Earth Hour: Global Environmental Movement

This assignment discusses the importance of Earth Hour as a global environmental movement. It highlights the participation of 183 countries in this event and mentions creative initiatives by Coca Cola and Marriott to promote it. The text also refers to various articles, books, and websites that provide information about Earth Hour. The assignment concludes by stating that Earth Hour has become one of the largest events in the world for protecting the environment.

EARTH HOUR

TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................1
BACKGROUND....................................................................................................................1
TIME LINE AND CORPORATION ASSOCIATED WITH EARTH HOUR :- TWO
OFFICIAL SUPPORTERS AND THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN THIS MOVEMENT........2
LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL AMBASSADOR...........................................................7
OUTCOMES RELATED WITH EARTH HOUR BY A COUNTRY OTHER THAN
AUSTRALIA.........................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

MAIN BODY
INTRODUCTION
The present report is about the initiation of the Earth Hour movement and a discussion
about the participation of various countries in this event is done alone with other awareness
related with environmental protection in UK. Two of the corporation with are participant in
Earth hour i.e. Coca Cola and Marriott hotel Groups have also been presented in this report.
BACKGROUND
What is earth hour?
A movement started in Australia in 2007 where individuals, communities and business
organisation switch off their non essential lights for one hour from 8.30 to 9.30 pm on a
particular day by the end of month of March, this is done to show commitment to plant for its
protection. This was first started in Sydney as lights off event in 2007. Since, then more than
7000 cities have engaged in this movement across 187 countries around the globe.
Illustration 1: Earth hour
Source:Earth Hour (2018)
Purpose:
The main purpose of this event is to encourage sustainability and to reflect the support
to plans and strategies that will help in addressing problem of Global warming. This movement
was initiated to engage a large mainstream community on a wide range of environmental issues.
How it is started:
This is a global movement which was initiated by WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature)
in 2007. Back in 2004 it mat with an advertising agency for Leo Burnett Sydney for discussing
the issues of climate change in Australia (Khan & Borgstrom-Hansson, 2016, pp.42-44). Firstly,
idea of lights out was developed in 2006 and this idea got support from Farifax Media along
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with Lord Mayer Clover Moore and on 31st March lights out event was carried out at 7.30 pm in
Sydney, Australia. In than one hour lights off by more than 2.2 million house holds and 2100
businesses a 10.2 % reduction was seen in energy consumption in the city.
WWF is the parent company of Earth Hour and started movement for protection of
environment with its team and partners in Sydney. With its formation it has become a worldwide
movement and hundreds of millions people participates in WWF's Earth hour every year.
Participating countries:
Singapore, India, Africa, Europe, Indonesia, Malaysia, USA,China etc
Illustration 2: 2017 highlights
Source: Highlights of 2017, (2018)
TIME LINE AND CORPORATION ASSOCIATED WITH EARTH HOUR :- TWO OFFICIAL
SUPPORTERS AND THEIR INVOLVEMENT IN THIS MOVEMENT
Time line:
Year Date Number of participating
countries
2008 March 28, 2009 35 countries
2009 March 28, 2009 88 countries and 4,159 cities
2010 March 27, 2010 126 countries
2011 March 26, 2011 5,251 cities and towns in 135
countries
2012 February 20, 2012 7000 cities and towns across
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152 countries as well as
territories
2013 March 23, 2013
2014 March 29, 2014 162 countries and territories
2015 March 28, 2015 170 countries and territories
2016 March 19, 2016 -
2017 March 25, 2017 -
Corporation associated with earth hour:
S. NO. CORPORATION
1 UNESCO
2 The UN Environment programme
3 The International Trade Union Confederation
4 Woodland
5 CBRE Group
6 Marriott
7 FIFA
8 UEFA
9 Hilton Worldwide
10 Girl Scout of the US
11 World organisation of the Scout Movement
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12 HSBC
13 Coca Cola
14 Philips
15 IKEA
16 The Body Shop
17 ING Vysya Bank
18 Canon
19 Nokia
20 Bloomberg
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Illustration 3: Businesses Supporting Earth hour
Source: Green Product Design Network (2018)
Discussing involve of two supporting corporations:
Coca Cola:
To extent its support in environment protection the public affair and communication
director, Christine Black stated that “our commitment to Earth Hour is a small par of the
work coca cola is doing to care for environment.”
the organisation has a global partnership with WWF (World Wide Fund) for more than
10 years or it can be said that from the time this movement was first started. The organisation has
reduced its energy consumption and putting Mach the water it used after treating the same
(Fernández and et.al. 2015).
