first 5 articles

Review for the 1st article:

In the year 2000, World Environment Day (WED), established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972 and considered by many to be the most important event on the environmental calendar, inspires action by governments, individuals, non-governmental organizations, community and youth groups, business, industry and the media to improve their environment, including clean-up campaigns, tree planting, street rallies, exhibitions, green concerts, essay, painting and photographic competitions, recycling efforts and much more, emphasized on the public awareness about environmental issues. It was very vital as many do not know about their role and the consequences of it. Besides being aware of environmental issues, the public was asked to step up and drive environmental improvements to accompany economic and social gains. Furthermore, implementation of environmental management was one of the issues being brought up. The strongest argument that they have stressed on is to ensure that the next generation will not suffer in the not far future.

Review for the 2nd article:

After the incident on the 11th of September, President Bush has been under-fire from many fronts. But not from major environmental groups in the United States such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club which have chose to withhold from publicly criticizing the policies of the Bush government. This is to show support for the administration, placing importance on unity in the wake of in such an event. Even so, these groups have not forgotten their ultimate goal of protecting the environment.

Review for the 3rd article:

According to experts from United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) from Mexican capital, nearly 60 percent of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean live in coastal or riverbank areas dump most of the waste that they generate into the sea untreated. Studies shows that the level of contamination of coastal waters throughout the region has risen sharply due to the increase in volume of municipal waste flows. This phenomenon contributes to coastal erosion and the destruction of beaches. Thus, it will threaten the tourism industry and no denying that the marine habitat and human health will be at the stake as well due to the contamination of water.

Review for the 4th article:

After the September 11 attacks, many environmental conservation organizations, especially those that are smaller and less well known, are worried that their efforts may be badly affected. Amongst the top reason are the shortages of funds and also the fear for the safety of its personnel. Some fear that these would slow down or even cripple the momentum of such conservation efforts which had took years to build up. This would affect the well being of the environment which in turn would cause many whose livelihood depends on the environment to suffer. But despite of all the speculation, those involved are ready for the challenge because at the end of the day, protecting biodiversity is no less important than it was before the devastating day of September 11.

Review for the 5th article:

The 2002 World Environmental Day award winners are two Chinese cities, one Princess and five Organizations.
The first city involved is the Mongolian city of Chifeng, awarded for their successful fight against the spreading of desert land mass they call ‘Desert Warfare’. The next city awarded is Shenzhen for it’s impressive achievement of marrying rapid and astonishing economic growth with the environmental protection.
Royal Highness Princess Basma binti Ali won an award for her outstanding effort in raising awareness regarding environmental issues in the Middle East.
Juventude Ecological Angola (JEA) based in Luanda won an award as a leading force in promoting environmental education and awareness through regular columns in newspapers such as the Journal of Angola, Actual, Humbi-Humbi and its own newspaper Little Green.
Fondo Ecuatoriano Populorum Progressio (FEPP) headquartered in Quito, Ecuador, earned an award for dedicating itself to restoring and conserving the land and wildlife often by working with local farmers.
The Tabigat Ecological Union, founded in 1991, is one of the first environmental NGOs in Kazakhstan. Winning an award for creating ecological standards for industry, introduce advanced, non-polluting technology in the industrial sector and promote sustainable development in the region.
The Eco-Walk Children of Baguio City of the Philippines, which has won a Global 500 in the youth category, was set up in 1992. It has established a series of children-oriented hikes to Busol - Baguio's main and endangered watershed which the children have since then turned it into a laboratory and playground for experimental learning.
The Amazon Conservation Team (ACT), based in Arlington, Vermont, was awarded due to its role as a creative and effective organization devoted to protecting native cultures and ecosystems in the American tropics.

bummer

After a month, finally we have completed the project. But, the bad news is when we printed out a hard copy of our project outcome to show to Jasmine during the tutorial section, we realized that our 1st component and the digital poster is in the wrong direction.

As for the 1st component, we din't use any charts and graphs. This leads to a boring and dreadful outcome for the trends mapping. According to a coursemate, it is like a long-winded thesis which can make anyone, in fact everyone to fall asleep which is a bad sign. Thus, we have decided to 'colourise' our project by adding as many charts as possible, as well as inserting some mind maps.

As for the digital poster, we did a totally wrong poster. We did a normal poster where there is only one slogan and a huge image in the poster. Luckily we have asked Jasmine and she led us to the right direction. We didn't know that it's something like an informational kind of poster which is our biggest mistake because we didn't understand the task properly.

So, basically, we need to re-do and improvise our project outcome as an A in the project is our target and we will do anything to achieve our target.

THE company

Title's intriguing aint it? Kidding. For the component two for our project, we picked The Body Shop as the company to be addressed in our case study. We have been searching for information about CSR-related programs they have been done and are still in progress. From there, by using the textbook and some other good benchmarks, we want to improve The Body Shop's CSR-related program. For instance, we will be applying lean system in the company to reduce their waste as it will cause bad consequences to the public, even worse to the environment.

Eventhough The Body Shop is one of the best CSR-based company that can be found, yet, there are still spaces of improvement that can be made. Our aim in this section is to improvise their CSR systems so that The Body Shop will be the best CSR-based company and it will then be the benchmark for other companies and it will lead other companies to the right direction. Hence, a better environment managing will be formed and our group believe that this is the main purpose of this section.

And another week has passed..

The aim for the week is to map the trends for the five case studies chosen. The five case studies are pollution at the black sea at 1992, a brand new recycling program at 2007, and 3 phases of Fujitsu Group's environmental protection program from year 2001 till 2009.

From all the case studies, we can conclude that the visible issues that have been brought up in 1992 is pollution and chemical contamination. Whereby from the year 2001 till 2009, the visible trends are product recycling and reduction in chemical usage (from 2001 till 2003), environmental management(between 2004 till 2006), recycling, global warming (between year 2007 till 2009) and green product making (from 2001 till 2009).

As for the trends mapping of 20 articles, we are still in progress because we are not only focus on the trends from 2000 onwards, we also put emphasis on the issues that have been brought up before year 2000. For instance, desertification and global water crisis.

Second week of our project progress..

Another week has passed and our group has found all the articles needed. Since this week is Chinese New Year which is a very important festival for all of our group members, and also due to public holidays, our group did not have time to meet up for group discussion. But we have chatted through messenger and a few decisions have been made.

Every member needs to do trends mapping, digital poster and further research about the case studies by their own. Then, we will discuss, compare and select the best arguement during the next group discussion. The result of the group discussion will then be typed out and we will check, proofread and improve the quality of our project.