Restore our Planet - Celebrating Earth Hour - 25th of March 2023 at 8.30pm to 9.30pm

Earth Hour, organized by World Wildlife Fund, is a global grassroots movement uniting people to take action on environmental issues and protect the planet. Engaging a massive mainstream community, Earth Hour was famously started as a lights out event in Sydney, Australia in 2007. Since then, it has grown to engage millions of supporters in more than 185 countries and territories, inspiring individuals and organizations worldwide to take action for the environment, and driving major legislative changes by harnessing the power of the crowd. As the movement grows, the one-hour lights out event continues to be the symbol of a broader commitment toward nature and our planet.

While WWF projects and individual actions under the Earth Hour movement continue throughout the year, the annual Earth Hour lights out event is held worldwide toward the end of March to encourage individuals, households, communities and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour as a symbol for their commitment to the planet. Earth Hour is more than an annual event – it is a movement that culminates in an hour of inspiration held around the world toward the end of March each year. This year, today on 25th of March 2023, we are celebrating this. The first Earth Hour event was held on 31 March 2007. WWF-Australia inspired Sydney-siders to show their support for climate action. More than 2.2 million individuals and 2,000 businesses turned their lights out for one hour in the first Earth Hour event.

The first thing anyone can do to get involved is to turn off their lights during Earth Hour. But there is much, much more. Our objective is for people to take action beyond the hour, whether it is supporting a local WWF project or getting involved in Earth Hour campaigns in their own country, or starting the movement in their own community. The vision is always to do more, so make the light switch the beginning of your journey. For the past 10 years, people around the world have come together every Earth Hour to support efforts to tackle climate change. And, together, we have created a powerful movement that helped deliver strong global commitments to tackling this threat. Climate change remains a big challenge for us all.

But another urgent threat now demands our attention: the staggering loss of biodiversity and nature. Earth Hour today endeavors to spark global conversations on protecting nature not only because it is our strongest ally against to the climate crisis -?but also because of its importance in ensuring our own health, happiness, prosperity and even survival. By registering for Earth Hour, individuals, communities and businesses are making a commitment to turn their lights off for an hour in acknowledgement of an act they will undertake for the benefit of the planet. We hope that these individuals, communities and businesses will take action beyond the hour through Earth Hour, WWF and/or other environmental organizations and initiatives. The second-to-last and last weekend of March is around the time of the Spring and Autumn equinoxes in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, which allows for near coincidental sunset times in both hemispheres, thereby ensuring the greatest visual impact for a global ‘lights out’ event.?

• WWF-Uganda created the world’s first Earth Hour Forest
• More than 250,000 Russians voiced support for better protection of their country’s seas and forests
• Argentina used its 2013 Earth Hour campaign to help pass a Senate bill for a 3.4 million hectares Marine Protected Area in the country
• Thousands of wood-saving stoves were distributed to families in Madagascar
• Solar-powered lights were installed in three villages without electricity in India
• In Paraguay, WWF used the Earth Hour platform to build public support to gain an extension of the logging moratorium, helping to reduce deforestation
• Education programs for schools were launched in Thailand and Taiwan
• Hundreds of thousands of LED lights were installed by girl scouts in the USA
• More than 2,123 mitigation actions submitted by Earth Hour City Challenge 2014 participating cities

But this is just the start. There are so many more Earth Hour stories out there we’re still discovering, and of course much more to do.

The standard Earth Hour '60' logo represents the 60 minutes of Earth Hour where we focus on the impact we are having on our planet and take positive action to address the environmental issues we face. For Earth Hour 2011, the ‘60+’ logo was introduced representing a commitment to add to Earth Hour a positive act for the planet that goes beyond the hour. Take up the ‘plus’ and get involved with the movement beyond the hour. Earth Hour came from a think tank initiated by Earth Hour Co-Founder, Andy Ridley, resulting in the formation of a partnership between WWF-Australia, Leo Burnett and Fairfax Media to address the climate change issue.

In 2007, there was still a degree of skepticism and denial on the issue of climate change. Earth Hour came as the inspiration to rally people to the reality of climate change and start a dialogue about what we as individuals can do to help address the planet’s biggest environmental challenge yet. Leo Burnett partnered with WWF to promote the idea and help make the campaign a reality in Sydney, a campaign which has now gone beyond Australia and climate change to symbolize the growing global pursuit of a better, sustainable future for all. Earth Hour is an initiative of WWF. In 2007, WWF initiated Earth Hour as a way of engaging a broad section of society in the environmental issues challenging citizens across the world. WWF embraced the idea of an open source campaign that would allow communities and organizations to become part of a global movement to protect our planet.

Host your event in an accessible location that is walkable from most public transportation hubs to encourage

maximum turnout and discourage event-goers from driving to the event (resulting in a higher carbon footprint) and

include notes about accessibility for differently-abled participants.

● If you’re catering food for your event, try to use sustainable or local food sources as much as possible to minimize waste

and your carbon footprint.

● Minimize waste by encouraging event-goers to bring their own containers and cutlery when organizing events that

provide food OR provide edible plates and cutleries instead of disposables.

● Reduce unnecessary paper and disposable plastic usage as much as possible.

● Provide recycling bins at your events, and encourage your participants to recycle their waste. You can also provide

compost bins for food waste.

● Rent/re-use set-up equipment and decorations as much as possible, instead of buying new ones.

● Given the COVID-19 pandemic, check national health guidelines on hosting public events before organizing one, and

make a decision based on the advice provided by your Health Ministry. Where appropriate and to be sensitive to

participants, encourage your attendees to wear a mask and maintain social distancing.