Lophy Luo is an Environmental Manager at Agile Group Holdings Ltd, a real estate development company based in Hong Kong, where she is responsible for sustainability strategy and reporting. This role challenges her to incorporate the principles of sustainability into the company's current business model whilst ensuring any changes remain cost effective and competitive, capitalising on even the smallest opportunities to achieve change. High-standard, green buildings can enjoy additional gross floor area in Hong Kong and subsequently, Lophy has been instrumental in driving a change in company policy to ensure that all new projects fulfil the required green building standards. Whilst increasing project costs, this change greatly improved the company’s competitiveness.
Lophy’s current role requires significant engagement with charitable enterprises and this has led her to start a ‘trash to treasure’ programme which finds new homes for unwanted items, such as electronics, furniture and books, left behind by the former owners of properties which have been acquired for renovation. Through her own volunteer work, she identified charitable communities who would benefit from this scheme. Volunteers are invited to collect any required items for free, preventing these from ending up in landfill. This initiative not only provides a cost-saving to the company by removing the disposal fee, but the re-use of these materials greatly increases the sustainability of operations.
Lophy has a Green Finance Certificate from the Chartered Banker Institute and, following this, completed a Business Sustainability Management course with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, addressing the increasing prevalence and demand for sustainability practices in business. Her long-term aim is to be responsible for developing sustainability policy within an international company, creating a sustainable business model which maximises the amount of value that can be gained from each type of capital whilst simultaneously minimising the damage that is done to the environment.
Lophy joined the IES in 2018 to keep up with the fast-changing world of environmental science and to further her professional development, culminating most recently in her application to become a Chartered Environmentalist.
