Switch off for Earth Hour - Saturday 31 March

Wednesday, 28 March 2012

In 2011 more than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour, which sent a dramatic visual signal to world leaders that they must take urgent action on climate change.

This year, WWF are hoping to unite 1.8 billion people around the world, with everyone switching off their lights for one hour on Saturday 31 March 2012 at 8.30pm.

Earth Hour at the University

Once again, the University of Reading has signed up in support of Earth Hour. It offers us a special opportunity to save energy - since many of us will not be on campus at 8.30pm on Saturday evening, we must turn everything off when we leave work on Friday. This means it won't be turned on until Monday morning, giving us over 50 hours of shut down!

In addition to switching off lights, please also make sure your computer is off at the wall and any other things that won't be used (phone and laptop chargers for example) are also switched off.

Last year, we reduced electricity consumption on campus by 19% during Earth hour alone and by 17% across the whole weekend. This saved the University £3,572 or 230 tonnes carbon dioxide against a typical weekend.

If you're wondering what you can do to save energy, why not complete one of the EEST Team's 'Shut Down Planners'.

Alternatively feel free to ask for advice, or send suggestions directly to the EEST Team: eest@reading.ac.uk, or follow them on Twitter for regular updates @UniRdg_EEST.

WWF encourage everyone taking part, whether at home or at work, to sign up to Earth Hour online (top right of the page), so they can track the volume of people who are involved.