Andrew Sun, SCMP – Nov 13, 2008
Under a clear night sky, the Clear the Air group celebrated its 11th anniversary at the Fringe rooftop on Tuesday, at the same time kicking off a campaign to convince more companies to sign up for the corporate clean-air effort and commit to reducing their carbon footprint.
“There are different categories,” Lisa Christensen, the fund-raising and events chairwoman (pictured with ambassadors Jocelyn Luko and Anthony Sandstrom) explained. “Through their involvement, we’ve created a plan for companies that sign up to take action. We’ll offer them a free consultation to start to improve their air quality. That’s the first step. It’s scaled for all levels of corporations, from [small and medium-sized enterprises] to large factories. At one major sportswear manufacturer, we did a four-week consultation and [helped it improve] energy savings by 20 per cent.”
Given how the industry has tanked in the past two months, you would think any sort of socially conscious campaign would get doors slammed in its face as businesses hope to ride out the economic storm. “Surprisingly, not,” Christensen said.
“I’ve been through bird flu and Sars, and traditionally green promotion was the first thing to go, but the reception to our cause has been very good. But we have had no luck with banks.”
Contact Clear the Air at 2886 2655.
Additional reporting by Clara Mak and Vivian Chen. Send tips, tickets and invitations to andrew.sun@scmp.com