WWF Earth Hour Make Your Vote Count

As India gets ready for the general elections and you get ready to cast your
vote, March 28 was an election day for Indias environment campaign. For the
first time India joined hands with the rest of the world cutting across
nationalities, backgrounds and age for using the simple light switch for
casting its vote to save the Earthswitching off the light is a vote for Earth
while leaving them on is a vote for global warming. A whopping one billion
people from across the world switched off their lights from 8:30 to 9:30 pm
pledging support for creating a sustainable environment.

World Wide Fund (WWF) for nature urged global citizens to vote for saving the
Earth and to reach the target of 1 bn votes that would be presented thereafter
at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen later this year. The vote
is a chance for the common man to make himself heard and coerce official
government policies to take action against global warming, that will replace the
Kyoto Protocol.

The Earth Hour traces its origin to Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 mn homes and
businesses switched off their lights for one hour. The next year saw 50 mn
people joining the movement. India has joined the movement for the first time
this year with New Delhi and Mumbai joining the league of more than 1,000 cities
across 80 countries.

With a growing concern for the environment across corporates and individuals
alike, the Earth Hour generated predictable excitement. Aamir Khan was the face
of the campaign in India with corporates too joining in. Companies like HP,
Wipro, Google, Intel, HSBC Bank, Nokia, YES Bank, NDPL, Ogilvy, Tata Indicom,
ITC Welcome group, Standard Chartered, CBRE, Delhi Government, Tetra Pak and PVR
Cinemas pledged support to the campaign.

Partners in Green

HP India partnered with WWF as the Green Technology Partner for Earth Hour
2009 for increasing community awareness around climate change, encouraging
individuals and organizations to make a difference in the fight against global
warming. HP turned off the lights in all HP site buildings in India supporting
the Earth Hour.

HP is pleased to extend its partnership with WWF in this unique initiative
to combat issues around climate change says Bina Raj Debur, director, corporate
marketing, HP India. HP will observe Earth Hour and we will be turning off
lights in all HP buildings in India. Naturally, we will adhere to our OH&S
guidelines/standards; and our emergency lighting and security systems will
remain active. We are actively driving awareness for the event with our 30,000
employees and encouraging them to sign up. The Sustainability Network Groupan
HP employee group focused on environment sustainability will actively work to
drive adoption of Earth Hour as well as other environment initiatives through
the year, she adds.

As an initiative by the people and for the people, the Vote for Earth
movement is unique in the sense that it is a movement to save the planet where
we live, Earth, it is a fight for our existence. It is a call for global
citizens to unite and take control of the future of our planet. A chance for
citizens to raise their voice against global warming and to make their voices
heard by those who matter in the authority and take cognitive action.

As WWF-India, secretary general and CEO Ravi Singh puts it Earth Hour is a
step in the worlds efforts to combat the threat of climate change and it holds
tremendous potential to influence sound policy and peoples participation on the
issue. Earth Hour is an unprecedented communication initiative to make people
understand what they must do.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in