Exercise 1: Research_Danish Haikal Bin Mohd Sani 0139019
1. What is Zero Waste Malaysia (ZWM)?
= Zero Waste
Malaysia (“ZWM”) is a non-profit organisation and community group, established
in 2016 based in Malaysia advocating for sustainable development and aiming to
increase the local community’s awareness of sustainable living. With less than
6 years to achieve the Paris Agreement targets and UN Sustainable Development
Goals in 2030, we believe every action at every scale, matters (Khor et al., 2025).
2. What is vision and mission of Zero Waste Malaysia (ZWM)?
= The vision
of ZWM is building a waste-free and sustainable future for Malaysia. Their
mission is to be the largest and influential ground up environmental community
to drive social and systemic change for a sustainable future in Malaysia (Zero Waste Malaysia [ZWM], n.d.).
3. Who is the founder of ZWM?
= Zero Waste
Malaysia was co-founded by Khor Sue Yee and Aurora Tin in 2016. They
organised Zero Waste events together with a group of passionate volunteers,
also attended public talks/panel discussions/exhibition to boast the growth of
Zero Waste Movement (Xiung, 2023).
4. When ZWM community started their journey?
= Zero Waste
Malaysia started off as a Facebook Community Group in 2016 to promote
sustainability living and reduce waste. This group was built so that people
could share information and connect with others interested in in reducing
waste. In 2018, the group grew rapidly and has attracting over 6,000 members. As
for today, they are over 49,000 community members that joined their movement.
This show that the events and campaigns organized by ZWM has proved that our
people becoming more aware of reducing waste in Malaysia (ZWM, n.d.).
5. How to reach ZWM?
= Currently,
ZWM does not listed their office address publicly but people can still reach
them through their social media platforms, @zerowastemalaysia_official (Instagram),
@zerowastemalaysia.official (Facebook) or through
their email, info@zerowastemalaysia.org (ZWM n.d.).
Besides, for people or organisations who want to engage in their services such as collaborating with them, ZWM now has an online booking form as an alternative way to make things easier for people to get connected with them (ZWM, n.d.).
6.What are the pillars of ZWM?
= Zero Waste Malaysia strives to make zero
waste living accessible in Malaysia by building educational content and
inclusive resources. Second, being the largest environmental community group in
Malaysia, they engage with individuals, community groups, corporates, and other
stakeholders, working closely to bring sustainability into workplaces. Third,
they organise outreach activities and campaigns to cultivate zero waste living,
striving towards a circular economy for Malaysia (ZWM, n.d.).
7. What are the opportunities that people could get if they join the ZWM community?
Joining ZWM will give you a lot of experience
in handling events and programmes which could build your confidence and
leadership skills besides having sense to protect our natural environment. People
could get these opportunities by applying to become a volunteer with ZWM. You
could get a chance to become a part of their speaker’s team, content team,
finance team, corporate team and event/project team (ZWM, n.d.).
8.How many volunteers that joined ZWM in 2024 and show feedback from them about ZWM.
= In ZWM, volunteer community is called as
Eco Warriors since there are helping the NGO with their own will and interests.
In 2024, there are about 25 volunteers and one of them, Wicia Fong give feedback
which she says “the standout moment in my volunteering was seeing positive
responses from the community which continued to inspire me. Since volunteering,
I have taken the initiative within my company by organising a zero-waste
competition, where my colleagues tried out team challenge in zero waste
actions. At first, they were hesitant and unsure, but once they got involved,
they found it easy like buying coffee in their own tumbler! It was exciting to
witness the positive shift in people's behaviour and growing enthusiasm for
sustainability!” (Khor, 2025).
= As in 2024, ZWM has reaches 98,258 followers from various type of social media platforms which is Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube. There are also about 26 of media mentions such as The Star and The Edge Malaysia. Besides, there are about 1,898 monthly website users that goes to their page. These all show a huge support from the public so they could get more knowledge about environment through ZWM accounts (Khor, 2025).
10. Can people work with ZWM to sell their products?
If people
join ZWM Facebook Group of
over 49,000 passionate zero waste individuals, people may promote their
eco-friendly, zero waste products only on ZWM Market Day. ZWM have Online Market Day on every second
Saturday of the month! Members are welcomed to advertise for any waste reduction products/ events/
services/ websites/ companies. There are some rules to follow so be sure to
read up on them and avoid the post being reported or removed (ZWM, n.d.).
