Ma Jun, director of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, has been awarded a top environmental award for his efforts in setting up an online database of polluters and in urging enterprises to clean up their practices.

Six people - one each from Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America - shared the 2012 Goldman Environmental Prize. Each winner of the award, established by the philanthropists Richard and Rhoda Goldman in 1989 to honor grassroots environmentalists, receives $150,000.

In May 2006, Ma and his colleagues at the IPE began to gather data to create the first-ever maps of air and water pollution in China. The database now includes more than 90,000 threads of records, detailing breaches of environmental regulations committed by both Chinese and multinational companies. The public can now learn about the pollution levels and sources in their neighborhoods simply by clicking a mouse.