“In the face of the threat of an unsustainable future, the grassroots nature of the Earth Hour movement and the can-do attitude of its participants to mobilize action, are the tipping points helping to deliver real environmental outcomes, both big and small”, says Andy Ridley, CEO and co-founder of Earth Hour, which takes pace around the world on 23 March. He is one of the 100 Global Sustain Ability Leaders. Read More

From Singapore, where Earth Hour now has its Global Headquarters:

Earth Hour, the world’s largest movement for the planet, has launched its 2013 campaign on the back of record environmental outcomes it achieved in 2012.

Andy Ridley, CEO and Co-Founder of Earth Hour, spoke at the media launch of the environmental campaign in Singapore today. Earth Hour 2013 will take place on Saturday, March 23 at 8:30PM.

“Earth Hour has always been more than a lights off campaign, and we are now seeing some extraordinary environmental outcomes on the way to achieving our long-term vision,” Ridley said.

“Last December, the Russian parliament passed a long-awaited law to protect the country’s seas from oil pollution, after the voices of 120,000 Russians were presented to the government during our I Will If You Will campaign for Earth Hour 2012,” he said.

Following on from the massive success of its 120,000-strong signature petition, WWF’s Earth Hour in Russia has launched its 2013 campaign aiming to secure more than 100,000 signatures from Russian citizens to petition for amendments to the current forest legislation. If successful, it will return a ban on industrial logging in an area of land equal to twice the size of France, with protective forests equalling almost 18% of all forest territory in the country.

In Africa, the first Earth Hour Forest has begun in the nation of Uganda, an important first step in the fight against the 6,000 hectares of deforestation that occurs in the country every month. WWF Uganda identified close to 2,700 hectares of degraded land, and set a goal to fill it with at least 500,000 indigenous trees as part of their Earth Hour 2013 campaign.

In Botswana, former President Mr Festus Mogae has made a four-year commitment to plant one million indigenous trees as part of his I Will If You Will challenge, starting with 100,000 in a severely degraded area in Southern Botswana called Goodhope.

Across Latin America, preparations for ‘La Hora Del Planeta’ are well underway with Argentinian Earth Hour organisers and WWF affiliate Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina, mobilizing thousands of participants to help champion the passing of a Senate bill to make Banco Burwood the biggest Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the country.

If the pending Senate bill is passed, the 3.4 million-hectare MPA will raise the level of protection of Argentina’s Exclusive Economic Zone* from 1% to 4%.

After recently moving its headquarters to Singapore, the Earth Hour Global office is now amidst some of the fastest growing Earth Hour movements around the world, who are using the rising influence of Asia to expand their actions.

The ‘Ini Aksiku! Mana Aksimu?’ campaign (localised Indonesian version of I Will If You Will) has led to a revolutionary use of Twitter to mobilise 30 cities across Indonesia to take ongoing action beyond the hour.

“What Earth Hour has done in Indonesia, through ‘Ini Aksiku! Mana Aksimu?’, has led to thousands of people taking actions now, that they weren’t doing before. And this is just the start,” said Verena Puspawardani, Campaign Coordinator of the Climate & Energy Program at WWF Indonesia.

In the USA, nearly 35,000 Girls Scouts took part in Earth Hour last year through the Save Energy Project, and installed 132,141 energy efficient light bulbs across the country. The impact is a staggering 75,392,654 pounds of CO2 emissions eliminated, equivalent to the CO2 sequestration from planting 7,286 acres of trees per year*.

“These outcomes both evidence the power of our collective action and the potential for future outcomes for the environment, generated by hundreds of millions of people coming together as part of the Earth Hour movement,” Ridley said.

The importance of the grassroots element of inspiration of Earth Hour is evident in the case of two volunteers in Libya, Mohammed Nattah and Muhammad Bugashata, who with the help of Libya’s scout groups have successfully created the first environmental movement in their country post civil war.

“I wanted to join in 2011 but that wasn’t an option because my city went through a lot that year – the war and everything,” said Nattah.

Ridley believes that in the face of the threat of an unsustainable future, the grassroots nature of the Earth Hour movement and the can-do attitude of its participants to mobilize action, are the tipping points helping to deliver real environmental outcomes, both big and small.

“People from all walks of life, from all nations around the world, are the lifeblood of the Earth Hour interconnected global community. They have proven time and time again that if you believe in something strongly enough, you can achieve amazing things. These stories aren’t unique, this is happening all over the world,” he said.

Since 2007 when 2.2 million people took part in the first Earth Hour in Sydney, Australia, Earth Hour has massively expanded to over 7,000 cities and towns in 152 countries and territories with hundreds of millions of participants across seven continents.

In 2013, Earth Hour is not merely an annual event, but is a continuous movement driving real actions to change the world we live in.

