By: John Low (Corporate Safety, Security, Health and Enviroment)

So we did a follow-up to the MAS Townhall event which was held on 27 January, where we had asked fellow employees to make a green pledge; by writing your pledge-message as “leaves” for the barren tree.

Below is one of the feedback we received. Thanks Suriana

Have you been able to keep your pledge and promise?
Keeping the pledge and promise has been a challenge to me. However, there are more discussions with my children of the need to save environment. The why? And the How? And also I reject the plastic bag if I can carry the items I bought.

What are the obstacles to keeping your pledge?
The main obstacles is always time. Looking around you, there is not many recycle bin. As for me we have to drive out to get to the recycling center. Most of the time when I the hurry we forgot the put the items in our car and end up pile them up at home

What have been the benefits from your pledge?
The main benefit it make you care and aware of the need to recycle. I just need to make more effort to do more.

Will you continue with it? If not, why?
Definitely.

What do your family and loved ones think or learned about your pledge?
My children are very curious at first. There are very interested with the stickers. And try to understand more.

Tell us what you have for the environment?

By: John Low Kian Tee (Corporate Safety, Security, Health & Environment)

"I don't know if it's because I have been reading a lot about this to help in my new role, or that this issue is actually starting to gain a lot of exposure in the global news...”

I have been telling this to people a lot lately. That's because I have literally AND metaphorically moved on to greener pastures within Malaysia Airlines.

Even as a MAS employee, I was kind of aware that we have an Environment dept. It shouldn't come as a surprise, seeing as we do practice Corporate Social Responsibilities, practice the 3R's (Reuse, Recycle, Reduce) that this should and does come as a natural extension to that.

So how does an airline be environmentally conscious?

There are 2 parts to this, at this juncture: Compliance and internal activities.

A brief history: During the mid-1990's, the Kyoto Protocol set forth guidelines and timelines for participating countries to start limiting, and even reduce, the amount of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere. 

Industries such as power generation, manufacturing, transport, etc, of these respective countries are being looked at and policies are being crafted on limiting the emissions from them. You may also have heard about the Copenhagen Summit this December? This summit is akin to a follow-up to Kyoto, if you like, where governments of participating countries will report on their progress in terms of policies and regulations and progress on compliance, and hopefully an agreed concerted effort to tackle this global issue...

Not surprising then, that aviation and airlines are also being looked at as one of the "polluters".

It should be noted that on the grand scale, aviation only contributes 2% to 3% of the emissions to the atmosphere. However, because of the exposure (the glamour and romance? :) that air travel gets, it too is being scrutinized and regulated insofar as limits/reductions on allowable emissions.

So, if you have been following the news, you will know that the EU region is the first to consider imposing an emissions trading scheme (ETS) on the aviation sector. The airline industry is predicting that in time, other regions will also start looking into having their own versions of ETS as well, to also include the aviation sector under its measurements and policing.

So, internal to MAS, we are also doing our part.

MAS is quite well prepared to comply with the EU ETS requirement, with the most part of this year spent on documenting the internal processes to track the workflow and consumption of fuel for our flights to that region. The EU ETS will start requiring all airlines to monitor and report on the fuel burned for the whole of 2010 for flying into, out of, and within EU. I am happy to share that we are on track in terms of complying with their deadlines. However, we will still have to see how the authorities will allocate and/or charge airlines for these emissions once that year-long data has been collected and compared with the other airlines coming under this rule.

I may be new to this role, but already I can see that, as an airline - and especially in these trying times, airlines by nature are already striving for excellence in efficiency. Most notable of these is on fuel consumption and conservation. Fuel being the biggest portion of an airline's overall cost, all airlines are always looking out for improved engine efficiencies, technologies, improved management of fuel and flying patterns and styles.

Other than fuel the Environment dept is also tasked to look into managing and improving the 3R's. Power consumption (switching off lights), proper working water taps (ever noticed people leaving taps running?) recycling paper (print on both sides, 2-pages per A4 sheet) are just examples of these practices that we try to educate and measure.

