Green Campaign - Its Role in Creating Awareness Among Malaysian to Protect the Environment

Nowadays green campaign is one of the hotor launch a new product. For a PR campaign
topics among the Malaysian. The main objectivemostly use to do publicity and create awareness
of green campaign is to create awareness amongamong the public.
the public to protect our environment. GreenAccording to Singh (2007), nowadays our
campaign not only popular in Malaysia, is also veryenvironment facing a lot of problem and it
famous in foreign country. In Malaysia there are abecame more serious. Hopefully the committee
lot of organization organizing green campaign suchcan influence all the Malaysia society care about
as Environmental Protection Society Malaysiathe environment and the problem can be solves
(EPSM), Malaysia Environment NGOs (MENGO) andeasily. Toward EPSM the public able to understand
Treat Every Environment Special Sdn. Bhd.what is green campaign.
(TRESS). Furthermore, from the researcherAs a parent needs to educate their children how
research, there also few business companyto take care our environment. Reading about
supporting on green campaign such as Panasonic,environment is not boring it is very helpful to
TESCO, and Nippon weather paint company.everyone. Know about environment issues help to
EPSM was founded on 11 January 1974 atenlarge personal knowledge about something new.
University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. The societyDo not let media to confuse us, as a responsible
founded by a group of Malaysian who concernedMalaysian we should use simple way to show
about protecting the environment. EPSM isothers public what to do. (Wahid,2009).
non-profit organization it runs by an electedOhana (2007) define that environment education
executive committee on an entirely voluntary.is very important. This education will influence the
The main objective of EPSM is to control thefuture individual human beings, the nation, and the
activities that will cause harm to the environment.whole world. The world environment will be affect
In EPSM organization, public relations (PR) rolesdepends on how human use science and
help to do publicity for the organization and at thetechnology in future. So that, science education
same times help the create awareness amongmust be prepare for the student. This because
the public.most of the decisions makes by the student will
MENGO was formed under Danish Internationalbe revolves around issues of the environment in
Development Assistance in November 2001.future.
MENGO was an active society's, it can give impactAdebobola (2004) argue that the environmental
on the decision making at the levels of Malaysiaproblem become more serious this because the
society. The organization gives support to theindustrial growth very fast. Although some regions
Government of Malaysia on environment policies.were virtually untouched by the inhabitants but
The mission of MENGO is to protect thethere still got large areas been affected. This
environment and maintain the agenda level samecause the organization Environment department
as local, national and international. The organizationof Africa concern in the major coexisting issues in
had organized a campaign on 19 April 2009 inthe world.
Penang Bosch Hall to discuss plastic bags shouldPenang government had come out a new rules
be ban or not to ban.stated that start from 1st July no plastic bag on
TREES is a local non-profit environmentevery Monday. There are a lot of people disagree
organization. The organization founded in Februarywith the rules. This because they say is not
1995. The main purpose of TREES is to educateconvenience when the purchase foods and goods
public the important of protect our environmentmake them feel so inconvenient. According to Yu
and reduce negative impact for our environment.(2009) mostly consumer using plastic bag for a
TREES organizations had organized tworubbish bag if really want to apply the rules,
successfully programs in this year. On 14thPenang government need support form media.
February 2009 they had organized Valentine'sAccording to Yeap (2009), he claimed that every
Pledge for Mother Earth, the program use topeople should follow the rules and at the same
encourage the public send a photograph with atime can educate and encourage others to
caption that how you protect the environment sorecycle.
that can share with each others. Furthermore, onFrom the researcher research, there are two
13th March the organization organized communitytheories can be applied in the research. There are
recycling campaign at Ampang, this activity helpInteraction Theory and Klapper's Reinforcement
to reduce the air pollution. There are a lot ofTheory.
people participated in these two events. TheInteraction theory means influence a medium has
events are very meaningful and bring benefit toover its audience is proportional to the amount of
our environment.effort involved in consuming it. According to Ken
Panasonic Sdn. Bhd. is one of the electronicSpencer humans remember only 10 percent of
company's had designed out an eco-refrigeratorwhat they read, 20 percent of what they hear,
to support green campaign and the product haveand 30 percent of what they see. However,
successfully launched in Malaysia. It's able to bememory improves to 50 percent for those who
self adjusting electricity regulator that reduces thesee and hear something, and 90 percent if the
wastage. Compare with other brand ofperson is actively involved in the process or event
refrigerator the Panasonic refrigerator able toinstead of merely observing it. This theory can be
save 40% of the electricity. It helps fight globalillustrated by considering the results of staged
warming and save money all the time. Panasonicevents involving audience participation. So, to
electronic company in United State America alsoencourage the public to take in green campaign,
concerns for environmental protection andthe organization needs to encourage the public to
sustainability. The company's practices prudent,participate in the activities.
