Earth Hour has evolved from being a statement on climate change in a single city –Sidney, Australia–, promoted by WWF (World Wildlife Fund) in 2007, to being the largest environmental movement in the planet. Each year, more citizens, communities, leaders, companies, and other actors take action to address the effects of climate change.
In 2016, as the world starts a new mitigation and adaptation era to address climate change, Earth Hour is preparing for its tenth event, in which people around the globe turn off their lights during one hour as a symbolic act to raise their voices and to promote concrete energy-efficiency solutions, responsible consumption, and sustainable cities.
At the end of 2015 and at the beginning of 2016, we implemented several activities to start creating the call to action “Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse” that we had proposed for Earth Hour. Some of these activities were:
Earth Hour was held on March 19, 2016, when the whole world came together in a symbolic gesture, turning off all lights from 08:30 to 09:30 pm, local time, to give the planet a breather, raise awareness on our actions pertaining to the environment, and assume a commitment.
Through the 2016 Earth Hour event, Guatemala made a call to implement actions that promote responsible consumption, specifically by contributing to the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
The activities planned to celebrate Earth Hour in Guatemala City were held at the La Aurora zoo at 5:30 PM, in coordination with our strategic partners: Fundación Defensores de la Naturaleza and the La Aurora Zoo. This year, Tetrapak joined the campaign, owing to its worldwide joint working agreement with WWF. Through this joint effort, Tetrapak is supporting the design, building, and implementation of Green Spots recycling collection centres.
As a result, for Earth Day, WWF and its partners launched the first mobile Green Spot, expecting to establish other stationary Green Spots in different places in Guatemala City.