Making green a reality: More coverage for the LOCALS please !

The Star news last week printed an interesting article on companies in Malaysia that actively participate in green initiatives. Please refer below for the full write up.

"Making green a reality"

Representatives from a several companies were interviewed in the article. Without a doubt, the role of the main stream media is very important in disseminating Malaysia SD success and failure stories. This time, Monier, Digi, GAB and the only truly Malaysian company YTL had the opportunity to showcase their SD milestones.Here is a big irony: Why can't we have more local companies to champion the cause of Malaysia SD?  As what was mentioned in the article, there are more western based companies who are actually a strong proponent on SD related subjects. My view is that it is not entirely accurate because of two reasons. 

First is the fact that SD is something like an old wine in a new bottle. Whilst the history of SD goes back to the earliest known civilization, the term Sustainable Development itself was clearly defined in the Brundtland Report, commissioned in 1987. This report was named after the Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland. SD became and instant buzzword but in reality, there are many companies all over the world who practice double standard. In SD jargon, we call them greenwashers..in Malaysia it is something like "cakap tak serupa bikin".  You can read some examples of  such act here: 


The “Green” Hypocrisy: America’s Corporate Environment Champions Pollute The World


My second reasoning is very straight forward and it goes back to the responsibility of the mainstream media to report more stories about Malaysian local companies championing SD. The lack of publicity on their effort will always result several disadvantages to compete with the western based players. For example, more publicity for a company correlates to greater attraction for top local talents to work in the organisation. Sustainability in publicity will eventually provide sustainability in competent workforce for the country. All this will be inline with the New Economic Model as announced by Prime Minister Najib.


So in the name of advocating Malaysia SD, we ask that mainstream to provide more coverage to the Malaysian based companies !