ETA Star participates in Earth Hour
ETA Star Properties participated in the Earth Hour initiative by switching off all common area lights at its delivered projects, Belvedere and The Palladium; its four Star Hospitality hotel apartments and at all under-construction project sites across Dubai. They also requested their tenants, guests and employees to switch off lights voluntarily. Said Mr Shyam Sunder, General Manager-Marketing: "The real estate and construction category is perhaps one of the highest consumers of power and hence must take the lead in any energy conservation initiative. Following the success of our participation in Earth Hour last year, we felt it is our responsibility to continue the good work by scaling it up to all our projects this year."
Earth Hour was a global event created to symbolize that each of us, working together, can make a positive impact on climate change. It was first observed two years ago in Sydney, Australia, when 2.2 million people and thousands of businesses turned out their lights, allowing the message about climate change to shine brightly. The event went global in 2008: Over 400 cities, thousands of businesses and more than 50 million people around the world turned off their lights for one hour - a tremendous effort to slow down the effects of climate change. It captured the public's imagination with lights going out at some of the world's most iconic landmarks including the Sydney Opera House, Bangkok's Wat Arun Buddhist temple, the Coliseum in Rome, Stockholm's Royal Castle, London's City Hall, New York's Empire State Building, Sears Tower in Chicago and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Iconic symbols like Cola-Cola's famous billboard in Times Square and the Google homepage went dark in support of the cause.
This year, Earth Hour was the largest climate event in history. Cities in 74 countries took part including Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami and Nashville in the USA and around the world cities like Dubai, Moscow, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Shanghai and Mexico City turned out their lights in support.
This year, Earth Hour was transformed into the world's first global election, between Earth and global warming. It just got bigger, with the goal of 1 billion people participating in an online voting, under Vote Earth. People of all ages, nationalities, race and background have an opportunity to cast their vote for Earth. WWF is urging voters to reach the target of 1 billion votes by the time world leaders meet in Copenhagen for the Global Climate Change Conference in December 2009. You, too, can begin to make a difference by voting on www.earthhour.org. ETA Star Properties believes that only commitment of such magnitude can begin to make the change visible all around us.