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World Sustainable Built Environment Conference 2024 Concluded by Consolidating Global Efforts in Promoting Green Building Development and Creating Sustainable and Resilient Cities

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The HK Report 2024 has been officially launched with over 100 groundbreaking projects, indicating remarkable surge of 40% in project submissions compared to the previous edition

HONG KONG, July 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Highlighting Hong Kong’s position as a global leader in green built environment through the joint efforts of The Government of the HKSAR and the industry in developing a sustainable city, the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and the Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC) recently participated in the world-renowned triennial World Sustainable Built Environment Conference (WSBE24), held online from 12 to 14 June. Returning this year with the support of the CIC and HKGBC as the highest-tier Gold Sponsors, this high-profile event provided a valuable series of speaking opportunities for the city, including plenary keynote sessions, plenary roundtable sessions, and scientific and technical sessions. The event was well received by government officials, industry and business leaders and academic institutions from many countries and regions, who seized this valuable opportunity to exchange their insights and experiences virtually.

With an overarching theme “Innovation Pathways & Partnerships for Sustainable Built and Urban Environments”, WSBE24 explored the role of innovative technologies in achieving carbon neutrality in the built environment. Overcoming regional barriers, industry professionals have come together through online collaboration to learn from each other and collectively advance the global green development of green building. This concerted effort seeks to forge a shared vision for the creation of sustainable cities.

On the first day of the event, an exclusive Hong Kong keynote session was concurrently held in person and with live streaming. Ms Bernadette LINN, JP, Secretary for Development, The Government of the HKSAR, Ir Prof. Thomas HO, JP, Chairman of the CIC, and Dr CHEUNG Tin-cheung, SBS, Chairman of the HKGBC, were invited to speak on the topic of Hong Kong’s policy blueprint and industry practices for promoting green building and achieving carbon neutrality. They also explored the city’s net zero carbon emissions vision and the progress of its built environment. Other eminent speakers included representatives from Aalborg University, Australian National University, CSIRO Australia, the European Commission, the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC), the United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Meanwhile, roundtable sessions also brought together experts and academic institutions from different disciplines to exchange views on topics such as green finance, green building certifications and innovative technologies, as well as global green building trends and successful case studies. Ir Dr Bruce CHONG, Fellow and Director, Climate & Sustainability of Arup, hosted the first day’s opening roundtable session, titled “Innovation Pathways and Partnerships Towards a Net Zero Emissions Built Environment: State of Practice”, as moderator. He was joined by Ir Harry LAI, BBS, Executive Director of the HKGBC, Mr Clarence LEUNG, Chairperson of the Committee on Environment and Sustainability of the CIC, Mr Jonathan CHIU, President of Schneider Electric (Hong Kong) Limited, and Mr Brandon NG, Co-Founder and CEO of Ampd Energy.

On the second day, Prof. Christine LOH, Chief Development Strategist of the Institute for the Environment at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, hosted a roundtable session on “Accelerating Green Building Movement through Green Finance and Certifications” with Dr MA Jun, Chairman and President of Hong Kong Green Finance Association, Ir HO Chi-sing, General Manager of BEAM Society Limited, Ir Wallace LIN, General Manager for Technical Services and Sustainable Development of Swire Properties Limited, Mr Ivan FU, Chairperson of the CIC-Zero Carbon Park of the CIC, Mr Nicholas HO, Commissioner for Belt and Road of Belt and Road Office, The Government of the HKSAR, and Mr Angus WONG, Managing Director for Wholesale Client Coverage of Hang Seng Bank Limited.

In addition, several key industry players from Hong Kong participated in the scientific and technical sessions to provide a comprehensive illustration of the local industry’s contributions in driving a sustainable community and city. The topics covered included concepts and strategies for a sustainable built environment, environmental performance assessment, life cycle assessment, decarbonisation measures and carbon neutrality.

With both online and offline exchange opportunities, the three-day conference offered the global green building community a high-quality platform for the synergetic development of low-carbon, smart and resilient cities of the future.