In year 2017, to save power the sign of Coca Cola in Kings cross was made to energy efficient
LED model which lead to reduction of almost 21% of electricity and carbon emission by 3.3
tonnes.
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Illustration 4: Initiative by Coca Cola
Initiatives taken by Coca Cola UK:
 it encouraged 5000 of its employees in UK and many consumers for signing up the Earth
Hour movement.
 In 2010, an advertisement was made was displayed on a large screen above the Piccadilly
Circus.
 Every year it runs outdoor billboard campaign in support of Earth hour and promotional
activities were are initiated on Coke Zone website.
Coca Cola has been working to save water an energy since 2007 and in this direction it got into
partnership with WWF ans ha set global targets water sustainability and reduction of energy in
its production and other activities.
It has expanded its involvement in environmental programmes in new 7 goals and set a
target to achieve it by 2020. These 7 goals are:
1. improvement of water efficiency:
2. Fresh water system:
3. reduction in carbon emission
4. Natural materials for Plant Bottle packing
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5. Sustainability of key ingredient
6. Replenishment of used water in environment
7. Recovering 75% of bottles and cans
Marriott Group of Hotels:
In only UK 30 hotel form Marriott group switch off their lights for one hour and they
provide a candle light dinner to its clients and arrange glow show – dance with glow stick in its
hotels.
In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, hotel of this group participated in this movement in year 2015
and support form consumer and associated were also sought for turning down the lights for one
hour and this initiative by 10 hotels leads to a saving of 7000kw of energy in an hour.
Hotels in France also took part in Earth Hour and each one has a unique way to
promote and celebrate it. Each one of the hotel created their own way to show the commitment
towered protection of planet.
To increase the engagement from previous years Marriott added a factor of donation in
WWF as property participation. The Sheraton Grand Conakry and Le Meridian Gurgoan, Delhi
saved energy up to 623mkw and 10340kw respectively by just switching off the non essemntial
lights. With this le Meridian planted trees in its surroundings and also encourages use of bike,
walking and found other effective sources to commute to work for its employees. In Marriott
hotel of Chennai diyas were lighted for one hour during lights off and it created a beautiful
mesmerizing view for guest and hotel employees.
In one of its hotel sand sculpture of Panda was made to support the Earth Hour
Movement by WWF.
LOCAL AND INTERNATIONAL AMBASSADOR
Raymond Blanc: president of SRA (Sustainable Restaurant Association) Is a celebrity
chef and is an active participant and promoter of Earth Hour. He is a master of culinary
creation and numerous people follow him for his passion and love for food.
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Illustration 5: Raymond Blanc
Source: WWF EARTH HOUR – DINE BY
CANDLELIGHT, (2018)
Announcement of Candle light dinner:
As president of SRA the whole restaurant community is encouraged to switch of non
essential lights during Earth hour of 8.30 to 9.30 pm and in this time an initiative was announced
by Raymond to haver candle light dinner in his and other restaurants. Moreover, he also tweeted
that people can have this dinner with their families at their home.
He stated that “we all will be joining the London Eye, Big Ben, houses and organisation
across the world in turning off the lights for one hour and celebrate our planet.” The hour of
darkness an initiative for protection of environment has been turned in to a romantic and fine
dining experience with loved ones and families by Raymond.
This statement by Raymond influenced many people in his and other nations to
participate in Earth hour. Also, as a president of SRA, the member restaurants took participation
in this movement and this also made their client aware about the same. All of them celebrated
Earth hour in their own creative way without use of energy.
He also posted many lip smacking food recipes on this Instagram that can be enjoy
during Earth hour for Lights out under canoe lights. He turned this movement in visual
demonstration of culinary delights which people can cook at home on day of Earth hour.
OUTCOMES RELATED WITH EARTH HOUR BY A COUNTRY OTHER THAN
AUSTRALIA
Here participation and development of the Earth Hour movement in UK is described:
In 2017 more than 9 million people in UK took part in Earth Hour including 6000
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schools, 300 landmarks and thousands of businesses and corporations. In 2010 the famous
Carnaby street of London also joined this movement with a wildlife takeover of its Carnaby
arch.
