the event and agreed to promote it with full efforts among their employees.

We are now inviting various public figures to participate in the event to encourage the public. This year we are happy to have Mr. Mok Ho-kwong of Natural Network, influential travel writer Mr. James Akio Hong. We are also inviting LegCo members and district councilors to participate and motivate the public to turn off their air con at night.

On 5th October, it will be our 10th Anniversary Special: The Day and Night of No Air Con. the activity will start from 1 pm to 9 pm in Vessel 01, Kwun Tong Promenade. Bunch of interesting activities including workshops and workout classes will be held for the public to enjoy in an air con-free environment. We welcome all to turn off their air con, head out to Kwun Tong and have a great night at the promenade.

For more information about no air con night and energy-saving: http://greensense.org.hk/noaircon

Brand New Website for No Air Con Night is launched！

“No Air Con Night” is Green Sense annual territory-wide energy saving campaign started in 2010, in order to promote the wise use of air-conditioning. We target thousands of citizens in Hong Kong to pledge and turn off the air con on 5th October 2019 (Suggesting from 7pm to 7am the next morning). Other energy saving habits should also be practiced at all times.

【PLEDGE NOW】：https://www.noaircon.com/pledge-now

Moreover, many fun activities are waiting for you！

1. Paper Fan Drawing Competition

Feeling hot? Use a paper fan to cool yourself down! Unleash your creativity and start making changes in your life. Let’s vote for your favourite designs!

【VOTE NOW】：https://www.noaircon.com/paperfan

2. Polar Bear Flash Mob

Glaciers are melting and polar animals are losing their habitat. Are you willing to save them?  Come and Rescue the Polar Bear！

【VIEW MORE】：https://www.noaircon.com/polarbear

3. 10th Anniversary Special: The Day and Night of No Air Con

Indeed, turning the air-conditioner off and adopting a low-carbon lifestyle is much easier than you imagine. Walk out of your air-conditioned room and find out about the bunch of interesting activities waiting for you! To participant in the workshops and workout classes, please fill in the online registration form first. Enrolment is on a first-come-first-served basis.

Date：2019-10-5
Time：1-9pm
Venue：Vessel 01, Kwun Tong Promenade

【REGISTER NOW】：https://www.noaircon.com/dayandnight-of-noaircon

Green Sense has long been focusing on the abuse of air con in Hong Kong. In the past decade, we have investigated and reported about the wastage of air con and the heat generated by public transport and public space.

Coincides with the upcoming “No Air Con Night 2019” event, we are going to carry out a series of investigation and promotion on the wise use of air con. We hope to arouse public concerns about the abuse of air con and ultimately take energy saving action with awareness.

This summer, we are going to investigate the situation of air conditioning at office. We hope to provide specific advice for different situations on how to reduce the use of the air con.

We need volunteers to collect questionnaires in the territory (please see the location and time details below).

Date: 5-9 August 2019
Duration: (12:00 – 14:00) 2 hours

Dress code: Casual wear
Prepare yourself with:
1. Smart phone or tablet (for we reduce printing out the questionnaire)
2. Water bottle for drinking
3. Umbrella/raincoat and sunblock
4. Towel/handkerchief (use less tissue paper)

Online enrollment:  https://forms.gle/n3Z66uSyfvm1bpet5

Note:
1. We welcome anyone over 15 years old who wish to participate.
2. Participants who are under 18 years old need to submit parents’ letter with signature. (The parents’ letter will be sent with confirmation email)

If you have any question, please contact us at 8100 4877.