Green rewards: Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau and Environmental Campaign Committee Chairman Joseph Lee launch the Hong Kong Awards for Environmental Excellence.

The 2008 Hong Kong Awards for Environmental Excellence has been launched to encourage businesses and organisations to adopt green management.

All businesses and organisations and their functional units operating primarily in Hong Kong are eligible to participate in the scheme. It provides two levels of recognition - Environmental Labels and Sectoral Awards.

Environmental Labels will be granted to participants who have attained a prescribed number of specific environmental goals. Participants may apply for one or more of the four labels - Wastewi$e Label, Energywi$e Label, Indoor Air Quality Label and Eco-Product Label. Applications will be accepted all year round from April.

The Sectoral Awards will be granted to organisations which have demonstrated all-round and outstanding environmental performance in an annual competition within designated sectors.

Participants may choose to compete within one of the seven sectors - construction industry; financial institutions; hotels, restaurants and catering companies; property management; retailers; transport and logistics; and public sector and non-governmental organisations. The awards are open for application from April to June.

Awardees of the Environmental Labels and winners of the Sectoral Awards will be entitled to use the labels or year-specific award icons for promotional and publicity purposes.

Each Sectoral Awards participant who enters the stage 2 assessment will receive a complimentary assessment report prepared by environmental experts on the organisation's environmental performance.