Earth Hour Event Headed by the World Wide Fund for Nature - Case Study Example

Earth Hour Name: Institution: Earth Hour Background Earth hour refers to a globally recognized event headed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). The WWF designated every last Saturday on March of every year to mark the celebration of the Earth Hour. In this regard, the event occurs annually to persuade societies, corporations, people and governments to put-off their unnecessary sources of lighting (turn-off non-essential lights) for a span time of one hour between 8.30 PM and 9.30 PM of the given local time zones. The event marks the commitment of the people on protecting the well-being of the planet, specifically on the issue of environment. It is an event that traces its roots in Australia, whereby, it started off as a lights-off event in Sydney back in 2007. It has grown eventually to include more than 200 countries around the world characterized by the incorporation of over 7000 towns and cities in the event. The event in current years engages a considerable section of the world’s mainstream society on a wide range of environmental concerns. Based on this statement, the one-hour span represents not only the span of the whole event, but also the key symbol of the whole event. The symbolic nature of the event differentiates it from the all new digitalized Earth Hour Blue outsourcing event. The Earth Hour event aims at encouraging people to take the initiative of more than turning off the lights and safeguarding the well-being of the environment (Almlund, 2012, p. 33). Timeline After discussing on the way forward of involving Australians on the climate change issues since 2004, the WWF held the first Earth Hour event in 2007 on the last Saturday of March. It took place in the Australian city of Sydney at 7.30 pm. San Francisco in the U.S held its ‘Lights Out’ event on October the same year but decided to rally behind Australia in 2008. Diagram1: the Sydney Bridge and Opera House in 2007 event (courtesy of earthhour.org) In 2008, the event went global with participation of 400 cities in 35 countries and represented by 5 continents. Diagram 2: the overview of Sydney in 2008 event (courtesy of earthhour.org) Diagram 3: the Colosseum in 2008 event (courtesy of earthhour.org) It was held on 29 March between 8.00 pm and 9.00 pm. It was marked with support from various TV stations and Google. In 2009, the event was held on 28 March from 8.30 pm up to 9.30 pm. It involved 4,159 cities from 88 countries. The first timers included the UN and Philippines, among others. Several songs were composed to celebrate the event coupled with support from TV stations and Radio stations. In 2010, it was held globally on 27 March from 8.30 pm up to 9.30 pm with an exception of Israel that celebrated the event on 22 April the same time. It was celebrated by 126 countries and recorded the largest participation since its inception. Diagram 4: Azrieli center in Tel Aviv in 2010 event (courtesy of earthhour.org) In 2011, the event recorded 5,251 cities in 135 participating countries of the 7 continents. Some of the notable landmarks that participated include the Eiffel Tower and Table Mountain among others (Baker, 2012, p. 115). Diagram 5: the Golden Gate Bridge in 2011 event (courtesy of earthhour.org) In 2012, the event recorded 7000 cities in 152 counties while in 2013; it increased the number of participating countries to 176 worldwide. Diagram 6: Auditorio de Tenerife in 2013 event (courtesy of earthhour.org) In 2014, the event explored the benefits of social media and recorded a participation of 210 countries. Diagram 7: The Sky Tower in Auckland in 2014 event (courtesy of earthhour.org) Participating corporations There are over 22 corporations and organizations that support the objectives of the Earth Hour event. 20 of the officially recognized organizations include IKEA China, UNESCO, World Organization of the Scouts Movement, Discovery Networks International, the International Trade Union Confederation, ING Vysya Bank, SASKEN, Woodland, UEFA, FIFA, Girl Scouts of the USA, CBRE, the Hilton Hotels, UN Environment Programme, HSBC, Starcom MediaVest Group, GSI Digital, Crowdonomic, Paypal and Statigram, among others. This does not only show how massively the event is supported, but also reveals how the event has grown globally. The organizations support the event in different unique ways but all aimed at promoting the awareness of safeguarding the environment (Castells, 2009, p. 88). For instance, IKEA is a long time partner of the Earth Hour Event. This year, the organization dimmed the lights of its stores in 9 cities across China. Additionally, the organization issued a special offer of the day involving the distribution of SUNNAN solar lamps. By doing so, IKEA shows its commitment in protecting the environment and encouraging its customers to explore sustainable forms of energy. On the other hand, the UEFA joined the campaign this year and marked the event by switching off its headquarters’ lights. Furthermore, it showed its future commitment to the movement by promoting environmental awareness campaign through UEFA Fair Play and Social Responsibility Committee. Through the committee, UEFA issued an environmental awareness speech to the football players and fans across the globe to recognize the importance of protecting the environment. Supportive ambassador Apart from corporations, the objectives of the Earth Hour event are promoted yearly by various ambassadors. They include Manchester United, Miss Multinational, Sony Pictures International, Philips and the