Engaging people
celebrating
our planet
This year WWF’s Earth Hour was celebrated in a record 172 countries and territories – and beyond… People from Antarctica to the International Space Station took part in our annual lights-off event to show their support for our brilliant planet.
Earth Hour is an amazing way to bring together individuals, businesses, schools and many more to show they care about our planet, and want to tackle climate change.
In the UK, 10.4 million people took part. Nearly 5,000 schools joined in the fun, and 1,000 businesses signed up. We mapped all 26,000 UK sign-ups – from the Shetland Islands to Jersey – on our new website map. Also online, #EarthHourUK reached more than 78 million Twitter timelines!
UK landmarks that went dark for the hour included Big Ben, St Paul’s, Tower Bridge, the Shard, the National Waterfront Museum in Swansea, Edinburgh Castle, and the Kelpies, which switched off for the first time.
We’re really grateful to People’s Postcode Lottery for helping us find the UK’s Hidden Heroes who are inspiring their communities to live greener. And for messages of support from a fabulous range of people – including WWF-UK’s president, HRH The Prince of Wales, our global ambassador Andy Murray, David Cameron, UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon – and astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, who shared a photo from the International Space Station!
Back on Earth, we hosted a day of celebrations at the Living Planet Centre – from fun, creative workshops and a cycling challenge to generate power for Earth Hour, to brilliant performances from bands including Hudson Taylor and local favourites Sour Kix.
For Earth Hour 2016, we’re encouraging people to enjoy the evening with dinner by candlelight and to help us raise vital funds to help us protect our amazing and fragile planet.
We hope you’ll join us again by signing up and switching off on 19 March at 8.30pm.
