Zhou Xun, who has collected a host of "best actress" awards at China's film festivals, was recently handed a new title by the United Nations and hopes the next thing she is known for is her green lifestyle.

The 36-year-old actress, called "China's queen of quirk" by CNN, was named as one of the six for this Champions of the Earth on April 22 in Seoul. She was the only woman to win the United Nation's highest award for environmental leadership.

Zhou Xun plans to publish a catoon book on environmental protection. Zou Hong / China Daily

The other five were political leaders and elite scholars who the UN said "exemplify how action, inspiration, personal commitment and creativity can catalyze a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient 21st-century Green Economy."

"In the past, I knew very little about environmental pollution. But the film An Inconvenient Truth shocked me and made me to think about it more," Zhou said.

An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States vice-president Al Gore's campaign to raise awareness of global warming.

"When I realized how terrible the earth is suffering. I thought I must do something for environmental protection," she said.

Domestic entertainment reporters are used to seeing Zhou sipping water from a dark-red bottle as she refuses to drink bottled mineral water.

Zhou's personal assistant, A Mei, said the bottle is continually refilled with water as the actress resfuses to buy bottles which would be thrown away.

"She always takes her bottle wherever she goes, whether joining her friends' parties or shooting movies in remote areas. She has insisted on doing so for more than three years," said A Mei.

During the shooting of a television commercial for the juice brand Tropicana, Zhou pushed for the US-based enterprise to form a campaign to protect natural orchards in China.

With her team's assistance, Zhou said she wants to do more to encourage people to protect the environment.

"I have read a number environmental reports full of complicated scientific terms, so I started thinking how the issue could be simplified so more ordinary people can take an interest in living a green life," she said.

Zhou invited 20 cartoon artists from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan to draw cartoons on environmental protection themes.

Despite the initial difficulties involved in finding a publisher, the book of cartoons will be published later this year in Chinese and English.

The actress devotes a large proportion of her time promoting environmental protection; her assistants estimate 100 days in the last year.

"It's part of my life. I take it as normal," Zhou said.

China Daily

(China Daily 05/24/2010)