The CIC and the HKGBC also published the Hong Kong Report on the State of Sustainable Built Environment 2024 (HK Report 2024) on the first day of the event. Themed “Innovations towards Net Zero: Building Sustainable and Resilient Urban Environments”, the Report showcases the collective efforts of the Government, industry and academia in navigating the path towards achieving net-zero emissions. It highlights successful collaborations that have resulted in noteworthy green building projects and significant research and planning. The number of project submissions received by the Report grew by approximately 40% compared to the previous edition, with a total of 107 shortlisted projects. This edition also features a novel chapter dedicated to exploring green building materials and technologies. The chapter delves into how innovative solutions facilitate sustainable construction practices, presenting a more comprehensive view of the latest advancements made by Hong Kong towards sustainable development. In addition, the Report also features inspiring interviews with five renowned experts and young advocates, including Ir Dr Conrad WONG, Vice Chairman of Yau Lee Holdings Limited, Prof. Christine LOH, Chief Development Strategist of the Institute for the Environment at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Prof. Edward NG, Yao Ling Sun Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Mr Arthur LAM, Co-Founder and CEO of Negawatt Utility Limited, and Ms Natalie CHUNG, a member of the Council for Carbon Neutrality and Sustainable Development, The Government of the HKSAR, who shared valuable insights into the city’s decarbonisation blueprint and strategic planning.

Committed to accelerating green building development, The Government of the HKSAR, along with industry and academia, will continue to support green building projects, insightful planning and research, the application of green building materials, and the implementation of innovative ideas in building design and practices. The ultimate goal is to advance green building development and foster a greener, more sustainable city.

For details and to download the Report: https://bit.ly/4509XDP

About World Sustainable Built Environment Conference

The Sustainable Built Environment (SBE) series began in 2000 and is now the pre-eminent international conference series on sustainable building and construction. The series operates on a three-year cycle with planning in year one, regional conferences in year two and a global conference in year three. Albeit strong competition, Hong Kong won the hosting right of the 2015-2017 cycle global conference, jointly presented WSBE17 Hong Kong by the CIC and the HKGBC.

With the theme of “Innovation Pathways & Partnerships for Sustainable Built and Urban Environments”, WSBE24 has brought together green building advocates, policy-makers, academics, and industry practitioners from all around the world. The three-day virtual event includes plenary keynote sessions, plenary roundtable sessions, and scientific and technical sessions.

About the Construction Industry Council (CIC)

The Construction Industry Council (CIC) was formed in 2007 under the Construction Industry Council Ordinance (Cap. 587). The CIC consists of a chairman and 24 members representing various sectors of the industry including employers, professionals, academics, contractors, workers, independent persons and Government officials.

The main functions of the CIC are to forge consensus on long-term strategic issues, convey the industry’s needs and aspirations to the Government, provide professional training and registration services, and serve as a communication channel between the Government and the construction industry.

Please visit www.cic.hk for further details.

About the Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC)

The Hong Kong Green Building Council (HKGBC) is a non-profit, member-led organisation established in 2009 and has become a public body under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance since 2016. The HKGBC strives to promote the standard and development of sustainable buildings in Hong Kong. The HKGBC also aims to raise green building awareness by engaging the government, the industry and the public, and to develop practical solutions for Hong Kong’s unique, subtropical built environment of high-rise, high density urban area, leading Hong Kong to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and to become a world’s exemplar of green building development. The Founding Members of the HKGBC include the Construction Industry Council (CIC), the Business Environment Council (BEC), the BEAM Society Limited (BSL) and the Professional Green Building Council (PGBC).

To learn more about the HKGBC, please visit www.hkgbc.org.hk.

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SOURCE Hong Kong Green Building Council Limited

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Kevin Murphy Grows Marketplace Revenue 141% with Pattern

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Premium haircare brand strengthens marketplace control while maintaining salon channel growth

MELBOURNE, Australia, June 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Premium haircare brand Kevin Murphy has grown its Amazon Australia revenue by 141% with ecommerce accelerator Pattern, transforming the marketplace from a grey market challenge into one of the brand’s fastest growing retail channels.

Distributed in Australia by Ozdare, Kevin Murphy partnered with Pattern to manage its presence on Amazon Australia amid growing consumer demand and unauthorised reseller activity.

“Given the growing influence of marketplaces in Australia, it was important for Kevin Murphy to establish a stronger presence where consumers are increasingly searching for and purchasing products,” explained George Leighton, Head of Retail (Consumer) for Ozdare/Kevin Murphy. “At the same time, maintaining the balance between our professional salon channel and consumer retail presence remained a key priority throughout the process.”

Launched in November 2025 ahead of the peak Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) shopping period, Kevin Murphy entered Amazon Australia with no official marketplace presence despite significant existing consumer demand on the platform. Within just four months of launch, the brand increased units sold by 115% quarter-on-quarter while simultaneously increasing average order value by 8.4%, demonstrating strong consumer demand for premium haircare products on Amazon Australia.

Pattern’s ANZ Managing Director, Merline McGregor said the results reflected a broader shift occurring across the Australian retail landscape as premium brands increasingly embrace marketplaces as strategic growth channels rather than viewing them as discount environments.

