The Great Debate: This House Believes AI is the Most Impactful Tool in a Business’s Sustainability Strategy

Prof. Andy Chun is a distinguished pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, with a career spanning several decades. He spearheaded Hong Kong’s first commercial AI system deployment in the late 1980s. He has since developed innovative AI solutions for numerous public and private sectors, significantly enhancing Hong Kong’s social services, quality of life, and economic prosperity.

Prof. Chun is a Professor of Practice at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and an Adjunct Professor of the EMBA program at City University of Hong Kong. In these roles, he actively advocates for innovation and the adoption of emerging technologies.

Throughout his career, Prof. Chun has led technology initiatives at Prudential plc, held CEO positions at multiple AI start-ups, and served as the University CIO at City University of Hong Kong.

He is an advisor to the HKSAR Government on AI and IT strategies and the founder of the AI Specialist Group for the Hong Kong Computer Society.

His exceptional contributions to AI have earned him numerous accolades, including being named a Distinguished Fellow of the Hong Kong Computer Society. Prof. Chun holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

My Sustainability Goals for 2025:

1. Make Sustainability Literacy a Core Civic Competency: Integrate sustainability, systems thinking, and AI ethics into public education, media, and lifelong learning, empowering citizens to critically engage with climate risks, green technologies, and ethical trade-offs.
2. Position Hong Kong as a Regional Lab for Climate Adaptation and Ethical Tech: Launch pilot zones that test climate-resilient infrastructure, ethical AI governance, and low-carbon lifestyles. Partner with ASEAN cities to share models, tools, and lessons learned.

Keith is the Chief Technology Officer of Li & Fung Trading leading the company’s various technology and AI initiatives which help drive value delivery through innovation, use case identification and AI adoption. Prior to Li & Fung, he held different executive roles at S.F. Express, including Chief Technology Officer of S.F. Technology, Chief Information Officer and CEO of S.F. international overseas region based out of Shenzhen as well as CMO of S.F. Express HK. His vast experience cuts across Technology and Digital in Asia Pacific for both established and start-up businesses. Prior to joining S.F. Express, Keith led solution consulting and sales teams of Enterprise Business and Supply Chain Cloud for Oracle Asia Pacific and for SAP Greater China.

Keith, being an early adopter of GenAI in the enterprise world, is a found member and advisory board member of Artificial Intelligence Association of Hong Kong (AIHK). He is also a CIO Board Member of Hong Kong Computer Society. Keith holds an Executive MBA degree from both Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and HKUST, a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Ms. Ophelia Lin serves as Vice Chairperson of Friends of the Earth (HK), Founding President of the SME Sustainability Society and  Founder and Managing Director of Meiriki Japan, empowering and promoting SMEs to adopt sustainable environmental business models.

My Sustainability Goals for 2025:

1. Introducing Green Finance into SMEs
2. Blends Tech Innovation in Business Model
3. Circular Economy in Logistics

Matt Sexton is Group Strategy Director at Futerra, the international sustainability strategy and communications consultancy devoted to Making The Anthropocene Awesome.

At Futerra he has developed bold and innovative sustainability strategies for some of the worlds biggest businesses including Swire Pacific, Kao Corporation, Formula 1, Tommy Hilfiger and The North Face. he also started Futerra Academy which has created training for over 60,000 employees at the likes of Aegon, British Airways, Kimberly-Clark and Booking.Com. Prior to Futerra he was sustainability Director at B&Q/Kingfisher where he found his way into sustainability as a buyer when every category seemed to have a sustainability challenges that needed to be solved.

My Sustainability Goals for 2025:

Become a blueprint for city scale sustainability that can be replicated across the world – 80% of us, I think, live in cities!

Jie Zhou is a sustainability expert, systemic innovator, trustee, and reseach advisor with 15+ years of experience across Europe and Asia.

A founding member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s (CISL) Innovation team, she designs and spearheads initiatives that turn complex challenges into scalable, real-world solutions. She has launched accelerators for circular innovation, created widely-used toolkits for SME decarbonization, and built international partnerships with UN agencies, global corporations, and family offices in Asia.

In her role as head of the Sino-UK Centre for Sustainability Innovation at Cambridge, she builds a critical bridge between two of the world’s most dynamic innovation ecosystems, accelerating climate solutions on a global scale.