The growing importance of sustainability has led to greater awareness of issues facing our planet, but to student Eva Chui awareness achieves nothing without action. As a consummate doer, she is committed to being an active part of the solutions, acting as an inspiring role model and singing the benefits of a more sustainable lifestyle to all who will listen. She may regularly sing her heart out on the HKUST stage to many a rapt audience, but Eva Chui is so much more than a sensational voice. Since becoming an intern for the university’s sustainability initiatives, she has been determined to make a difference. With a boosted sense of purpose and surrounded by like minds, Eva is hopeful that real change is at last on its way. In her role as intern, Eva offers marketing and outreach support to the Sustainability/Net-Zero Office’s various initiatives. She has taken charge of the office’s social media platforms and her communications engage the campus community in HKUST’s sustainable development goals. One of the initiatives that Eva is supporting is “Sustainable Smart Campus as a Living Lab,” which seeks to transform the university campus into an active platform for learning, experimenting, and advancing new ideas and approaches with sustainability as a guiding principle. The “living laboratory” framework emphasizes home-grown HKUST project ideas, and nothing could be better suited to Eva’s own discovery that, first, change must come from within. Eva hasn’t always been a fervent environmentalist. When she first chose to major in Chemistry, she picked up a course in Sustainability out of interest. At this point, she was as much of a fast-fashion and convenience lifestyle consumer as the next person. Regularly buying cheap clothes online, she had little concern about the impact of her choices. 9
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