UK considers the Earth hour movement BY WWF as biggest for protection of our
planet. People make a symbolic gestures by switching off lights for an hour from 8.30 to 9.30 pm
and in this time they use other creative way to remove darkness such as use of glow sticks, diyas
etc. (Scharl and et.al. 2016, pp. 97-104). Eiffel Tower, Buckingham palace and Edinburgh
Castle also switches their lights off a visual display to show their commitment.
Whole of the UK, more than 9 million people participate in this movement every year.
People do a wide range of things to show their care towards planet and mother earth. The
participants are not only individuals but also businesses, organisations, communities etc.
With involvement in this motion has helped the WWF in finding new ways to face and
overcome environmental challenges worldwide.
There are certain risk which are discovered for crisis on the planet:
 Decline in fresh water resources by 80%, in no action is taken there will be no
availability of drinking water for coming generation.
 Decline in the land specie on elephants, turtle and other animals on land area.
 There is rapid fall in number of forests, 40 % of forests are converted in to agricultural
land and 15 million trees are cut down for production of Soy.
 Every I out of 6 species is in danger and urge of extinction due climatic change.
To fix this there are certain actions taken, which are:
 For shifting to a low carbon economy the UK governments is working with international
governments to reduce carbon emission from burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gases
and oil.
 Restoration and protection of important and natural habitat of animals and birds.
 Food system have been addressed to ensure that sustainability is present in mind and
practice, waste are reduced and consumption is done reasonably and responsorial.
 To help of developing poor countries to cope with climactic changes.
 Encouragement is given to make lifestyle sustainable by reduction in use of energy in
home, use environmental free transports and have sustainable diets etc.
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Illustration 6: Energy production
Source: Earth Hour: largest global movement for environment, (2018)
London, UK- the public of this country is one of the largest user of single use plastic
products. By 2030 it has planned to reduce plastic cup usage by more the third as compared to
present use and this will reduce plastic cup use by 20 %.
In Wales, different landmarks, businesses and cafes have made commitment for going
100% plastic free or to phase out single use plastic, to switch to reusable coffee cups. Along
with this, steps were also taken to by different cities as :-
 Beca Lyne – Prikis and capital FM South Wales promise to use reusable coffee cups
instead of plastic cups.
 National trust of Wales have sworn by to work its way to 100% renewable production in
Wales.
 The Cardiff University is trying to phase out single use plastic products.
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 Ty Hywel are in stage of installation of electrical vehicle charging points to reduce use
of petroleum products which leads to carbon emission in environment.
CONCLUSION
With this it can be concluded that Earth hour has become one of the largest event of the
world for protection of environment. With 183 participating countries it can be considered as a
global movement which created tremendous awareness in the whole world. Further, it can be
interpreted that Coca Cola ans Marriott are active participants of Earth Our and have taken maky
creative initiative to promote this event.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Khan, F., & Borgstrom-Hansson, C. (2016). Using the Earth Hour City Challenge to identify
high leverage points for footprint reduction in cities. Journal of Cleaner Production. 123.
pp. 42-44.
Fernández, M., & et.al. (2015). Analysing engagement towards the 2014 earth hour campaign in
twitter.
Scharl, A & et.al. (2016). Application Design and Engagement Strategy of a Game with a
Purpose for Climate Change Awareness. In International Conference on Internet
Science. (pp. 97-104). Springer, Cham.
Online
Green Product Design Network. 2018. [Online]. Available through
:<http://www.thegreenmarketoracle.com/2011/03/>.
WWF EARTH HOUR – DINE BY CANDLELIGHT. 2018. [Online]. Available through
:<https://brasserieblanc.com/news-cat/wwf-earth-hour-dine-candlelight/>.
Earth hour. 2018. [Online]. Available through
:<http://www.asiagreenbuildings.com/featured/2016/03/18/energy-and-cost-saving-
through-lighting-during-earth-hour/>.
Highlights of 2017. 2018. [Online]. Available through :<https://www.earthhour.org/2017-
highlights>.
EarthHour: largest global movement for environment. 2018. [Online]. Available
through :<http://joannenova.com.au/2018/03/earthhour-largest-global-movement-for-
environment-millions-participate-and-nothing-happens/>.
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