2017 Earth Hour Marked in Beijing

On March 25 at 8.30pm, the lights were turned off at the CCTV Tower in Beijing for the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Earth Hour 2017 ceremony. This is the ninth year of Earth Hour in China, with this year’s theme being ‘One Planet, One Future’, promoting sustainable lifestyle practices in order to give our one and only planet a brighter future.

2017 Earth Hour is launched together by WWF and the Shanghai United Foundation (SUF), holding official events in Beijing and Shenzhen at the same time. At 8pm on March 25th , WWF and the Beijing NGO Association for International Exchanges host the official Beijing ‘lights-off’ ceremony, celebrating the ceremony with invited members from government, enterprises, media and the public taking part in the once a year event together. Furthermore, with the Earth Hour live, those who unable to attend the event were still able to take part online.

Over the past 9 years, WWF witnessed great progress in the fields of climate and energy in China. The Earth Hour not only is a ‘lights-off’ ceremony, but also aims to promote people’s environmental awareness and encourage people to lead a more sustainable lifestyle in all aspects of daily life.

In Beijing, WWF invited various members from Government, enterprises, NGOs and celebrities to attend the lights-off ceremony. WWF C&E global director Mr. Manuel Pulgar Vidal said:’ WWF hopes to explore and promote the best and innovative practices for sustainable production and consumption. The Earth Hour serves an extremely effective and far-reaching platform for such purposes by bridging the knowledge gap between the general public and policymakers, and by encouraging environmental and climate action from conference rooms to living rooms.’

Gao Shuangjin, the Vice President of Beijing NGO Association for International Exchanges said:’ We fully support the Earth Hour activities. We are committed to joint NGO in environmental protection field in Beijing. Through continuous public participation activities, we hope to create 'spread the spirit of environmental protection, leading environmental protection fashion, and practicing environmental consciousness' atmosphere. ’

Earth Hour global ambassador Bingbing Li appeared at this ceremony, and recited her letter for ‘One Planet, One Future’, discussing how to create a hopeful future through sustainable lifestyles. ‘The annual Earth hour event is not only a ceremony. The end of 2017 Earth hour is not actually an end, but another beginning’, says WWF Executive Director of Programs, Dr. Lin Li, ‘As shown on the Earth Hour logo, WWF encourage everyone to carry on in your daily life.’

As the strategic partners of Earth Hour 2017, GOME Electrical Appliances and Satine Organic Milk also found their unique ways to promote the Earth Hour movement. GOME Electrical Appliances has run a greener business system including purchasing and selling in all of its retail stores. Furthermore, through providing discounted prices on energy efficient and sustainable products, they actively promoted sustainable lifestyle choices to the public.

This is the third year that Satine Organic Milk participated in Earth Hour China. Through WWF program, they have supported farmers around wetlands within the grasslands region to produce sustainable corn. Therefore, Satine Organic milk can purchase their corn as sustainable agricultural products to feed cattle, and use Forest Stewardship Council certified materials for its packaging. Satine Organic Milk tries to taking action to protect the environment and promote public awareness of sustainability.

Mobike, Yingli Solar and Moji Weather also participated in Beijing‘s activities of Earth Hour China. These enterprises also launched their own interactive installations to show their environmental outcomes. Mobike displayed ‘Riding Makes Marshmallows’, implying that low-carbon traveling can be sweet as well. Yingli Solar displayed a ‘Solar Charging Chair’, a common look bench that can charge your phone. Moji Weather provided an installation named ‘restore the blue planet’. At first the whole planet had been covered by notes reporting bad weather, indicating the negative impacts that human activities have brought to the environment. Then some people took those notes away and restore the blue planet..

WWF China chief artistic advisor Meilin Han used calligraphy to express his support for Earth Hour theme. Many celebrities also recorded a short video for Earth Hour, including Earth Hour Global Ambassador Bingbing Li, Earth Hour China Ambassador Yu Quan music group , Earth Hour China Online Ambassador Papi. Yu Bai, Jackie Chan, Yongyuan Cui, Junchen Chu, Wenjuan Feng, Yugang Li, Meilin Liu, Li Ma, Yuan Nie, Zu’er Song, Jia Wang, Qianyuan Wang , Zhengliang Wang, Xuan Ye, Yiwei Yang, Chen Yao, Liangying Zhang, Jun’ning Zhang, Youhao Zhang (In alphabetical order of Chinese surname). They used Wechat, Weibo, and other social media platforms to promote Earth Hour and encourage the public to choose sustainable lifestyle for our future.

Earth Hour is much more than a call or a festival, it is a platform to use your power, and lead us to think. WWF sincerely invites you to join us to extend actions beyond the hour. Everyone can practice environmental responsibility by making small changes in our life. Together with WWF, we can make changes possible.

For providing free publicity and promotion, Earth Hour is especially thankful to our media partners: JCDecaux, Asiaray media group, Shenzhen Airport Asiaray Media Company Limited, Posterscope China, Shenzhen News Metro Media company, Busonline, Beijing Huanyan advertising Company Limited,TiHE COMMUNICATION, Taikoo Li Sanlitun, Lujiazui Financial City, Center for Environmental Education and Communications of Ministry of Environmental Protection, China Education Television, Beijing TV Documentary Channel.