Jun Ma began his career in 1993 working as a journalist for the South China Morning Post. His research and reporting on China’s environmental problems led him to write China’s Water Crisis, which was published at the end of 1999 by China Environmental Science Press. In 2002, he joined an environmental consulting firm, where he helped formulate corporate social responsibility standards and an evaluation system for multinational brands’ supply chain in China. Following his selection to the Yale World Fellows Program in 2004, he conducted comparative research on Chinese and Western environmental governance. In 2006, he was awarded as China’s “Green Person of the Year” and was named as one of TIME Magazine’s World’s 100 Most Influential People.

That same year, Jun Ma founded the non-profit organization the Institute of Public & Environmental Affairs (IPE) and directed the development and completion of China’s first environmental public database, the “China Water Pollution Map.” In 2007, IPE launched the Green Choice Alliance in collaboration with 20 NGOs to promote big brands’ greening of their supply chains in China and push hundreds of suppliers to implement corrective actions. In 2009, he led the development of the Pollution Information Transparency Index (PITI), which for six years has continuously evaluated key cities’ information disclosure. In 2013, IPE and 25 other organizations launched the Total Transparency Initiative to advocate for real-time disclosure of online monitoring data for pollution sources. The following year, Jun Ma directed the development of the Blue Map app, which has helped the public use “micro-reports” as a means of pushing a couple of hundred major emitters to correct their violation problems.

Ma was honored with the Magsaysay Award in 2009 and Goldman Prize in 2012 for his environmental protection work in China and the 2015 Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship for his innovative approach to “lifting the veil” on China’s pollution problems.