Zhao Pan – China, Interested In The Responsibility Of Corporations For Environment

Mulai Rabu (28/9) hingga sedikitnya 3 bulan, ada seorang pemuda cewek dari negeri Tiongkok (China) yang akan membantu pelaksanaan program lingkungan hidup Tunas Hijau. Zhao Pan, nama pemuda simpatisan Tunas Hijau asal China itu. Berikut ini adalah perkenalan dirinya dan harapannya selama berada di Indonesia bersama Tunas Hijau.

I always claim myself as an environmental friendly person but actually the actions I took in my daily life is very limited and I didn’t took it seriously until I started attending some environmental programs during my college.

I believe if you start earlier you could have formed much more environmental friendly habit than I do. These are the habits I have that helps with the environment: Firstly, I take public transportations a lot when traveling for a relatively long distance and will prefer to walk or ride a bike when they are applicable. I consider fuels as one of the most serious environment issue causer and try to avoid using cars in my daily life.

Secondly, since a lot of printing material are needed for my school work and it consumes so much paper, I always print double sided and collect used materials from my school colleagues. And lastly, which I consider the most important, is I would love to influence people around me.

Environmental actions are so simple that they are not even need to be taught, turning off the light when you don’t need them, stop the water from flowing as soon as you won’t use it, categorize the rubbish before throwing them away, however some people just don’t have such awareness. But if you do have the awareness and is doing it yourself, what you need to do is devote a little bit more effort and keep reminding people around you. And that is what I’ve done.

I started joining environmental programs since 2009 and have devoted my time doing environmental projects and have attended workshops delivered by environment NGOs in China. The very first program I run was sponsored by Nike China and it is separated into 50 actions all over China relating to environment protection.

We had activities like bike riding parade around the city to promote the use of bicycle, shopping bag design competition to help reduce the use of plastic bags and so forth. Right after this, we cooperated with a non-government organization in Shanghai named Greenovate and set up environment related workshops in schools round Ningbo, which is the city I am in and the program was such a success and we won the first prize of a environment protection activities competition called Green Cup. I’ve tried my best to influence people around me with their environment awareness and I am still trying to do more.

Except for Indonesia, I’ve been to Ghana in Africa, New Zealand and my home country China. New Zealand has the best environment among the three. It has the most clear air and the bluest sky I’ve ever seen. People have a very strong awareness of rubbish cauterization before throwing them away.

There’s hardly any traffic jam even through it is the largest city in NZ. This is partly because of the relatively smaller population and also because people would prefer to walk or cycle where ever they go. Environment protection system is kinda mature in NZ and the awareness of local people is comparatively high.

In China, some of the cities in China has very good environment condition such as my hometown Rizhao in Shandong province. This is mostly because of the small population. However, the environment has not been carefully taken cared of and it is now in danger of getting worse. In some other parts of the country with greater population size, the problem of environment is getting obvious.

Before 2008, in Beijing, people can hardly see the blue sky because of the sand from west and the factories within the city. The government had initiated a lot of policies like moving the factories out of the city, banning plastic bags and car restriction has helped a lot. But now China is still facing problems of the conflict between too much population and the environment.

In Ghana, the traffic situation is even worse than China. Since most of the cars are imported second hand cars, they are quite environmentally harmful. If I walk out during the day for only an hour, I will come back home with dust from cars all over my face. Since the country isn’t even powerful enough to feed their people, they definitely don’t have money to take care of where they live in.

I am now here in Tunas Hijau Indonesia expecting to devote my contribution to the environment issues in Indonesia. Since I have a background of business study, I am now interested in the responsibility of corporations for environment. I believe corporates plays a critical role in the environment of the country and they need paths to access the way to devote in their social responsibility to protect the environment. I hope during my stay in Tunas Hijau, I could find more connect between corporations and environmental protection initiatives.