ZWM always have a common challenge every
time they are doing their programmes which one of them is people are always
keep having a misconception about zero-waste life which some of people might it
as a time-consuming, expensive and inconvenient. Other than that, ZWM need to
find way to encourage Malaysians to practice zero waste in order to create a
better sustainable community. (ZWM, n.d.)
12. Who are the partners and collaborators that support ZWM?
= As for now, ZWM received a huge support
from their partners, collaborators, and community members. These are some
mentions of those who supported ZWM over the last year (Khor, 2025).
Menn Studio, Muji Malaysia, Carlsberg
Malaysia, Aesop Malaysia, JCI Malaysia, Joden & Little Stone Production, Graze
Eatery, Eventistry Malaysia Puregreen Digital, United Edge, Common Purpose, 小本屋 Simple House Kaumpang, The Olive
Tree, ThinkCity, Klima Action Malaysia (KAMY), Plaza Low Yat , 1 Utama Shopping
Centre and Juliet Jacobs (BFM 89.9).
13. What is ZWM’s core cause in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)?
= ZWM has 3 SDG as their cores in order to
achieve their objectives. First is quality education which to spread the
awareness of sustainability to teachers and students about sustainability
through Green Wira Programme. Second is responsible consumption and production
which ZWM launch an encyclopaedia for trash to help people understand about the
importance of reducing consumption. Third is climate action which reducing the
waste from our planet eventually could reduce global warming and pollutions (Khor, 2025).
= One of it is PARC Tenant Training and WABA
Exercise, in collaboration with PARC, ZWM conducted a Waste Assessment and
Brand Audit (WABA) on-site to look into the waste
composition of this community space. The Audit also looked
into waste segregation accuracy of recycling bins. Following these
insights, ZWM conducted a Tenant Training session with PARC's tenants, property
management and cleaning staff. ZWM look forward to developing a Consultation
Guide detailing suggestions on building a zero-waste space in 2025
Second, ZWM also conducted a Cleanclycling
campaign with Melvita. This 3-month campaign with Melvita encouraged the public
to drop off clean beauty empties to Melvita stores, with exclusive point
systems on their collection app for our ZWM FB Group Members.The campaign
focused on the importance of cleaning and drying beauty empties for better
disposal and more effective recycling
15. What is ZWM significant growth that they achieved through 2024?
= In 2024, ZWM successfully reduced 5845 kg
of carbon dioxide equivalent (kgCO2e) through talks, workshops and 7-day zero
waste challenge conducted. This has shown 13.73% more reductions of kgCO2e than 2023.
Also, ZWM achieved to worked on with 61 companies and brands by various
programmes and sessions. Other than that, ZWM a new programme called Green Wira
Programme pilot which they successfully launced 3 Zero Waste Schools
16. What is Green Wira Programme that ZWM conducted in 2024?
= The Green Wira Programme is a 12-month
long programme that consists of a 9 week online educational course, physical workshops,
and seed funding of RM30,000 to award top educators to build zero waste
schools.
2024 saw the completion of the Pilot Cohort
with 50 Malaysian educators representing 30 different schools. 3 teachers were
awarded with seed funding and successfully implemented their projects within a
4-month period (
17.What are the objectives of Green Wira Programme in 2024?
= The objectives of the programme is to
empower local teachers with zero waste and environmental knowledge, equip the
schools with projects skills to execute ideas and execute support with project
monitoring
18. What are the targeted goals and outcomes of the Green Wira Programme for 2025?
= This programme targets to reach 300
educators with 60,000 programmes, waste reduction of 1,500kg and creating 3
Zero Waste Schools. This programme is hoping to help foster a sustainable
future for Malaysia while nurturing the next generation of eco-champions
19. What are the example programmes/workshops that ZWM been working on companies?
= ZWM provide Corporate Education services which involves one of their pillars, to bring sustainabllity to the workplaces. Among these include theoretical knowledge on zero waste, practical and actionable tips and hands-on workshops. Aside from employee engagement, these workshops encouraged participants to think about the waste that surrounds them and how to reduce this, through the 5R principles. ZWM also have engaged with 2 companies for their 7 Days Zero Waste Challenge, where employees take action by practicing various low waste behaviours through competition-style challenge (Khor, 2025).
