Against the iconic backdrop of Hong Kong’s skyline, a room filled with cross-disciplinary real estate experts engaged in a lively display of unprecedented collaboration. Brightly colored sticky notes plastered across the floor-to-ceiling windows mapped out an intricate web of relationships between developers, tech providers, facility managers, investors, utilities, and more. The pioneering systems change workshop was piloted by ULI APAC Greenprint and aimed to address a critical challenge: how to accelerate climate tech implementations that will lead to long-term sustainability. Visualizing the roles, motivations, and pain points across this complex sector underscored why applying human-centered, systems-level thinking can be so powerful in triggering major, widespread industry transformations such as decarbonization.
The methodology presented in the workshop blended human-centered design thinking with systems mapping. Participants discovered unexpected decision drivers that were often overlooked when introducing new technologies. “I never realized they thought about it this way,” remarked one attendee of the insights gleaned from the cross-discipline discussions.
“Originally, we all had our own motivations,” said Jiwon Choi, ESG consultant at Colliers. “But in this space, we could objectively discuss the common problem and what we are ultimately trying to achieve.”
Climate tech in real estate refers to technologies that can reduce the environmental impact of buildings, such as innovative construction materials, renewable energy systems, smart building controls, and much more. Climate tech is pivotal for decarbonization, enhancing resilience, and unlocking financial opportunities. At the same time, owners and developers traditionally are risk averse, which hampers efforts to improve scalability and adoption of innovations. By using systems thinking principles, the workshop highlighted how diverse players can come together to overcome these obstacles and achieve targeted goals.
Workshop proposals included streamlining regulatory processes for minimal disruptions during construction. For example, allowing controlled testing of tech innovations during a retrofit project can be an attractive option for firms seeking both sustainability and profitability—before investing in full-scale application. The Hong Kong gathering also offered a collaborative plan to overcome specific operational barriers, such as installation disruptions or data privacy concerns.
Another crucial point was the urgent need to break down the traditional silos between the many real estate sectors and disciplines in order to supercharge an industry-wide transition to sustainability.
"[The diverse group of participants] realized they have the agency to create change and are part of the same systems,” said Stefano Tronci, Asia Pacific Sustainability Lead at SOM. “Oftentimes we want the same things, but work in silos.”
By organizing and facilitating convenings and stakeholder engagements such as this one, ULI is facilitating the vital conversations necessary to propel the industry forward toward sustainability. ULI’s workshop on applying the systems change model represents a significant building block for developers and planners to utilize going forward.
We invite you to propose specific, multifaceted industry challenges ready for a systems-level exploration. What “business as usual” behaviors are delaying progress? What hurdles are obstructing your firm’s decarbonization goals? Which stakeholder relationships lack alignment on sustainability incentives? Share your ideas at [email protected] to collaboratively design and host a workshop that can help achieve long-term decarbonization goals in the real estate industry.
