In line with InterContinental’s brand positioning, we engaged the world’s biggest brains and thought leaders, the TED audience through TED events, TED.com and 7 TEDActive Universities; asking them what they thought about the ‘future of local’ and how we could make local communities a better place. Thought-provoking videos stimulated the TED community by framing the challenge and we held debates hosted by renowned National Geographic Emerging Explorer Daniel Raven-Ellison where TEDsters could voice their ideas. The feedback we got reinforced and supported a range of local initiatives.

Working at grassroots level, the InterContinental Hong Kong partnered with New Life Organic Farm to recycle 1,200 litres of food waste into compost and gave away 2,630kg of spare fruit to the wider community. We embarked on a four-week ‘Breathing Hong Kong’ campaign with the Clean Air Network to highlight the importance of clean air and also participated in a large-scale soap and shampoo recycling programme.

We created the most engaging TED Partner Page in history, securing an average dwell time of 14 minutes and 23 seconds per visit; shattering the existing record by 100%. We reached 2.3 million online and 3,400 key influencers at the TED events. The online debate series gained 54,000 viewers and our final debate led to a TED.com participation record (78 comments), beating the previous record by 138%. Our campaign literally cleaned up! Over 3,000 people visited the ‘Future of Local’ microsite and as a combined result of the local efforts in Hong Kong, we were awarded with EarthCheck Gold certification.