sustainable use of the earth's natural resourcesKlapper's Reinforcement Theory maintains the
and the protection of the environment. Togethermedia cannot create opinions from scratch, but
with many benefits associated with the use andcan be effective in reinforcing existing beliefs and
enjoyment of new technologies comes withattitudes or bringing latent beliefs and attitudes to
responsibility that do not take lightly. Thethe surface and encouraging individuals to act on
company hopes that this commitment able tothem. In this theory, shows that even media not
protecting the environment continues to earnthat powerful can influence people thinking but at
public trust and support.least can lead the public to concern about the
Besides that, TESCO hypermarket had designedenvironment issues.
an eco-friendly recycle bag. The purpose is toQualitative research is a field of inquiry applicable
encourage the consumer to use the recycle bagto many disciplines and subject matters.
instead of using the plastic bag. Those consumersQualitative researchers aim to gather an in-depth
who using the recycle bag when purchase theunderstanding of human behavior and the reasons
goods can gain extra point for the member card.that govern such behavior. The qualitative method
Furthermore, all the Tesco in Penang have appliedinvestigates the why and how of decision making.
the same rules that set by the Penang stateHence, smaller but focused samples are more
government. Tesco hypermarket in Penang stateoften needed, rather than large random samples
not give out plastic bag for the consumer onQuantitative research means the variable under
every Monday. In foreign country, Tesco is theconsideration should be measured. It is an element
most environmentally friendly supermarket. Tescoof precision, as it uses numbers to quantify result.
had wins a award for being the best big companyThe process of measurement is central to
for corporate environmental strategy, hasquantitative research because it provides the
invested £115m in energy-savingfundamental connection between empirical
technology for its stores in the past two yearsobservation and mathematical expression of
and is working hard to create the zero carbonquantitative relationships. The term quantitative
supermarket of the future.research is most often used in the social sciences
Malaysia Government also supporting greenin contrast to qualitative research.
campaign. On 28th March 2009 the governmentThe researcher use both quantitative and
encouraged whole Malaysian to switch off theirqualitative research method in this study. In which
lights from 8.00pm until 9.00pm. KL tower andincludes the survey questionnaire and intensive
8TV is one of the company's supporting thisinterview to the relevant people so that the
program. In this program, PR practitioners help theresearcher can get more detail information.
government to spread out all the information andThere will be 11 questions for the survey
do publicity on the activities. Besides, to supportquestionnaire. Inside the questionnaire include, 5
green campaign Penang state had already ban thedichotomous response questions, 3 multiple-choice
consumer using plastic bag on every Monday. Thequestions and 3 open-ended questions. All the
purpose of this program is to encourage thesurvey questions will be set based on the relevant
consumer use recycle bag for those consumersto green campaign.
who require for a plastic bag on Monday need toThere are 100 copies questionnaire will be
pay 20sen for it.distributed to UTAR and KTAR student in Perak
Thus, University Sains Malaysia (USM) ancampus. Both UTAR and KTAR will be distributed
university in Malaysia shows support on green50 copies of questionnaire, from 50 set of
campaign. USM have organized a lot of campaignquestionnaire will be divided to half that mean 25
encourage the student to take care of ourset, for both male and female. The reason that
environment. Besides that, USM also joined withthe researcher choose UTAR Perak campus
Tupperware Company to support the greenbecause it is the biggest campus in whole Malaysia
campaign. Tupperware Company provided eachcompare to other campus. Besides that, the
student who studies in USM a plastic container forresearcher also had chosen KTAR Perak campus
daily use. When student need to packing the foodto distribute the questionnaire it is because the
can use plastic container instate of using plasticPerak campus is second largest and newest
bag. This help to save one plastic bag for ourcampus in Malaysia. Thus, the researcher choose
mother earth.UTAR and KTAR student as target audience, is
Not only Malaysia had green campaign there are abecause compare to other university UTAR and
lot of green campaign in the foreign. Such asKTAR have more student and it can represent
Disney land from foreign country had set up athe majority of teenagers.
Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ)The researcher set target audience as college and
found that Walt Disney World uses more than 80university student the age range is around 18 to
extremely toxic cleaners, as opposed to just 1223. It is because college and university student will
that are non-toxic and which are used in thebecome new generation in future of the society.
animal park out of safety concerns for theSo, their perception of green campaign is very
animals. Disney land is for children to pay visit inimportant for the research.
the park. At the same time it also can let theBesides that, an intensive interview will be
children "bathe, eat and play." CHEJ andconducted with ESPM Manager Gurmit Singh to
community groups in Florida are urging Disney tounderstand the view of him and why he form up
use safer cleaning products for the sake of theESPM organization. He is the advisor and founder
children.president of ESPM. Another interview will
The main objective of the researcher is to createconducted with the Panasonic product marketing
awareness among the public to be more concerngeneral manager Cheng Chee Chung to
about our environment and to let the publicunderstand why Panasonic need to came up the
knows that protect our environment is oureco-refrigerator.
responsible.Both interviews will take around one hour. The
There are few journals collected by theresearcher had set up 2 set of different interview
researcher for references purpose. From thequestions for the EPSM president and Panasonic
researcher research, a campaign use to organizemarketing general manager because both of them
a series of activities to try to achieve something.have their own perception toward green
A purpose of a campaign is use to get attentioncampaign.
from the public and to promote a new product,