The Green Journey

The year that was.. and moving forward

Posted by JLow on Dec 22, 2010

It’s time to look back and see how we have done for 2010.

As with all airlines that serve the European markets, we had started our EU ETS monitoring and reporting activities for the whole of this calendar year. As I type this we are finalising the legal and commercial arrangements with a vendor on the verification process- a process / exercise that is mandatory for the EU ETS compliance.

Disappointingly, our Green Office program has not been running as smoothly as we had hoped. There were stop-start activities- some folks have seriously taken this on board, but most have been busy with the airline’s main focus, sidelining this “secondary activity” to pursue company objectives. We did have one building-wide “spring clean” exercise in our own office, where at least on a local level we are now aware of how much paper products we use and dispose. We are looking at having this as a recurrent activity, as well as for other buildings to do the same.

Our Voluntary Carbon Offset program has gained another corporate client- Khazanah Nasional Berhad, who joined our program with a donation. Thank you ladies for supporting our initiative

And on this note, we will be having a tree-planting event in January 2011 together with FRIM and the Pahang State Government, to assist in their redevelopment of the Pekan peat swamps.

On November 11th we jointly conducted the Airport and airline on sustainability seminar, where we shared similar and different challenges and approaches in dealing with climate change in the industry, and where we also learned about our guest speaker’s Deep Green program. I would very much like to see this become a series of events, with Malaysia Airports again, on similar topics, but with expanded scope and depth. Aviation and climate change is an interesting combination of topics internationally, even more so for the locals perspective.

Moving forward we will be further pursuing the sustainability agenda for the airline. A lot of 2010 was spent creating the awareness and educating the internal folks and management about this topic and how the airline would benefit with green initiatives. We have been engaging the higher management with this topic, both from a CSR as well as a brand-positioning perspective. 2011 will be the year when this becomes an internal policy, where we will also be pushing for more employee engagement activities to support this slow but steady cultural change.

On that note Malaysia Airlines will also therefore start to formally report on its sustainability efforts. This will include formalising this as a policy, increase internal adoption at the corporate level, conduct activities where we will measure and set targets for our (reduced) carbon footprint, increase our Green Office and 3R programs to include onboard activities, social responsibility activities, and have fun at the same time

Sustainability and us

Posted by JLow on Jul 29, 2010

Last week, Khazanah had invited a number of local GLC’s to their workshop on “Corporate Sustainability: Moving towards low carbon growth”. This is a Silverbook workshop by them; the 6th one already in fact.

A quick background into what the Silverbook is; I am sure you can recognise what some of these are on:

Two of the principles from the Silverbook states:

GLCs should proactively contribute to society in ways that create
value for their shareholders and other key stakeholders

GLCs should actively manage their contributions to society in the
most efficient and effective manner in line with industry norms
and best practices as well as the relevant regulatory framework

Broken down, and also coupled with our Prime Minister’s pledge to reduce our carbon emission intensity by 40%, this translates to the core area of environmental protection and policies. Therefore the topic of sustainability comes under this.

So what is sustainability?

Whilst the topic of sustainability is both wide and also evolving, I would like to attempt to define it for our use.

Source, and more elaborative explanations, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability

“Sustainability is the capacity to endure”

In our context, it means that given our lifestyle of:

• consumption (of food, fuel, manufacturing);
• waste (trash, inefficiencies/leakages);
• development (deforestation, mining (BP?), more cars on the roads);

we will eventually BOTH continue to harm the environment as well as deplete our limited resources.

An interesting note is that there is existing data indicating that Malaysia is already quickly becoming one of the bigger polluters per capita in the world. But what is more interesting is that, whilst China is also one of the highest polluters per capita, they have more programs and projects to mitigate these negative impacts than we do.

Sustainability advocates:

• smarter use of existing resources;
• improve upon efficient use of them;
• find alternative means (new technology, biofuels, low emission, alternative sources of energy, alternative means of transport, etc);
• limit the damage to these sources (toxins in natural water, poisons in soil, logging of our “lungs”, increasing amount of trash/landfill).

Already there are financial institutions that are looking into responsible investments into projects/schemes that go toward this philosophy.

At the government level, the Ministry for Energy, Green Technology and Water has already started looking into public policies that bring about environment-friendly initiatives; with the launch of Greentech : 1 Identity and the resulting working committees and task forces.

As an airline, with fuel being the biggest cost component (and thus all efforts have been invested in bringing this cost component as low as possible) the other areas we can focus efforts on are our utility use (water and electricity), to a large extent the non-airplane assets (ground vehicles), procedures (flight management, turn-around times, taxiing).

On a personal level, and either toward the (or any) company or toward our environment, we can also practise these similar philosophies. As you know, already there are supermarkets with their No Plastic Saturdays, some who charge for the use of plastic bags, shopping centres that have recycling bins to segregate waste. Not only will reducing waste and being efficient save you money, your children will see this as the normal learned lifestyle that will only become their natural habit as adults later on in life.

Even if you don’t subscribe to climate change or sustainability, you have to agree with what you have read about limited resources- even in our own backyard: That even for Malaysia, we will become a net oil importer in the not too distant future.

Logan Airport- wind and solar

Posted by JLow on Jun 13, 2010

Continuing the IVLP series, another highlight for me was the visit to Boston’s Logan Airport- particularly, their experiments with wind and solar energy for the airport’s use.

On the way there in the bus I did note these fans…

After the introductory presentations and meetings with the Massport officials on airport management, we were treated to a guided tour of their airport and the new terminal and facilities.