More info and updates will come from the Environment dept, but for the moment, please have a look at http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/campaigns/ for an idea of what we have been doing.

Remember, think green!

By: Dinesh Rudra (Corporate Safety, Security, Health & Environment)
 
It's just one day to go before Earth Hour 2009. In case you've been living in the basement or have been in a coma for the past few weeks - and have not had the chance to hear about Earth Hour yet... here's the gist of it:

Earth Hour falls on the 28th of March 2008 @ 8:30pm (wherever you are). For one hour, millions of folks around the world have a chance to use their light switch as a vote. Switch it off, and you're voting for Mother Earth! Leave them on, and you're voting for Global Warming. Whose side are you on?
 
If you haven't already decided what to do for Earth Hour, it's easy. Join us this in the dark this Saturday night, by switching off all non-essential lights (and other electrical appliances) at your home or workplace - meaning - any light that can be safely switched off without causing any harm or danger to anyone. AND ALSO more importantly (and more easily - electrical appliances like your PC, TV, VCD/DVD player, radio/CD player, playstation, wi-fi, the list goes on an on...)
 
Okay, it may be tough, but it's only for an hour. And it'll be fun to see what you might end up doing given the situation. Remember how excited you were with blackouts as a kid? It was an atmosphere both mysterious and exciting. Earth Hour will be just like that... only cooler (because technically speaking, you can actually leave your fans on).
 
Why are we (MAS) joinin Earth Hour?

Earth Hour isn't about sales, nor is it about publicity. It's just a cool idea that gets millions of people from companies, cities and countries from all parts of the world doing the same thing all at the same (local) time. Instead of always competing, fighting or focusing our energies on things that separate us from each other, finally here is a chance for us to do something together. The best part is, it's super simple to participate! We're glad somebody thought of it, and instead of just sitting around and watching what happens this Saturday night - we're quite excited about being totally a part of it - AND we'd like you to join us!
 
What we are doing for Earth Hour?

At our Malaysia Airlines HQ, we will be switching off all non-essential lights from 8:30pm to 9:30pm. We have informed to our staff who will be in some of the building in HQ, that the lighting will be decreased.
 
In other stations throughout our network, we are making similar arrangements to switch off the power for any neon signs that we operate, or any office lights that are safe to be switched off from 8.30pm – 9.30pm (at the respective local times).. This is an opportunity for all of us to support Earth Hour as a united oneMH team.

HERES WHAT YOU CAN DO

• Head on down to earthhour.org.my or earthhour.org to sign up now (if you haven't already done so).
• Get your friends to support Earth Hour as well, send them the link to sign up.
• Plan a special evening with you friends. Call them over, and have a night picnic/bbq in your garden.
• Romantic candlelight dinner with your partner?
• Gather your kids and the neighbour's kids and start telling ghost stories!
• Bring Earth Hour to the orphanages and old folks homes. Cook some food, bring candles, organise an earth hour party for the home.
• Spend the hour drafting out a plan on what you can do to help the earth. Write it out by candlelight.
• When's the last time you played Scrabble, Monopoly or Taboo? Now's the time to get em out of the shelves!
• Hang out at one of the earth hour events in the city.
• Just go to bed early. Give yourself a break at least once a year, aye?

So we'll see you in the dark, this Saturday night, alright?

By: Tengku Dato’ Azmil Zahruddin (Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer)

I was in Kuching recently for the World Rainforest Festival. It was my second time, having enjoyed my first visit enormously. When I was there the first time, we had bumped into an old classmate of my wife. She was working with the UN in Europe, focusing on environmental issues.

She had asked me then what MAS was doing to reduce its impact on the environment.  At the time, environmental awareness in Malaysia (and generally most of Asia) was quite low, but was becoming increasingly a key issue in Europe. I mentioned that I think we can do more but we were in the middle of a turnaround at the time and will need to explore that later.

Fast forward a few years later and we had also managed to do the turnaround, which allowed us focus on other matters such as the environment.  At the same time, IATA had started pushing the environmental agenda as well, asking its member airlines to be more proactive in this area.

