Town, Residents, Businesses and Organizations Collaborate to Make Earth Hour a success.

“On March 29, 2008, between 8pm and 9pm as part of the global Earth Hour event, the Town, its residents, businesses and organizations collaborated together to make Earth Hour a success. This collaboration exemplifies our community’s commitment to protecting the environment, and demonstrates that it is possible to take meaningful action against climate change”, said Mayor Rick Bonnette.

According to initial estimates, at least 230 residents, and several businesses and organizations participated in Earth Hour. This likely underestimates the true extent of Earth Hour participation across the Town because some residents, businesses and organizations participated but did not formally register. In addition, many of those that registered, registered their household without specifying the actual number of people that participated.

A better sense of the extent of Town-wide participation is provided by the 9.4% reduction in the Town’s energy use, measured by Halton Hills Hydro. Collectively, the efforts of the all Town Earth Hour participants resulted in this noticeable reduction in energy use.

Halton Hills Earth Hour participants demonstrated their commitment, creativity and interest in Earth Hour by engaging in many creative Earth Hour activities. Examples of these activities include residents turning off non-essential lights and electronic equipment, enjoying candlelit dinners with family and friends, eating locally grown food, organizing discussions on environmental issues, taking neighbourhood walks and star gazing, camping in the dark and playing board games, turning down the thermostat, and reading bedtime stories by flashlight.

Town businesses also made a valuable contribution to the success of Earth Hour by doing such things as turning off non-essential lights and making their customers aware of the global event.

The Corporation of the Town of Halton Hills itself participated by spearheading the event and by reducing energy use at Town facilities.
For more information on Earth Hour, please visit www.haltonhills.ca/EarthHour and www.wwf.ca/EarthHour, or contact Damian Szybalski (Planner – Policy) at damians@haltonhills.ca.

Support Our Sponsors