The ultimate goal of any green operations is to achieve zero carbon emissions and zero waste by transforming waste into valuable resources.

Winning top Three-Leaf recognition

Maxim’s Thai Basil was the first restaurant tenant in shopping malls to receive top-rated Three-Leaf recognition in Hong Kong under the Green Kitchen Initiative established by Swire Properties in 2017. Maxim’s Group is Swire Properties’ most decorated F&B tenant group, with ten of its restaurants – including THAI BASIL, wellwellwell and Uoharu at Pacific Place, Shake Shack at Citygate Outlets in Hong Kong, and six others in the Chinese Mainland – having received the highest “Three Leaf” recognition.  

The Green Kitchen Initiative encourages F&B tenants, when they start to plan for renovations, to engage in sustainable measures together with the operations and sustainability teams of Swire Properties, with the hope of achieving energy and water savings through green measures recommended in its professional guidelines, including sustainable goals like energy and water savings, improved air circulation and waste management. 

“The communication and supervision started as early as the planning phase, as we met with tenants prior to their renovation, analyzing the overall design, daily operations and every single detail with recommendations. To us, every detail matters. The final One to Three-Leaf ratings are based on an on-site professional evaluation scoring of the environmental measures adopted by the related restaurant. The evaluation process continues after the restaurants open, following up on whether their food waste management and energy consumption comply with Green Kitchen initiative's professional guidelines. In short, there was no easy path for Maxim’s team to earn the highest rating,” said Phoebe Leung, Sustainable Development Manager of Swire Properties. 

Effective green measures save 25% energy and 40% water

Alain Yu, Manager (Sustainability, Special Projects & Governance) at Maxim’s Group, said: “Take Thai Basil as an example: the kitchen extraction system is one of the restaurant’s most energy-consuming facilities. To avoid wastage, we used frequency conversion technology to slow down the extraction fan speed when the kitchen is less busy.” There is also a lot of thought on choosing the steam oven. “Steam generated from cooking is converted into reusable thermal energy through a heat recovery system. This allows us to use 25% less gas and reduce carbon emissions by 25% compared to traditional steam ovens. It also helps reduce kitchen temperature, creating a more pleasant working environment while further reducing energy consumption by the air-conditioning system.

“On top of that, our faucets are fitted with sprayers, creating miniature shower patterns which reduce water consumption by 30-40%.” Along with the use of induction cookers and LED lighting, no detail is too small for the Maxim’s team.

Alain Yu, Manager (Sustainability, Special Projects & Governance) at Maxim’s Group emphasizes that both hardware and software matter.
Big data as an energy-saving strategy

Alain also noted the importance of having a total understanding of every kitchen detail and procedure when devising a precise plan for cutting carbon emissions – right down to details such as peak times and months of air conditioning usage. That’s why the next steps include installing smart surveillance systems at various branches, and harnessing big data to target energy-saving strategies. 

“Training frontline staff to correctly operate equipment is just as important, so that we can understand exactly how much water, electricity and gas are saved during operation, and ensure that the reduced carbon emissions is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by trees. Remember – no gesture is too small to make a change.” 

To date, 11 restaurants operated by Maxim’s Group have received Green Kitchen awards, being the top ranked F&B group with the highest number of awards across Swire Properties’ portfolios. 6 restaurants located in Mainland China and 4 restaurants located in Hong Kong have gained the top Three-Leaf recognition. Green operations are in every single detail and definitely can contribute to reducing carbon.

 Increasing electricity usage efficiency by 7%

Increasing town gas usage efficiency by 26%

 Increasing water usage efficiency by 59%

 Reducing overall carbon emissions by 14%

  Waste diversion rate over 37%

We value saving energy as well as a safe and comfortable working environment – taking care of both the environment and our people. Reducing operational cost has indirectly benefited our revenue and brought job satisfaction to the frontline staff.

Candy Tse, Head of m.a.x. concepts, Maxim’s Group



"What upmost necessitous for start-ups is a job case, so it is a rare opportunity for a company willing to try new technology products developed locally in Hong Kong." Martin Zhu, co-founder of i2Cool

Decarbonizing cooling paint inspired by a desert ant species

To survive the scorching desert, Saharan silver ants grow with unique hairs that reflect light like a prism. This natural curiosity inspired the i2Cool startup team at Hong Kong Baptist University to develop iPaint, an energy and refrigerant-free radiative cooling paint that can be applied directly to building facades, rooftops, and vehicle bodies. By blocking incoming radiance from the sun it creates a cooling effect, effectively reducing interior temperatures by 5-6℃.

Maxim’s Group is constantly on the lookout for new ways to facilitate energy and carbon reduction, and it soon saw the potential of the startup’s innovative idea. It is only natural for the two to come together to explore options for a decarbonizing trial in a real-life operational scenario. 

The dense silver hairs on the body of the Saharan silver ant can increase the reflection of near-infrared rays, and under full sunlight, dissipate the heat from the ant's body to help them keep cool. (Web image).
iPaint energy-free cooling paint uses a solar reflectance and passive radiative mechanism to create a cooling effect, emitting thermal radiation out to the cold atmosphere.
120 square meters of iPaint on the headquarters' rooftop

Though its vehicles rarely experience prolonged exposure to sunlight, Maxim’s and i2Cool decided to conduct a test run using Maxim’s transportation fleet to support decarbonization research and development. But as well as applying iPaint to some vehicles' roofs, the Maxim’s technical team found another test subject that was less obvious but no less critical, condensing water pipes of the Central air-conditioning system.

