The University of Chicago’s Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth and the University of Hong Kong’s HKU Jockey Club Enterprise Sustainability Global Research Institute are proud to announce five new awardees of the HKU-UChicago Collaborative Sustainability and Climate Research Fund. Each project is run jointly by University of Chicago and University of Hong Kong (HKU) faculty and investigates a key topic in sustainability and climate.
Learn more about the five winning projects below.
Vehicle Replacement, Technological Progress, and the Fate of Old Cars
Project Leads: Hyuk-soo Kwon (UChicago), Jasmine Hao (HKU)
The energy transition largely hinges on replacement decisions in durable goods markets. Electric vehicles (EVs), appliances, heating systems, and industrial equipment are not replaced every year. Consumers decide not only which product to buy, but also when to replace it, whether to sell it in a secondary market, and whether to wait for future technologies. These dynamic decisions become particularly important when cleaner technologies are improving rapidly. On the one hand, consumers may replace vehicles more quickly as older models become obsolete, reducing the need for policy intervention. On the other hand, if consumers expect future vehicles to be substantially better and cheaper, technological progress may increase the value of waiting and delay replacement, thereby widening the gap between private and socially efficient turnover rates. Understanding how these competing forces interact is central to evaluating the role of replacement and scrappage subsidies in accelerating fleet turnover and reducing emissions.
Development of Reversible Aqueous Sn-Ion Battery
Project Leads: Shirley Meng (UChicago), Chunyi Zhi, (HKU)
The rapid deployment of renewable electricity in the United States, Hong Kong, and the broader Asia-Pacific region requires safe, low-cost, and scalable electrochemical energy storage technologies. Lithium-ion batteries have enabled transformative progress, but their reliance on flammable organic electrolytes, critical mineral supply chains, and stringent manufacturing conditions limits their suitability for all stationary and distributed energy storage applications. Aqueous batteries, by contrast, offer intrinsic safety, simplified manufacturing, and improved environmental compatibility. However, their energy density remains limited by the narrow stability window of water and by the lack of metal anodes that can operate reversibly without severe hydrogen evolution, dendrite growth, or corrosion. Tin (Sn) metal has recently emerged as a compelling anode for aqueous batteries because it combines several properties rarely found in one metal chemistry: relatively low redox potential, high specific capacity, high hydrogen evolution reaction overpotential, good cyclability, low toxicity, and favorable electrodeposition behavior. This proposal aims to develop a reversible aqueous Sn-ion battery by discovering cathode hosts that can store Sn2+ and pairing them with a stabilized Sn metal anode.
Targeting Environmental Regulation Based on Social Damages in China
Project Leads: Shaoda Wang (UChicago), Guojun He (HKU)
Environmental regulation requires difficult targeting decisions. Regulators cannot inspect every factory at every moment, and therefore must decide which firms to monitor, inspect, and penalize with limited enforcement capacity. In practice, these decisions are often based on a factory’s measured pollution levels, past violations, industry, or perceived compliance risk. These are important inputs, but they do not necessarily capture the social harm caused by a given factory’s emissions. The same amount of pollution can generate very different damages depending on the factory’s location, prevailing wind patterns, atmospheric transport, nearby population density, and the vulnerability of exposed populations. This project explores a unique opportunity to study whether these inefficiencies can be reduced through algorithmic regulation.
The Long-Run Economic Effects of Citizen Environmental Governance in China
Project Leads: Shaoda Wang (UChicago), Guojun He (HKU)
Air and water pollution remain among the most serious threats to human well-being in developing countries. Although many governments have adopted stringent environmental standards, enforcement is often incomplete, especially when local regulators must balance environmental protection against economic growth. A central question for both scholarship and policy is therefore whether low-cost mechanisms of public accountability can generate sustained improvements in environmental performance, and what economic costs such improvements impose on regulated firms. This project studies the question: do temporary improvements in environmental accountability generate persistent changes in firm behavior and regulatory enforcement?
Disclosure Architecture for Sustainable Philanthropy: A Field Experiment on NGO Transparency and Resource Allocation in Hong Kong
Project Leads: Shaoda Wang (UChicago), Guojun He (HKU)
Philanthropic capital is a major funding channel for sustainable development. Nonprofit organizations deliver frontline programs in environmental conservation, climate adaptation, public health, and social welfare, yet the market that allocates resources to these organizations suffers from severe information asymmetries. In Hong Kong, over 17,611 organizations hold tax-exempt charitable status under the Inland Revenue Ordinance. Yet the philanthropic market operates under conditions that would be unacceptable in regulated financial markets: NGOs face very few regulations on publicly disclosure about financial statements, governance structures, or program outcomes. Funders cannot easily verify which organizations are well governed, financially sound, or effective at achieving their stated missions. The result is that organizations with stronger marketing but weaker governance may attract resources at the expense of better-managed organizations with greater development impact. This project tests whether a publicly deployed transparency benchmarking platform can improve nonprofit governance and the efficiency of philanthropic resource allocation.