20. What are the communities & engangements that ZWM have approached in 2024?
= First is international education and other activations where ZWM raised awareness about food waste and what we can do as a consumer with What A Waste, a group aiming to reduce food waste by distributing to marginalised communities. Second, ZWM conducted a communities interview on plastic education, where ZWM volunteer created an insightful educational piece focused on debunking the meaning behind the recycling triangle symbol, commonly found on plastic products. They found many people mistakenly believe that the number inside the triangle indicates products' recyclability. Through the interview and content piece, they aim to raise awareness and encourage more informed choices, plus highlight the most commonly recycled plastic categories in Malaysia (Khor, 2025).
2 = ZWM have been working with a lot of resources until now as they want to maximise their efforts as much as possible in order to promote a better sustainable practice in Malaysia such. The example of their products is a “My Zero Waste Life” handbook that explains more deeply about zero waste and for people to start sustainability journey. Also, ZWM has make a version of encyclopedia for trash called “Trashpedia” that help people to identifies more about their trash whether they are recycleable or not (Free Malaysia Today [FMT], 2022). Other than that, there is ZWM Map, Zero Waste Office handbook, ZWM lesson plan and Wira Zero Waste (W0W) (Khor, 2025).
22. Are there any actions taken to spread about Trashpedia to our community?
= There is called Trashepdia Outreach
Programme “TOP” in 2023 which ZWM encouraged the public to bring along clean
recyclables and Young Explorers aged between 8 to 14 years old guided them how
to sort trash so that it has a higher success rate of being recycled. The
vision was to encourage the public to practice clean and dry recycling for
recyclables to be recycled - waste redirecting back to value chain to build a
circular economy. Throughout the programme, there was about 4 cycles of the
programme conducted, 280 kg of recyclable collected from public, 509 kgCo2 of
emission avoided from landfill diversion and 30 ZWM Young Explorers were
involved (Khor, 2024).
23. What is ZWM lesson plan?
ZWM lesson plan is a series of free
educational modules that teach students about waste. It consists of five
60-minute modules which include audio and visual aids, as well as activity
sheet designed in alignment with the Malaysian Secondary School Curriculum
Standard (KSSM) for primary and secondary school students aged 11 to 17,
containing localized and contextualized materials presented in 4 main Malaysian
languages, being Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil. (ZWM, n.d.).
24. What is Wira Zero Waste (WOW)?
WOW is virtual classes that conducted in both English and Malay to spread awareness and importance of zero-waste lifestyle. These classes could be find on Open Learning as a public course which is still available and free to allowed individuals from outside the allocated ages range to join in as well due to their own curiosity and interests. (ZWM, n.d.)
25. What is ZWM map?
= ZWM Map is an online map that helps users find zero-waste resources in Malaysia created by Zero Waste Malaysia. It acts as a directory of places where people can recycle, refill, repair items, shop package-free or secondhand, and find other zero-waste solutions. The map is a tool for the zero-waste community, allowing users to easily locate nearby resources without having to memorize or keep track of information. It features various categories like recycling, upcycling, composting, and more. The ZWM Map is a part of Zero Waste Malaysia's efforts to promote a sustainable lifestyle in Malaysia (LLSB Admin, 2024).
= Despite ZWM conducted a lot of zero-waste
programmes in Malaysia, they still had several learning opportunities that
exposing them to enriching more experiences. One of them is American Express
Leadership Academy Training where ZWM’s director had privilege of participating
in this event in 2024. This leadership programme prepared the participants with
skills to address the challenges we face today. Second, the senior programme
and comms officer of ZWM joined The Earthshot Prize Youth Programme which aims
to discover, celebrate and scale solutions to the environmental challenges
facing the planet. Third, ZWM participated in Malaysia Adaptation Sharing Hub
(MASH), a workshop held in Penang, organised by ThinkCity and Klima Action
Malaysia. The workshop engaged in discussions on urban resilience, climate
change impacts, public health and flood adaptation (Khor, 2025).