"The air-conditioning of the entire office building relies on the central water-cooled chiller system and dissipates heat through the cooling tower. Some of the condensing water pipes are vertical to the building, while the other horizontal ones must be exposed to the sun for a long time. One drawback is that they are susceptible to intense sunlight, leading to overheating and a need for increased power consumption to dissipate the heat.” explains Ken Ng, Infrastructure and Technology Project Manager of Maxim’s Group.

Maxim’s Group and the i2Cool team ultimately applied nearly 120 square meters of iPaint on the headquarters' rooftop and water pipes. Some areas were deliberately left unpainted in order to yield control data for future comparison.

"If the two parties hadn't deliberately explored the test site, no one would have considered trialing from the rooftop water pipe."

Support local scientific research by providing a test platform

The professional research team at i2Cool includes professors, PhD graduates, and young scientists from the School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, and Ken emphasizes that their cooling paint technology is unconventional and groundbreaking. To Maxim’s, this collaboration is less about reducing temperatures and cutting electricity bills, and more about creating synergy and mutual benefits by supporting local startups. Its significance is in exploring more possibilities for future environmental development.

"The experimental installation of iPaint on Maxim's Group Centre rooftop pioneered the application of iPaint’s outdoor equipment before we could successfully promote it to other buildings."



Trees planted

10,000 Trees

Families helped

15 Families

Carbon sequestered to date*

221,863 Kg CO2

Carbon sequestered over lifetime*

2,500,000 Kg CO2


Maxim's Group has sponsored the planting of SIX forests with a total of 6,000 trees, benefiting 14 local tree-planting families and sequestrated over 84,000 Kg CO2 to date.

Tree planting accelerates natural habitat recovery, while the vegetation can help sequestrate carbon in the soil to slow down the greenhouse effect.

Modern conventional farming and industrialized animal husbandry often deforest large pieces of land for a single purpose. Initially, plantations grow naturally on land, and through the process of photosynthesis, the plants help sequestrate carbon from the air, form soil carbon in the topsoil, and maintain the carbon cycle. Damaging the covering vegetation will inhibit the carbon cycle.

Human activities lead to the disappearance of trees on earth

According to a study published in “NATURE” in 2015, the earth currently homes 3 trillion trees. However, since anthropogenic activities like farming and industrial development starts, the number of trees has almost halved (49%).  The United Nations encourages enterprises to directly support tree planting or influence their supply chain to support sustainable farming and support businesses that adopt eco-friendly approaches in production.

Converting customer spending to support tree planting

This explains why Maxim’s Group has been planting trees in Asia since 2021 through an impact innovation start-up EcoMatcher. The first forest was born back in 2021 during the event -  In the Moo for Love, where over 50 outlets under Maxim’s Group participated as a gesture of support. Whenever customers purchase dishes made of plant based meat, part of the revenue goes into sponsorship for tree planting, the sponsorship has since continued throughout different campaigns. To date, Maxim's has sponsored the planting of six forests in Thailand with a total of 6,000 trees, benefitting 14 local tree-planting families. Maxim’s reforestation campaign enables consumers to take part in tackling climate change. Locally, Maxim’s has also collaborated with green organizations to support tree planting, for example, we planted 100 saplings on Lantau Island after Typhoon Mangkhut caused damage to the city in 2019.  

Every tree gets a unique code which is like a “Tree ID”. Once the code is entered, the program will “fly” to the exact location of the tree. .
Create Tree ID Card with Blockchain Technology

It is not hard to plant a tree but understanding the process and its impact transparently would be the key. EcoMatcher leverages various innovative technologies to make the whole tree-planting process easy and transparent, which is why Maxim’s has worked with them. By integrating tree farmer training, satellite orientation, and blockchain technology, EcoMatcher’s digital platform can collect and show information from latitude and longitude, plantation, date of planting, and weather to its current status clearly on your screen. You can see the smiling face of Ngor, a tree farmer in Northern Thailand.  You can read an introduction about his own family, and you can also see the trees planted a year ago up until now, that has helped sequestrate 25kg of carbon.

Ngor became a tree farmer 2 years ago, and to date, he has planted 10,000 trees.  He explains why he decided to plant these trees:

“The climate has become so drastically different now, and I hope to play a part in tackling climate change. We hope farmers can use natural fertilizers instead of artificial fertilizers in farming," said Ngor, a tree farmer in Northern Thailand.

The simple act of tree-planting brings tremendous fruitful results:
  1. Increasing soil carbon, and maintaining the carbon cycle
  2. Preserving natural habitats of wildlife and increasing biodiversity
  3. Benefiting local farmers, especially empowering women with higher income and social independence
A tree as a gift

Through technology, trees can as a gift to Maxim's colleagues, each tree is unique, and each gift so. More people feel that business and sustainable development are closely linked.

Technology allows me to "participate" in overseas tree-planting activities. It is resourceful and impressive!

Sharon, m.a.x. concepts 


It is meaningful that tree planting can beyond helping the planet, but helps the local groups that manage the forests!

Joseph, Quick Service Restaurant and Catering Services Division 


The gift of a "Tree" aroused my interest in planting so I keep browsing more about planting.

Garfield, Human Resources Department

Part of the revenue from Maxim’s products will be directly donated to support tree planting

BOB (stands for “Bottle of Bread”) is a beer co-launched with local startup Breer, which upcycles surplus bread in the brewing process. Maxim’s Group will plant a tree for every 6 bottles of BOB sold.

Since August, Maxim’s MX has launched its first “Plant as you Eat” campaign by using Impossible Pork in its dishes.  Maxim’s MX will plant a tree for every 2 kilograms of Impossible pork consumed.

Cherry tomatoes planted with zero pesticides and zero chemical fertilizers through regenerative farming methods. A tree is planted by Maxim’s Group for every 2kg of tomatoes sold.

(Data as of August 2023)


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