ENVIRONMENTAL protection can be everyone’s personal mission, but Shanghai-based joint-venture carmaker SAIC-GM believes it’s many hands that make things work.

“Drive to Green” is not only the company’s initiative since 2008 to become a greener carmaker, but also the first crowd-sourcing online charity platform in China. It is co-run with China Environmental Protection Culture Association for more than a year.

Since its launch in June 2015, Drive to Green has helped 50 environmental protection projects to get to the forefront of desertification prevention, garbage classification, ocean protection, wetland protection, clean water supply, and environmental protection education.

Any ideas, no matter how small, about promoting an eco-friendly lifestyle for China are invited to seek help on the platform for funding, staff and resources. From selling t-shirts tie-dyed with natural pigments, hosting art shows dedicated to endangered river dolphins, or recycling delivery cardboard boxes to produce paper.

Every small step counts. So far, it has engaged 1 million people through online interactions and offline gatherings, creating social influence beyond the reach of traditional corporate social responsibility programs run with a limited number of partners.

Now the only limit is one’s imagination. The platform is where everyone can make a difference, and be the change he wants to see in the world. The decentralization of the program’s operation makes it an open eco-system where ideas, money and talents from all over the country can gather. Everything needed to start a project is just a mouse click away.

“We have a long-term commitment, and an open attitude toward every feasible way to add values to the social well-being,” said SAIC-GM.

The best part of crowd-sourcing is that its power is self-sustaining. By encouraging more personal involvement in the value creation and sharing the process for environmental protection, the program develops following a self-reinforcing pattern of public awareness and moral conscience.

Successful green projects

The longing for participation and recognition can grow particularly strong on the Internet where everything is highly connected and transparent.

Every “Drive to Green” project is presented with an online progress bar showing how much money it has raised and social influence it has gained. Every project is required to detail its reward plan beforehand to contributors.

The platform, working as a broker, and also gate-keeper, is responsible for verifying all the credentials needed for the projects, approving their initiation, and supervising their progress to the delivery of promised rewards.

Over the past year, the platform has been rising along with some national stars, such as Yi Jiefang. Having planted 1.1 million trees within 10 years in China’s Inner Mongolia area to combat desertification, she carries on her mission on Drive to Green, seeking donations as small as 10 yuan (US$1.5) for every planted tree. Two batches of Drive to Green volunteers have come to the field and made personal contributions to this great cause.

Many newcomers made their names known through the first start-up competition for environmental protection last year, which received 50 project proposals from over 60 colleges across the country, and eventually rewarded 10. This year, the competition will look for contestants beyond university campuses, with a 200,000-yuan special fund set by SAIC-GM to attract more participation. To provide an engaging experience for more people, Drive to Green also organized salons, festivals, family days and green runs.

The biggest event of this year is to “save water in exchange for a beautiful world” known as the “Promise of A Glass of Water,” launched on World Environment Day, June 5, which will also mark the 1st anniversary of Drive to Green platform. Through ads, art shows, online community interactions and offline activities, it wants to draw attention to the world’s water shortage.

Everyone is encouraged to post a photo of himself or herself with a glass of water as a gentle reminder on the Internet that even a small effort can lead to a big change, may that be saving tap water or installing a low-flush toilet. For every photo, the platform will donate 1 yuan to water conservation.

Setting an example itself, SAIC-GM has been making great efforts to improve its waste water treatment to facilitate recycled use on the manufacturing base, for equipment cooling, green watering and landscape features. From 2009 to 2015, it managed to cut water consumption per car by 24 percent, and waste water disposal per car by 30 percent.

Eco-friendliness, which now underlies the whole value chain of the company’s business, also leads to the adoption of green energy for its manufacturing and control over carbon footprints of its logistics.

But foremost, SAIC-GM drives to green with its design of green cars for the majority. As the first carmaker in China to make private cars affordable to ordinary families, it is now again taking a lead in cost-effective vehicle electrification, as well as fuel-saving technologies for traditional cars.

Hybrid car models

The right green product is all about a right balance between the energy-saving performance and the additional cost of engineering. Instead of going all over a radical vision of zero-emission with fully battery-powered systems, the company chooses to make hybrids the pillar of its alternative-drive families.

At the Beijing Auto Show in April, each of General Motors’ major brands — Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac — highlighted their hybrid models to be launched later this year.

In the next five years, the company aims to draw 5 percent of its sales from new energy cars, with no less than 10 hybrid cars to be released.

Meanwhile, it will continue to downsize and optimize traditional internal combustion engines that equip most of its cars. Turbo-charging and direct injection will become a common practice while the start-stop feature will become a standard.

From 2009 to 2014, the upgrade of powertrains across the company’s product portfolio brought down its average fuel consumption by 13.5 percent and raised power per liter by 11.8 percent, which cut 17,000 tons of fuel consumption and 54,000 tons of CO2 emissions.

By 2020, the company will further improve fuel efficiency by 20-30 percent, and power performance by 11 percent, adding to savings of 2.97 million tons of fuel, and 9.18 million tons of CO2 emissions.

Such accomplishments can never be achieved without mobilizing the masses. As in the past, Drive to Green will always be drawing its power from the public.