27. What are the awards that ZWM have achieved in 2024?
= ZWM received a lot of the recognitions and
support which have helped with global exposure to their work in zero waste such
as Prestige Malaysia – Woman of Power which ZWM’s Director was selected as one of
Malaysia’s leading female luminaries at Prestige Malaysia’s Women of Power 2024
and Winner of QS ImpACT’s Climate Education & Advocacy Award 2024 which ZWM
Education Programme Manager, Irene Chooi was awarded as one of the recipients
of the QS ImpACT Award, celebrating ZWM’s s commitment to climate education and
advocacy through the Green Wira Programme (Khor, 2025).
28. What are ZWM plans for 2025?
= ZWM strive to build alliances that foster
meaningful collaborations. In addition to their educational programmes and
community engagement, they hope to focus on these three areas in 2025. First is
Policy & Research - Organic Waste Management. Their gap analysis on waste
management policies, at a household level in Malaysia found a lack of focus on
food waste management. ZWM plans to explore best practices of household organic
waste management, with plans to scale community composting projects across
Malaysia. Second is Green Wira Programme 2.0. With the success of educating 50
Malaysian teachers through the GWP pilot which concluded in 2024, ZWM look
forward to expanding this programme to primary and secondary school teachers
nationwide, learning from the pilot programme. Third is Community Empowerment,
2024 was a year of significant growth, and they hope to increase their
influence in 2025 by connecting with their ZWM community and introducing more
programmes to draw people together. This includes quarterly public programmes
and active collaboration with key stakeholders (Khor, 2025).
Short Reflection
Based on my market research on ZWM, I
realize that there are a lot of people putting most of their efforts to help
changing our lifestyle to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly in
order to protect the environment in Malaysia. I learned how ZWM trying to cover
as many aspects as possible from education, responsible comnsumption to climate
action by involving schools, companies, and communities.
At first, this NGO started as a small
Facebook group with just a mission that is to share information about natural
environment and reducing waste but now, ZWM is running a big programme like the
Green Wira Programme and campaigns with brands to spread zero-waste habits. It
also made me realise that promoting a zero-waste lifestyle isn’t always easy
because some people still think it’s too hard or expensive, but ZWM keeps
working to change that mindset.
Overall, this research helped me understand
the key role of NGOs like ZWM in helping Malaysia move towards a sustainable
future. It made me reflect on my own lifestyle and think about what small changes that I could make to support zero-waste
efforts through Creative CSR Campaign.
Resources
FMT. (2022, April
29). Trashpedia aims to help Malaysians know what they throw. Free
Malaysia Today | FMT; Free Malaysia Today. https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2022/04/30/trashpedia-aims-to-help- malaysians-know-what-they-throw
Khakhar, K.
(2024). QS ImpACT: Green Wira - QS Insights Magazine 29. Qs.com. https://magazine.qs.com/qs-insights-magazine-29/qs-impact-green-wira
Khor, S. Y.
(2024). Zero waste Malaysia annual report 2023 (p. 25). Zero Waste
Malaysia. https://zerowastemalaysia.org/zerowaste/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ZWM-Annual-Report- 2023.pdf
Khor, S. Y.,
& Sabapathy, T. (2025). Annual report 2024 (N. Aloysius, Y. X. Phi,
& M. Foong, Eds.; p. 23). Zero Waste Malaysia.
https://zerowastemalaysia.org/zerowaste/wp- content/uploads/2025/04/Annual-Report-2024.pdf
LLSB Admin.
(2024, September 9). Find Recycling Drop-Off Points with Zero Waste
Malaysia - Selangor Maritime Gateway. Selangor Maritime Gateway.
https://www.selangormaritimegateway.com/find-recycling-drop-off-points-with-zero-waste- malaysia/
Xiung, C. J.
(2023). The entrepreneur who is inspiring others to live a waste-free
life. Tatler Asia. https://www.tatlerasia.com/gen-t/leadership/zero-waste-malaysias-khor-sue-yee-inspire-live- waste-free-life
Zero Waste
Malaysia – Building a green and sustainable future. (n.d.). Zero Waste
Malaysia. https://zerowastemalaysia.org/
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