One of the highlights of the tour was their eagerness to experiment with alternative sources of electricity.

It was noted that they had also tried to harness wind energy for electricity, but somehow had stalled it whilst concentrating on harnessing that of solar. The joke was that those 6 fans from the above photo, had (only) managed to power a few PC’s!

And so with their focus on solar, this was what they had done, and done successfully insofar as achieving the power levels desired.

They call these the “solar trees”, and rightly so.

On the top deck of their multi-storey carpark, were these solar trees, all 3 rows of them, spanning the whole length of the building.

In our tropical Malaysia with year-round sunny days, with the right investments and attitudes towards conservation and alternative energy I believe this is an example that we ought to follow, for all types of buildings and administration. And I don’t mean small panels for token’s sake. To really harness solar energy for real use in buildings, dedicated budgets and physical space must be allocated for real returns- not just enough for powering a few PC’s!

If serious considerations are given, I believe we too can emulate such an initiative and set examples for other locals to follow.

Our support for The Green Wave

Posted by JLow on Apr 30, 2010

Look to the right sidebar- you would have noticed the Green Wave “badge”.

So what is The Green Wave?

The Green Wave is a global biodiversity campaign to educate children and youth about biodiversity. It leads up to the International Year of Biodiversity in 2010. Each year, The Green Wave will contribute to worldwide celebrations of the International Day for Biological Diversity (IDB). It also supports other national, international and global tree planting initiatives such as the UNEP-led Billion Tree Campaign.

In participating schools, students plant a locally important tree species in or near their schoolyard. Ideally, the tree species would also be locally indigenous. Where possible, the tree should be planted on 22 May – IDB. In some countries, it may be too hot, too cold, too rainy, too dry or too something else to plant on 22 May. If such conditions apply in your country, you should plant in another month but still hold a special ceremony on 22 May.

On 22 May, students around the world will count down to 10:00 local time, when they will water their tree in their respective schoolyards, thereby creating a figurative “green wave” starting in the far east and traveling west around the world.

Throughout the day, students can upload photos and text summaries on The Green Wave website to share their tree-planting story with other children and youth from around the world. The interactive map will be launched at 20:10 local time, thereby creating a second “green wave”.

Click through the badge to find out more!

Earth Hour 2010

Posted by JLow on Mar 25, 2010

It’s that time of the year again!

Malaysia Airlines have been participating in the Earth Hour movement a few times now, and this year is no exception.

This year the team will also be attending local corporations in their campaign and activity during the event itself, to see how they do it, do also spread the word about our participation. Should be another fun-filled night!

How will you be participating?

Are you local enough to notice this change?

Posted by JLow on Nov 2, 2009

Last week I attended our partner Wild Asia’s workshop on Responsible Tourism. I sat next to a lady from UK, Sarah, who is/was a business and travel writer (she now freelances still for the travel industry).

Still learning the ropes regarding my role in MAS’ Environment, I shared with her my personal take on this global issue. “… I’ve been saying to people, we live in a tropical country where it’s green everywhere and constantly raining..’What climate change?’ was usually the unspoken response I got when I talk to people about what I do now at MAS and this issue on the wider global scale..”

She looked at me and said “Really? My uncle, who’s been here since 1954 and living in Perak since then, has actually told me that he has in fact noticed that the temperature here in Malaysia HAS been getting warmer throughout the years….”

Not that I cannot take criticism or be told that I am wrong- I was dumbfounded that it took an expat to tell me this.

Personally I have always thought that it’s because my own family’s social economic status has improved through the decades while I was growing up. As a boy our home didn’t have air conditioning and we made do with what we had, which were the floor-standing or ceiling fans during warm days and nights- which wasn’t all that often. My parents’ room did have a big-hole-through-the-wall type of AC unit (the house was build in the 70′s), but it was a real luxury to have it switched on. As we “progressed” and upgraded to a bigger home my own room did have AC but again it was rarely used.

Somewhere along the way, I started using it, had my own place when I joined the workforce and slept with the AC on at nights, married and had kids, and they too are now accustomed to the AC.

It is now a little too warm at nights for us now not to have the AC on. At least for me.

This is my personal justification of not “realizing” the now-warmer local temperature, if indeed this is the case.

I have no reason to doubt Sarah and her uncle. I am however questioning why it had to take an outsider to tell me that he and others like him have noted this change when locals have been giving me the “what climate change” look.

Do you know if this is noted anywhere in our local met services? Found any literature on this?

Do you notice any change in our local weather since your schooldays?

John Low
Malaysia Airlines

“Climate change”: What pops into your head when you see these 2 words?

Posted by JLow on Oct 27, 2009

I found this article on the Guardian that talked about human psychology and the resulting required change in human behaviour, in tackling climate change.

I found this bit the most interesting:

An American study played people recordings of actors delivering speeches about climate change. The version that people responded to the best talked about “air pollution” rather than “climate change” – because pollution is something visible that they could relate to, with strong connotations of dirtiness and poor health. Climate change is about much more than just dirty air, but finding ways of making climate change more visible is critical. People simply don’t worry about things they can’t see (or even imagine).

Are you one of the few that can only subconsciously respond to “climate change”? One of those who think: Ah, let the technology guys figure this one out / not my immediate problem; one of those who think: Can I be creative enough to change my way of life to slowdown this change yet still make my life(style) an enjoyable one; one of those willing to make small sacrifices?

As I personally always tell people, “in Malaysia we live in abundance”. There’s green everywhere (most places at least), and plenty of rainfall.

What climate change?

Read the full article at The Guardian’s site.