HONG KONG - The Climate Change Business Forum (CCBF) has announced the launch of "What's Your Story", its first awareness campaign since it was set up in March 2008.  It aims to draw public attention to the adverse impact of climate change and, most importantly, to encourage corporations in Hong Kong to share their best practice and contribute to building a green and more competitive economy.

Leveraging both print and online channels to best spread the messages and raise public awareness about climate change, the thought-provoking and creative campaign from Saatchi & Saatchi Hong Kong launched on 7 February, 2009, and consists of MTR advertisements, a cutting edge microsite (developed in association with wwwins Consulting), press advertisements and a direct mailing effort.

Saatchi & Saatchi also designed a new corporate identity for the forum: a leaf in the shape of a graph that depicts the change that the CCBF strives for.

Despite concerns by corporations towards climate change in recent years, the potential risks and opportunities it poses to businesses have not been well understood in Hong Kong. According to HSBC Climate Confidence Monitor 2008, a disappointing number of only around 10% of Hong Kongers believe businesses are not doing enough against climate change. Moreover, there is a large gap between awareness and emission reduction.

The Hon. Mr. Leung Chun-Ying GBS JP, Chairman, DTZ, Asia Pacific, Convenor of the Executive Council and Chairman of Patrons Committee, CCBF said, "The climate change challenge is all of our business. Its future regulations and impacts poses a significant risk to the prospect of our sustainable economy and society, and is therefore a priority subject for us all in Hong Kong. This campaign is a timely call to action to all business in Hong Kong. It is high time that we acted immediately to mitigate the problem for the good of business, economy and our daily lives."

The MTR advertisements consist of a set of four posters, each depicting a unique and inspiring story of energy saving actions taken by corporate giants: HSBC, Cathay Pacific, Hang Seng Bank and OOCL. The images convey a sense of creativity, playfulness and imagination with a message that challenges other businesses to come up with their own actions for climate change. These adverts will run in MTR stations during the first two weeks of the campaign.

The corporate efforts featured include: HSBC's commitment to be the "World's first carbon neutral bank" that considers the environment and influences its neighbourhood; Hang Seng Bank's "An electronic statement" about how it saves 10 million sheets of paper per year using electronic statement; Cathay Pacific's "Fly further" featuring its planes which are 26% more fuel efficient and OOCL's "Fragile cargo" telling people how it maximizes fuel efficiency for a cleaner environment.

These stories are just a small part of the collective efforts of the 27 companies that have joined the Climate Change Business Forum (CCBF). Apart from drawing people's attention to the achievements of these four corporations, most importantly, CCBF aims to encourage individuals and companies in all sizes to share and communicate their energy saving stories via their newly created interactive platform www.whatsyourstory.com.hk, which was launched simultaneously.

Built around CCBF's core value, the specially designed, highly dynamic microsite has adopted the latest flash technology with the creation of a complex algorithm that consumes fewer CPU resources and thus helps to reduce emission of carbon dioxide. Thus, the website itself saves energy. The use of black as the site's background color is also an energy saving courtesy for those still using CRT monitors as these consume significantly more power to display a white background.

Ciara Shannon, Project Director of CCBF, said, "CCBF is grateful to Saatchi & Saatchi - the Lovemarks Company, for crafting the advertising campaign, to wwwins Consulting, part of the Isobar network, for creating the dynamic microsite and MS&L for media communications work. We are also grateful to MTR for providing pro-bono advertising space. The pro-bono efforts of these corporations are part of their membership to CCBF, but most importantly are crucial in helping us spread the message."

"We are also extremely encouraged by the wholehearted support of CCBF's companies over the past year in their commitment to reduce emissions and be actively involved with the forum. Now, with this highly-interactive campaign rolled out, we hope more corporations will join in the effort and share their stories to help create a climate friendly business environment that ultimately leads to a low carbon Hong Kong."