Clean Air Network's Joanne Ooi: Why this is 'our most important year'

The Clean Air Network (CAN) launched a petition campaign today in collaboration with many of Hong Kong's high profile restaurant groups and gyms such as Pure Fitness, Elite Concepts, LKF Entertainment, and many others. Next time you're in Roka, you'll get one of CAN's petition forms to sign with your lunch bill.

But for marketing magician Joanne Ooi -- who once transformed Shanghai Tang from a sleepy cheongsam shop into the Orient-chic powerhouse it is today -- an old-school petition campaign is merely the amuse-bouche before a year-long feast of aggressive campaigning.

Ooi tells CNNGo about why 2010 can become a turning point in the history of Hong Kong's struggle for a better environment.

Sign the petition at www.hongkongcan.org.

 

CNNGo: Why now?

It is crucial to remember that Hong Kong's Air Quality Objectives haven't been touched for 20 years. Tung Chee Hwa said he would do something about it, but nothing ever came of that.

In July 2009, the government announced its intention to revise its AQO and that it would be chewing on all public feedback this year before finalizing a new set of guidelines. The EPD told us that it intends to announce its air quality objectives before the end of the year, but the government is typically slow and we think it will more likely be in 2011. So CAN has one year to get the message onto the radar of the people. 

CNNGo: CAN held an SMS campaign with CSL last year. What were the results of that and how do you hope to better it?

I know that we didn't get all our ducks in a row in advance of executing that campaign. To be honest, it was a sporadic one-off thing and we hadn't thought through it carefully.

This time we have a lot of momentum behind our campaign and we have major corporate sponsors behind us. We're going to be holding another SMS campaign with CSL next week to be announced with a big notice in Apple Daily. The idea is to sign the petition simply by replying "yes" to an SMS message which CSL will send out to its subscribers. We also have three billboards placed around Hong Kong in The Link's shopping centers and about 200 panels in MTR stations to advertise our cause. Swire has also given us advertising in the corridor between Pacific Place and the MTR. On top of that we will be working with OpenRice and hopefully some of the major Chinese fastfood chains in Hong Kong.

So the landscape has changed significantly since last year. We will be more aggressive and there will be more consumer campaigns to come.

CNNGo: How can you make sure the message gets to the government?

Consumer messaging is important for getting right in the face of the consumer, but our staff is mostly working with district councils all over Hong Kong to support grassroots efforts to lobby the government for better air quality.

Everyday we're talking to district councillors and district council environment committees. For example we're planning an outdoor event for Wanchai District Council to celebrate World Health Day on April 10. We aren't just talking to Pure Fitness, you know. There are a lot of other components to our work which are not so glamorous but have a deeper effect on our campaign.

CNNGo: What do you want to see the government do immediately?

We'd like to see more effective subsidies for the commercial diesel vehicle sector. John Tsang announced in his budget speech that there would be subsidies made but there are no concrete details as yet. Hong Kong also needs requirements for ultra-low sulphur diesel usage for ships entering its waters.