We included the environment as one of the specific areas that we look at, incorporating it into the Corporate Safety, Security, Health and Environment (CSSHE). We started talking to Government agencies and other partners to see what we could do. Coming from this, we initiated a number of environmental initiatives.  Internally, we introduced the 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) concept.  We aimed to reduce the resources that we used for the business as well as working with other companies to increase the amount of our waste that gets recycled. We have initiated a number of initiatives to reduce the amount of fuel that is burnt every time we fly, which results in less carbon being released into the environment. This has shown some very encouraging results.

We also started a carbon offset programme, which allows our passengers to voluntarily make a contribution to offset the carbon which is released as a result of their travel.  To date, a number of companies such as Maxis, Khazanah, Shell and Malaysia Airports are interested to participate in this scheme.  MAS itself has also decided that we will also make a contribution to offset the carbon emissions as a result of our own duty travel.

The funds from this carbon offset programme will be channelled into a trust fund managed by the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) on behalf of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (NRE).  These funds will be used to fund United Nations-sanctioned programmes to protect rainforests in Malaysia and help curb the onset of climate change.

I am proud that we have started to make a contribution in this area as well as help to increase the awareness amongst Malaysians in this area. Having said that there are still a lot of things that we can do collectively and I hope that we will be able to implement more things going forward.

By: Sharmini Ratnasingam (Commercial)

I have been asked to be an advocate for the MH Blog. Of course my initial reaction is “What am I going to write?” 

Being part of the CVP team and knee deep in MH CVP activities, I guess would give me an advantage in putting my personal thoughts down in writing. But I am also in a predicament on whether I should write only positive thoughts so to motivate my readers or should I write about my experience in my course of ensuring service quality is met across the touchpoints? Certain topics could be ‘sensitive’, so I am going to just let my thoughts flow and let my blogs to takes it’s own shape. 

I had actually just written an article for Berita MH (August edition) about what makes up my heart & soul.  I believe that there is a strong correlation between my work in MAS and my music journey especially through my contemporary gamelan group, Rhythm in Bronze (RiB). (Did I mention, we recently swept off 4 awards at the recent BOH Cameronian Awards, and yes I am smugly proud about our achievement)

My article mentions passion as one of the main driving force. However on hindsight, there are actually more components of this correlation. When on stage, we the performers need to have the drive to reach a certain goal, trying out new things and taking that fearful step of the unknown, taking time to enjoy the whole process despite hiccups, expecting the unexpected, ensuring whatever I do I am giving my very best, ultimately working together as a team to achieve that sense of satisfaction of a giving an outstanding performance for our audience to enjoy and remember, etc.

Of course when playing with RiB and performing on stage, these components come naturally to me, in fact it is a habit.  A habit I was able to translate to my work environment. Most times, it works. Some times it doesn’t, which is fine. As long as I ensure I don’t get too jaded, intense and cynical especially when I am constantly facing with problems, breakages and resistance on a frequent basis.

It is a perpetual challenge, but it forces me to constantly evaluate myself, my integrity and what my beliefs are. And I find this constant evaluation a wonderful journey for me. There is so much to learn, so much to try out and so much to discover. And right in the middle of this discovery, is being aware and being grateful to be part of a great team and having supportive friends/colleagues.

Yes! I am grateful!

By: Tan Wai Fong (Communications)

My mom loves flowers and plants. Everytime I go home for a visit, mom would ask, "Aren't my flowers pretty?" They are a sight to behold in full bloom, and mom plants different types of flowers (as you can probably guess, I have no idea what those flowers are called!) Mom takes her hobby to new heights by coming to my home, and planting trees and flowers. I kinda leave them alone, figuring that mother nature who takes care of the rainforest of Malaysia, can take good care of these couple of trees and flowers that mom has planted. I kinda joke that this is my contribution to offset my carbon footprint.

Just recently, Malaysia Airlines launched its voluntary carbon offset program that allows our customers, MASwings and Firefly passengers to pledge a contribution towards reducing their carbon footprint. Proceeds will be channelled to a trust fund managed by the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM).