“Many premium beauty and haircare brands have historically approached Amazon cautiously because of concerns around pricing control, unauthorised sellers and protecting brand equity,” McGregor said. “What Kevin Murphy has demonstrated is that with the right retail media, marketplace and brand protection strategy, Amazon can become a highly effective growth channel that complements existing retail and salon partnerships rather than competing against them.”

Kevin Murphy’s growth trajectory is significant given the brand launched during the peak BFCM promotional period yet continued accelerating well beyond the initial sales surge. Strong March performance against a BFCM-boosted comparison period highlighted that the brand’s Amazon Australia strategy was driving sustained long-term growth rather than short-term discount-driven spikes.

Working with Pattern has helped Kevin Murphy regain greater control over its marketplace presence and pricing environment. Since launch, Buy Box ownership increased from 65% to 91% while multiple unauthorised sellers were successfully removed from the platform, helping to protect brand integrity.

As part of the ongoing partnership, Pattern developed and manages Kevin Murphy’s Amazon Australia storefront, optimising all product listings and implementing a full-funnel advertising strategy spanning branded search, generic category discovery and competitor targeting. By the end of the first quarter, approximately 80% of ad-driven sales were coming from first-time Kevin Murphy customers on Amazon Australia, highlighting the platform’s ability to drive new customer acquisition.

“The reality is consumers are already searching for premium brands like Kevin Murphy on marketplaces, regardless of whether those brands officially sell there or not. What Kevin Murphy has demonstrated is that when brands take ownership of that customer experience with the right marketplace, retail media and brand protection strategy, Amazon can become a powerful channel for both growth and new customer acquisition,” concluded McGregor.

About Pattern Inc

Pattern accelerates brands on global ecommerce marketplaces leveraging proprietary technology and AI. Utilising more than 77 trillion data points, sophisticated machine learning and AI models, Pattern optimises and automates all levers of ecommerce growth for global brands, including advertising, content management, logistics and fulfilment, pricing, forecasting and customer service. Hundreds of global brands depend on Pattern’s ecommerce acceleration platform every day to drive profitable revenue growth across 60+ global marketplaces—including Amazon, TikTok Shop, Walmart.com, Target.com, eBay, Tmall, JD, and Mercado Libre.  For more information, visit https://au.pattern.com/

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/kevin-murphy-grows-marketplace-revenue-141-with-pattern-302805051.html

SOURCE Pattern

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Clock Ticking on San Jose Worker Contracts as City Council Eyes July Recess

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SAN JOSE, Calif., June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Several months of tense negotiations between the San Jose City Administration and thousands of dedicated City of San Jose workers have now resulted in two of the City’s largest worker contracts set to expire – just as the San Jose City Council leaves for their July recess. On Thursday, June 18, after receiving the City’s Last, Best, and Final Offer (LBFO) and working to reach a deal before contract expiration, San Jose workers represented by IFPTE Local 21 and MEF-AFSCME Local 101 have called for mediation in order to reach a fair agreement.

Last Wednesday, June 10, workers rallied at San Jose Mineta International Airport (SJC) to call on the San Jose City Administration to secure a contract that will allow the City of San Jose to retain and recruit excellent public workers. While negotiations continued after the rally, the City’s LBFO remains one that does not invest in city services and one that will not retain the city’s skilled workforce.

Members of both unions are concerned that the upcoming budget has proposed staffing cuts to several departments, including the Library, Public Works, and the Housing Department. Instead of investing in our community, city officials have elected to spend taxpayer money on corporate giveaways through massive contracts with ineffective AI companies and an outrageous $351 million subsidy towards hockey arena renovations. The City could develop a strategy that ensures corporations pay their fair share from benefitting directly from city services. Instead, San Jose insists on cutting taxes for some of the largest corporations that occupy the city, while residents and working families pay more.

“We are the workers who keep San Jose running every day. We’ve shown up at the bargaining table ready to negotiate a fair contract every week. It’s time for the City to turn things around in order to retain workers. San Jose workers and the residents we serve deserve better,” said Carlos Murillo, an Associate Engineer at SJC, and IFPTE Local 21 Bargaining Team Member. “It’s time to invest in our city services. It’s time to put San Jose first.”

“San Jose remains already one of the most thinly staffed major cities in California. The City has a real opportunity. With San Jose being a World Cup host city, we have seen our community come together. San Jose has the potential to highlight the amazing public services our city has to offer and the hard-working people who make those services happen,” said MEF Local 101 Chief Steward Heidi Mendiola, a Police Data Specialist.

