A talk on "Sustainable Development and Social Work" was held on March 13, 2000 to increase the awareness of environmental protection and sustainable development among our social workers. It is hoped that through direct services and administration, different measures can be carried out to implement sustainable development.

We invited Dr Man Chi Sum, Chief Executive Officer of Green Power and Miss Li Nim Sin, Hong Kong Programme Coordinator of Oxfam HK, to give us speeches regarding sustainable development in related to environmental protection and fighting about poverty. In addition, we invited Miss Florence Chiu, Social Worker of Caritas Community Centre-Kowloon, Miss Lee Fuk Tai, Centre-in-charge of Tsimshatsui Social Centre for the Elderly and Mr Amen Ng, Social Worker of PS33-Centre for Psychotropic Substance Abusers to share some of their experiences in organizing environmental programmes.

Miss Li Nim Sin pointed out that the UN Commission on Sustainable Development has drawn out four main areas of sustainable development in 1995: Environmental, Social, Systematic, and Economic. "Environmental" involves environmental protection and its effects. "Social" involves fair distribution of resources and against poverty. "Systematic" involves developing a system that allows different people to involve in the policy making process and co-decide the distribution of resources. "Economic" involves a country's economic structure, the gross production after deducting the cost of natural resources destroyed, etc. In comparison, among the eight principles and 39 indicators drawn from Hong Kong's Sustainable Development Scheme, most of them are of an economic value. Thus, only a small percentage of people will benefit from it, the deprived group can hardly gain anything.

Dr Man Chi Sum agreed that, the concept of sustainable development in Hong Kong was only associated with the environment and economics areas. Other social issues were neglected, such as how to establish a just society. Furthermore, the Hongkongers often think of richness would make a better environment since people would be able to live in the elite districts like the Repulse Bay. This comes strictly from a personal point of view, people don't think they have responsibility on environmental protection at all. We are indeed, developing our economics based on sustainable destruction.

With regard to environmental protection, Miss Florence Chiu explained that community education requires appropriate actions to support in order to be meaningful to the public. For example, to educate the public about recycling without actual facilities in the community, it will be difficult for them to participate in real lives and thus waste the effects on environmental education.

On the other hand, Miss Lee Fuk Tai introduced an environmental protection activity held by the Tsimshatsui Social Centre for the Elderly that conveys the message about good environment makes a healthy living. Since this concept is more related to their everyday lives, elders are more motivated to participate. Mr Amen Ng raised the inquiry about the role of social workers in environmental protection, whether they should only emphasize on spreading the concept, or if they should be persistent towards obtaining an end result. He emphasized that, if we only concerned on how to effectively dispose wastes, the only result will be people continue to create wastes. He suggested that the Government should review the directions of environmental protection in order to obtain a better result.