Greenpeace

Greenpeace China has developed a free iPhone app that aims to raise awareness of GE foods — including rice — and give Chinese consumers an easy way to check whether the products they are buying are GE-free. Entitled "Food Lovers", the free app also features five celebrity food writers discussing their favourite rice dishes.

Modeled after ShopNoGMO, a similar app for US customers released by the Institute for Responsible Technology earlier this year, the reference data used by "Food Lovers" comes from Greenpeace China's 2010 GE-Free Food Guide (link in Chinese). However, the app's title and the inclusion of additional "human interest" content is obviously aimed at increasing its appeal to the general public.

The app is available for free download from the iTunes App Store. One user named "Fansile", awarding it a five-star rating, made this comment:

Finally the environmental organization is talking something related to my Chinese stomach. And it's not only a Green decoration for my iPod touch, but also a practical tool for me to decide what to buy and what to eat. Better than the other green apps. Cheer!

When popular Chinese social networking site Renren introduced the concept of "public homepages" for businesses and organizations in July this year, a number of NGOs were among the first to take advantage of this new service, including the Red Cross's Sunshine in Your Heart Project, TRAFFIC China (link in Chinese), The Climate Group, and Greenpeace China.

To date, these NGOs have each attracted tens of thousands of "friends" among the existing users of the website. The organizations can publish content such as articles, links, photos and video clips to their Renren homepage, and this content will be visible to those friends the next time they log onto their account. Of the organizations listed above, Greenpeace China has the greatest number of friends, currently standing at over 170,000.

In a recent paper (link in Chinese), Liu Qijing and Peng Jingjia of Xiamen University discuss the value of social networking services to NGOs, concluding that they offer notable benefits in terms of reach, interactivity, mobilising campaigners, and targeting communications. However, they point out that there are also limitations, such as difficulty reaching ordinary members of the public (without an existing interest in the issue), and difficulty measuring the extent to which online participation by website users translates into real action offline.

Greenpeace China is seeking a web manager to oversee the development of effective communications strategies through online channels.

For more details, see the announcement on the Greenpeace China website.