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.  

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.

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."

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.

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 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.