Globally, 88%~95% of the marine debris comes from the 10 rivers of Asia and Africa. The Mekong River is a transboundary river originating from China, passing through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and finally through Vietnam to the sea.

Since Vietnam is located at the lower end of the Mekong River, trash from countries located upstream flow down and merge with waste from Vietnam. As a result, Vietnam has more floating trash. Furthermore, if the pollutants are not stopped, it flows into the Pacific Ocean, causing severe consequences.

While the pollution of the Mekong River is getting worse every day, 320 million people still obtain living water, agricultural water, and food resources from the river. The pollution of the Mekong River threatens the health and survival of those people.

Hanwha, as a company that operates under the brand core value of a "sustainable future", could not let the essential river die.

We decided to build the specialized solar-powered Hanwha Solar Boat which can collect floating waste from the Mekong River. Because solar energy is used exclusively to power the Hanwha Solar Boat, the boat is able to compile trash without emitting pollutants. No matter how much trash is removed from the river, if the device uses fossil fuels, emits harmful gas, and leaks oil into the ocean, it is harmful to the environment and therefore is not a sustainable design.

For the impactful execution of the Clean Up Mekong campaign, discovering the most effective location for stopping floating debris from entering into the ocean was crucial. In partnership with the Vietnam Environment Administration(VEA), Global Green Growth Institute(GGGI), and local government and intergovernmental organization facilities of Vietnam, we were able to conclude that the best location for the campaign was Vinh Long, located before where the Mekong River merged with the sea.

Despite being the-world’s-No.1-company in solar-cell production, Hanwha lacked in familiarity with consumers because of its B2B-oriented business. Furthermore, solar energy is not widely used in Southeast Asia. We strategized a PR-based campaign in which solar-technology is most meaningfully utilized to provide a brand-experience that solves environmental problems closely linked to consumer lives. Among numerous environmental issues, we recognized the urgency of the Mekong River's pollution as a part of marine-pollution.

To administer massive environmental-challenge and maximize PR-results required strong cross-sector partnerships. Additionally, we planned a guerrilla event on World-Environment-Day-2019.

For each target audience, we developed a PR-strategy utilizing diverse PR platforms. First, we used Solar Boat as a PR platform to effectively encourage locals to not trash the river. Second, through Facebook, we communicated with Vietnamese people to raise environmental-awareness. Third, we built the Hanwha brand-image that pursues sustainability by targeting global leaders and citizens through press, forums, and conferences.

1)July2018~March2019: For the campaign, we established a partnership with VEA and GGGI. After investigating three regions, we determined the campaign location.

2)August2018~May2019: Solar Boat design/production/trial

A 6.45mX2.3mX2.6m boat is built with high-performance Hanwha Q-CELLS'-Q.PEAK-DUO-solar-system and conveyor-device. These allow navigation and collection of waste automatically with solar-energy.

3)January2019~present: Solar Hero Character Development and Execution of digital campaigns on Facebook and YouTube to raise public environmental-awareness and interests of Solar Boat

4)World-Environment-Day: Guerrilla event attracting attention globally from numerous people and media took place in Vinh Long. Locals helped by collecting trash by the shore. Two solar boats were donated.

5)June2019~present: Since the World Environment Day, VEA and provincial stakeholders have been managing the boats to collect waste. We produced a documentary capturing the objective and process of the campaign. This film raised environmental-awareness and brand-awareness. Cooperating with VEA and GGGI, the documentary film and the Solar Boat are used educationally.

-Since World-Environment-Day 2019, Solar Boat has been collecting 500kg of trash daily to clean the Mekong-River. It has collected a total of 373.8tons of trash so far. This equals the weight of 25million half-liter-plastic-bottles, if connected will be the entire length of the Mekong-River.

-This campaign achieved 48million-Impressions, 18million-views, and more than 5million-engagement, and catalyzed debates on the environment and renewable solar-energy. The campaign created a buzz about Hanwha among individual consumers.

-Brand-awareness increased significantly as this campaign has been introduced in the-2020-Davos-World-Economic-Forum, the-8th-International-Renewable-Energy-Conference, the-20th-World-Knowledge-Forum, 2019&2019-Cannes-LionsXSustainable-Development-Goals-Forum, and more than 130 media-platforms worldwide as a feasible solution to the global-environmental-problem. Particularly, the-Davos-World-Economic-Forum is attended by global-leaders who direct climate-action and energy-related policymaking. Through the forum, Hanwha enabled administrators to experience Hanwha's sustainability-management-philosophy and attitude towards environmental challenges.

-Along with this-campaign, Hanwha is contributing to increase the usage of clean-energy in Vietnam with the-solar-solution-business, and after the-campaign, this-business recorded 91%-annual-sales-increase in Vietnam.