Climate resilience requires not only efforts in mitigation and adaptation by the government but also the community at large. WSD has been striving to engage the community to conserve water through initiatives including raising public awareness on water conservation, promoting the use of water-saving devices and encouraging the public to establish a good habit of conserving water.
WSD has on-going campaigns to raise public awareness about water conservation. Since the start of the 2015/16 school year, WSD has been running the "Cherish Water Campus" Integrated Education Programme (IEP) – Primary School targeting primary students. To extend water conservation education to pre-primary levels, WSD has launched the IEP – Kindergarten in 2018/19 school year to all kindergartens in Hong Kong. As of end of 2022, the programme has attracted participation from over 400 primary schools and 420 kindergartens. WSD has also launched the "Cherish Water Ambassador" Scheme for secondary and tertiary students in 2018, to encourage youngsters to become ambassadors and cultivate social responsibility of protecting water resources, and promote water saving messages to the public.
Since 2014, WSD has launched the "Let's Save 10L Water" campaign to appeal the community to reduce 10 litres of water consumption per capita per day and establish a good habit of conserving water. To keep up the spirit, WSD launched the “Let's Save 10L Water 2.0” Campaign. Through a series of activities, WSD strives to promote water cherishing culture to all walks of life with a target to reduce daily water consumption per capita by 10 litres, and to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as advised by United Nations, as a co-operative efforts to combat climate change. Besides, WSD has developed best practice guidelines for water usage in the catering and hotel industries and promoted the guidelines to the industries through relevant associations. WSD also organised the Enterprises Cherish Water Campaign (ECH2O), providing a collaboration platform for commercial and industrial sectors to cherish water together through different initiatives including signing of charter, appointment of cherishing water manager, recognition programmes, etc.
In addition, WSD has set up a new Water Resources Education Centre (H2OPE Centre) to provide more information on water resources and conservation to the general public so as to foster a culture of cherishing water in society, and to call for joint efforts to protect precious water resources on Earth. WSD has been promoting the use of water saving devices through the Voluntary Water Efficiency Labelling Scheme (WELS); and installing water-efficient devices and flow controllers in public projects, including government buildings and public rental housing estates. The first stage of the mandatory use of WELS products has already been launched. We will also draw on successful overseas experience and explore further initiatives to promote the use of water saving devices.