I think it's really great that Malaysia Airlines and its subsidiaries have taken this a step further by pledging to offset all the employees' duty travel. And that 3 corporations; Malaysia Airports, Maxis and Shell have also come on board. That everyone is keen to do something for the planet, to protect it for future generations.

Malaysia Airlines is also taking this a step further. We are working with various partners, looking at 4 areas where we can reduce our carbon footprint; technology, operations, infrastructure and economic. We will have more to share as these initiatives shape up/ materialise.

If you are travelling with us and would like to offset your carbon emissions, please click here for Malaysia Airlines, MASwings and Firefly.

By: CK Liew (Commercial)

Every Monday, my mind starts making plans for the day’s activities. There are all kind of images that flash in my mind, like a slide show that goes from one picture to another. Quite amazing what Mondays can do to your own physical being.  I see images of Beirut at war and the airport is closed. Our flights are stopping at Dubai and we need a longer term contingency plan. Auckland services requires a relook at the current timings. Emails from the station over the weekends have to be responded to. An Indian movie company wants to use our aircraft for a filming session – need to get the cost exposure. Air Asia wants to fly to Stansted and will lease a Airbus A340. Oasis in Hong Kong has not found a financial backer and I guess they will stay closed. Often have concern for the bread winners there. Wonder who will maintain the A340 for Air Asia. Different engines from the A330 which Tony has signed up for a few of them. Tomorrow we have a visit from the Shenzhen Airport authorities. Need to get them a map to our kampong in Subang. Must get a mandarin speaking person in. Must remember to arrange for that conference call with the States this Wednesday ……..

                        
I always find Mondays challenging. It is almost like the scene in the animated movie CARs. Here was McQueen trying to psych himself up for the final big race. Trying hard to focus on winning; reminding himself that he is the fastest; he is the winner. Yet each time as he focuses on the task at hand, his mind would slip into memories of the leisured cruise he took on Route 66. The fresh air, the panoramic view, the leaves, the rest.

It is now my second week in office after a week long break. Family and me took a local vacation. The boys wanted to be on a long haul flight so that they can enjoy the entertainment system on board. But financial realities are real. Hard to do overseas vacation when the multiplier is 5 (ie mom, wife, boys plus me). So it was to be Taiping and Camerons.

                
The hotel in Taiping, Legend Inn, was fabulous. Managed to get adjoining rooms. At RM 93 per day per room, it was a great deal. Sadly they do not have discounts for people in the travel industry. The Zoo is a must do. The museum was a complete let down. I was told later that many of the exhibits were moved down to KL for some exhibition sometime back. Lake Gardens is lake gardens. One can spend a whole day there just lazing around soaking up the scenic and peaceful environment.

The Railway station was another great place to stop and to reminiscence. The building is basically unchanged. Great place for black and white photography.

This vacation was interesting. It is a joy to see the boys discovering photography. Both Ben and Tim took to the SLR (single lens reflex cameras) like ducks to water! In fact the challenge was getting time on the SLR! Together we got some great shots. Mom and wife just cruised along with us tolerating us as we spend time “chasing picture”! Food was great. Great vacation – and it did not burn a big hole in the pockets!! When I sit back and relax between juggling the work projects that I have to do, I always have these images of my two son’s photographs stored in the corner of my mind. The images of the best times I spent with the family are the best escapism one can have! 

By: Maureen Tey Siew Har (Flight Operations)

Have you ever thought about doing something for the environment?

Even a 5-minute effort can make a difference, as shown by more than 500 people at a recent ‘freeze’ at Sunway Pyramid.

Held in conjunction with World Earth Day 2008, this unique activity calls for a temporary halt to what we are doing – to save energy by freezing people and power.

Do you know that the average person globally uses 2255 watts of power, or a little less than 23 x100 watt light bulbs?  Now that is a lot of power wasted!

Imagine if we could freeze the daily activities of as many people as we can for 5 minutes. A simple initiative like this would have saved a lot of resources and we can all live in a better and greener environment.