San Jose workers haven’t gone on strike in two decades. Three years ago, San Jose workers organized a city-wide strike vote that shed light on the city’s dangerous understaffing and retention issues. Workers are disheartened to know that instead of working on revenue, this administration has instead continued to remain one of the few cities to cap its business license tax on large businesses, with its largest only paying $185,532 in taxes. This includes massive Fortune 500 companies, such as Cisco Systems, which reported $56 billion in revenue and $10 billion in profits for Fiscal Year 2025; PayPal Holdings, which reported $33 billion in revenue and $5.2 billion in profits; and Adobe Inc., which reported $23 billion in revenue and $7.1 billion in profits.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clock-ticking-on-san-jose-worker-contracts-as-city-council-eyes-july-recess-302805005.html

SOURCE IFPTE Local 21

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Trupeer AI Appoints Former UiPath APAC President & CEO Raghu Subramanian to Lead Japan Enterprise Expansion

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TOKYO, June 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Trupeer AI, the workflow knowledge layer for teams and AI agents, today announced the appointment of Raghu Subramanian as President and Chief Business Officer, as the company accelerates its next phase of global enterprise expansion. Backed by RTP Global and Salesforce Ventures and trusted by more than 50,000 teams in over 100 countries and 120 languages, Trupeer is strengthening its leadership team to scale adoption across enterprises, SaaS companies, Global Capability Centers (GCCs), and technology-enabled business services companies.

Japan is a strategic growth market for Trupeer, where enterprises face a growing knowledge-retention challenge as experienced employees retire and institutional expertise leaves with them. Trupeer addresses this by capturing workflows and institutional knowledge and turning them into AI-ready contexts accessible in more than 120 languages, including Japanese and English. By eliminating the bilingual bottleneck, the platform lets Japanese enterprises scale their own expertise to global teams, while giving multinational organizations instant access to existing knowledge for their Japan-based teams. Several of the world’s largest software companies use Trupeer to create Japanese-language content as they deepen their presence in the country, and  major Japanese pharmaceutical companies use Trupeer to enable learning and development at scale, capturing veteran expertise and standardizing how critical processes are taught across the organization.

Raghu joins from a distinguished career at the forefront of enterprise automation. As a founding member of the management team at UiPath, he was part of the core executive team that helped build the company into a $35+ billion NYSE-listed enterprise. He established UiPath’s APAC operations in 2016 and later served as President & CEO for India and APAC, making Japan one of their largest markets. Bringing over 25 years of enterprise technology leadership, Raghu has built and scaled enterprise businesses across global markets, with deep expertise in automation, business process management, and enterprise AI adoption. Prior to joining UiPath, he served as CTO of EXL Service.

At Trupeer, he will lead the company’s next phase of commercial expansion, with a sharp focus on Japanese enterprises, the GCCs operating in Japan, and the global parents of Japan-based delivery networks.

Shivali Goyal, CEO and Co-Founder, Trupeer AI, said, “Raghu has spent decades helping organisations adopt and scale transformative technologies and brings deep experience in building enterprises globally. Having seen first-hand the challenges enterprises face in organisational knowledge and agentic AI enablement, Raghu immediately resonated with our vision and the momentum Trupeer has built globally. His expertise will help us strengthen our commercial capabilities, deepen partnerships, and unlock the next phase of growth at Trupeer.”

Raghu Subramanian, President and Chief Business Officer, Trupeer AI, said, “Enterprises have long struggled to get real value from AI, and the reason is fragmented context. As businesses operate across languages, geographies, and distributed teams, critical knowledge often becomes difficult to access, share, and act on consistently. The knowledge that makes AI useful remains trapped in people’s heads and scattered across tools. In the agentic AI era, where agents are only as good as the context they run on, that gap becomes the difference between AI that works and AI that doesn’t. This is the gap Trupeer was built to close. I look forward to partnering with enterprises and organisations across the globe to build the context layer that makes enterprise knowledge structured, accessible, and actionable, and AI genuinely useful.”

About Trupeer

Trupeer AI is the workflow knowledge layer for enterprises that enables teams and AI agents. The company helps organizations capture critical operational knowledge that is often trapped in the minds of subject matter experts and scattered across tools, transforming it into structured, accessible, and queryable knowledge. Its platform captures enterprise workflows and turns unstructured, multimodal input into SOPs, guides, studio-quality videos, training assets into 120+ languages and continuously updated, AI-ready context that intelligent agents can leverage, making institutional knowledge accessible, actionable, and queryable. Backed by RTP Global and Salesforce Ventures, Trupeer supports more than 50,000 teams in over 100 countries, including Fortune 100 enterprises, Global Capability Centers and technology-enabled business services companies.

Further details: https://www.trupeer.ai/ 

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