National Hockey League, among others. At this juncture, Sony Pictures International is the best ambassador for the environmental campaign (Pearse, 2012, p. 33). Whereby, it helped the event this year by inspiring everyone around the globe to become a superhero for the planet earth. This was made possible through the organizations’ Spider-Man character from its blockbuster Spider-Man movie series symbolized by the Amazing Spider-Man 2 logo. In this context, the Amazing Spider-Man 2 represented the appropriate eco-friendly movie production since the inception of the Colombia Pictures. It was made possible by support efforts from every level of the movie production. As an ambassador of the Earth Hour event, the production crew and public tour conducted a carbon neutral campaign via the Earth Hour Blue Project and WWF-China and in the process they distributed energy saving and pollution free cookstoves. They cookstoves are aimed at preventing deforestation. Additionally, the organization developed a social media online occasion termed as ‘EcoSpidey.’ The occasion involved a photo-hunt fun game, an engaging twitter feed and a behind-the-scenes sizzle reel eco efforts to encourage its employees and customers to positively engage in the environment awareness and protection campaign. Finally, Sony Pictures was accredited the Industry Standard Eco Certification for its eco-friendly film that promotes crowd-funding and environment protection concurrently. The film is recognized by the slogan, ‘Sustainable Efforts Made a Difference.’ State benefits The Earth Hour’s aim is to encourage people to go beyond the one-hour turning off of lights by supporting the crowd-funding or the crowdsourcing environmental campaign during and after the event. Over the years it has attracted the participation of over 200 countries and by engaging fully in the program several countries have achieved a noble success in the rehabilitating, reclaiming and protecting the environment from pollution or destruction. One of such countries is Philippine, whereby; the country has earned four consecutive titles of ‘Earth Hour Hero.’ Since joining the campaign in 2009, the country’s administration has mobilized more than 1600 of its communities out of the entire world’s 7000 communities to not only participate in the vent, but also to contribute positively for the growth of the event worldwide (Oosthoek & Gills, 2013, p. 45). It is evident by the participation of more than 15 million Philippines in the 2014 event. Therefore, based on its ‘hero’ title, Philippine has achieved various benefits such as encouraging other countries to participate in crowdsourcing. Also, it has saved a lot of non-renewable energy by not only switching off the lights of many businesses, homesteads and government organizations for one-hour, but also embracing the renewable forms of energy countrywide. Finally, the country has used the event to spread the awareness of devastating outcomes of climatic change such as the Super Typhoon Yolanda that the country experienced. In this context, the 2014 Earth Hour event contributed to the launching of rehabilitation projects to aid the re-establishment of the Yolanda victims and survivors. Importance of social media In 2012, the Earth Hour started to utilize the social media. In this regard, the main goal was to drive the world population to Earth Hour micro site and promote social media interactive sign ups campaign map. Also, the tool was intended to increase the number of digital followers, improve social engagement and build a reliable online awareness community where people around the world shared their ideas on environmental protection, promoted climate change awareness and crowdsourcing. In line with its goals, the WWF developed the event’s micro site that pledged and encouraged the public to sign up, pin up and share ideas, pictures and comments via the social media handsets. This means that the organization rolled a single Facebook page to support its campaign alongside other social handsets such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Youku and Sina Weibo. From 2013, Facebook created the highest buzz for the event worldwide, for example, in Hong Kong the fan base increased by 22% after the event. It acquired more than 30 million Facebook fans this year compared to the preceding year. Moreover, the click-through rate exceeded by 16% compared to 3.6% in 2012. On YouTube, the Earth Hour videos received 13.3 million views. For instance, the ‘Lights Off, Lights On’ awareness video by G.E.M on YouTube received more than 30,000 views. Finally, 105 countries posted images to Earth Hour Global on Flickr and Instagram followers increased from 513 to 1245 in Hong Kong alone after the campaign. It was a successful engagement (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2012, p. 58). References Almlund, P 2012, Rethinking climate change research clean-technology, culture and communication, Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey, England. Baker, M 2012, Before the lights go out: conquering the energy crisis before it conquers us, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J. Carroll, AB & Buchholtz, AK 2012, Business & society: ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management (8th ed.), Cengage Learning, South-Western, Australia. Castells, M 2009, Communication power, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Oosthoek, J & Gills, BK 2013, The Globalization of Environmental Crisis, Taylor and Francis, Hoboken. Pearse, G 2012, Greenwash: big brands and carbon scams, Black Inc, Collingwood, Vic. Read More