Doing Good Great
Thirteen Asian Heroes and Their Causes

Chapter 1: Data Eco-Warrior

MA JUN
Country: China
Organisation: Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs
Cause: Environment

Ma Jun started his career as an investigative journalist on the environment desk. After years of reporting on environmental disasters and exposing pollution scandals, he realized that there had been a great deal of misinformation due to data discrepancies or cover-ups.

Ma felt that if real change was to happen, it had to come from public awareness and social pressure by the people. So he started and maintained an online repository of environmental data for the public to track the state of pollution around China and take relevant action. Since then, the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which he founded, has become the leading monitor of corporate environmental performance in China.

Pollution is a global problem, and not just in China. However, Ma believes that, with the right momentum and partners, China can take the lead in building an ecological civilization. But this can only happen through the state, market, and civil society moving forward together, with the help of the power of information.

Brief facts

MA JUN

1968

Born in Qingdao, China, to engineer father, Ma Xu Wen, and administrator mother, Zhang De Lan

1993

Investigative journalist at South China Morning Post

1999

Published China’s Water Crisis

2000

Appointed Chief Representative of SCMP.com at South China Morning Post in Beijing

2002

Joined Sinosphere Corporation

2004

Joined the Yale World Fellow Program 

2006

Founded IPE

 

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

2006

TIME’s 100 most influential persons in the world

2009

The Nature Conservancy and Society of Entrepreneurs & Ecology’s Eco-Award

2012

The Goldman Environmental Prize

2012

Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers

2015

Skoll Foundation’s Social Enterpreneurship Award