There all kinds of ways to do environmental activism. One way, as we pointed out in yesterday’s Optimist Daily, is to take to the streets and be civilly disobedient in the name of climate action. Another more subtle way is to be like Chinese environmentalist Ma Jun. At the age of 50, Ma has successfully gotten Chinese factories belonging to some of the world’s biggest companies such as Apple to clean up their act. How? With lots of data and a little bit of shaming.
Ma works for the Institute for Public and Environment Affairs (IPE), and as such, he has access to a database of more than 1.3 million environmental violations committed by China factories. It publicly displays this information in online maps and apps, pushing factories and the brands they supply to clean up. Many of them do, agreeing to third-party audits approved by IPE and its partner organizations to clear their records from IPE’s database. With this, Ma has convinced two of the world’s most opaque institutions—international corporations and the Chinese government—that publicly monitoring pollution is in their interest.
For his accomplishments, he has won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize and many other awards, making him a major face of China’s environmental movement. All of this, however, is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Ma has done to protect the planet. For the full scoop on Ma’s heroic activism, have a look right here.