Earth Hour 2013 will take place at 8.30pm – 9.30pm on Saturday 23 March

* An exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is a sea-zone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources.

*Data provided by Girl Scouts Forever Green – Save Energy, developed in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency and Earth Hour http://www.girlscouts.org/gsforevergreen/Earth-Hour.asp

See the Earth Hour 2013 Official Video at www.ehour.me/2013ViD

Press images from the global media launch can be downloaded at www.ehour.me/WmbuK8

Press images of Earth Hour can be downloaded at www.earthhour.org/media-centre/images

Downloadable video footage of the global event will be available in four B-rolls for media, covering major regions at http://www.earthhour.org/media-centre/videos

To join the global community head to:

Earth Hour www.earthhour.org

Facebook www.facebook.com/earthhour

Twitter www.twitter.com/earthhour

YouTube www.YouTube.com/EarthHour

Google+ http://plus.google.com/+EarthHour

Instagram http://instagram.com/earthhourofficial

About Earth Hour

Earth Hour is a global environmental initiative in partnership with WWF. Individuals, businesses, governments and communities are invited to turn out their lights for one hour on Saturday March 23, 2013 at 8:30 PM to show their support for environmentally sustainable action. In 2013, Earth Hour’s I Will If You Will concept invites individuals and organisations to challenge others to an ongoing environmental commitment beyond the hour. Earth Hour began in one city in 2007 and by 2012 involved hundreds of millions of people in 152 countries across every continent, receiving reports as ‘the world’s largest campaign for the planet’.

About WWF

WWF is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organisations, with almost five million supporters and a global network active in more than 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

About Andy Ridley

Andy is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Earth Hour, the world’s largest global environmental movement, which initiated in Sydney, Australia in 2007 as a campaign for action on climate change.

Earth Hour has swept the globe and brought together hundreds of millions of people. In 2011, more than 5200 cities and towns took part in 135 countries across every continent, reaching over 1.8 billion people.

In 2012 Earth Hour took the global community beyond the hour by committing to ongoing actions for the planet after they switch off the lights. Extending beyond climate change, Earth Hour has launched a campaign called I Will If You Will, which utilises a dynamic YouTube platform to unite the global community and dare the world to save the planet.

Born in Norwich, England, Andy moved to Sydney in 2002, becoming an Australian citizen in 2009. Prior to settling in Australia, Andy left Norwich – via an honours degree in Modern Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University – for the bright lights of London, where he headed up the special projects team for the Prince’s Trust, working on a number of UK charity campaigns including the very successful ‘Party in the Park’.

An avid scuba diver, Andy was drawn to Australia by the promise of some of the world’s most spectacular coral reefs and marine wildlife sanctuaries. Landing the role as Communications Director with WWF Australia, he worked on major conservation campaigns to protect the Great Barrier Reef, Southern Ocean and Coral Sea, pristine marine wilderness areas threatened by the effects of global warming.

In 2004, inspired by the idea of a campaign to engage everyday people and businesses in the climate change debate through a simple action, Andy initiated a think tank between Leo Burnett and Fairfax Media, forming a partnership to deliver a ‘lights out’ campaign, which would later become known as Earth Hour.

Andy’s vision came to fruition on 31 March 2007, when over two million people and two thousand businesses in Sydney switched off their lights for the inaugural Earth Hour. By 27 March 2010 the open-source nature of the Earth Hour message had swept the globe, with hundreds of millions of people in over 4,500 cities and towns across 128 countries and territories on every continent contributing to the world’s greatest ever voluntary action.

In addition to individual support, Earth Hour garnered the backing of businesses, including Google, Blackberry, HSBC, IKEA, Nickelodeon, PwC and many other multinationals. Earth Hour also attracted support from governments at all levels and high profile global ambassadors including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In the space of three short years, Andy’s inspiration, led by WWF in partnership with Leo Burnett and Fairfax Media, had gone from a one-city initiative to a global phenomenon.

Earth Hour has been supported by hundreds of media support worldwide including international outlets such as TIME Magazine, CNN and the Discovery Channel to help spread Earth Hour’s message of hope and action for a better, healthier world to a global audience.s

Earth Hour has also been lauded for its ingenuity, vision and reach, receiving MTV’s Good Karma Award, The Gold Banksia Award (Australia’s premier environmental honour) and the Cannes Titanium Lion, amongst a host of international accolades.

As one of Tourism Australia’s ‘Friends of Australia’, Andy was recently asked to become an ambassador for the Great Barrier Reef’s inclusion in the list of New7Wonders of the world. A fitting title for a natural wonder whose plight helped inspire the inaugural Earth Hour; a movement that now transcends all barriers of race, culture, religion, society, generation and geography to protect and celebrate the one thing that unites all of humanity – the planet.

Source: www.earthhour.org and www.wwf.org