Earth Hour 2009

"To make the future a better tomorrow!"

On March 28, 2009 a worldwide initiative called the Earth Hour was held from 8.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. 88 countries and up to 4000 cities have participated and one fifth of the world’s population has switched off lights to call the attention to the climate change and that everybody can do something against it. So maybe it’s not an exageration to say: “this event was the biggest climateprotection initiative in the world” (Ivo de Boer, secretary of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change)

The Earth Hour was first held in 2007 in Sydney with the participation of 2.2 million people. One year later it became a worldwide campaign that about 50 million people joined. Last year lights were switched off during the Earth Hour among others on Golden GateBridge in San Francisco, Colosseum in Rome, EiffelTower in Paris and Lánchíd in Budapest.

In 2009 Magyar Telekom and its brands T-Mobile and T-Home , like in 2008, also joined the campaign. This meant that our neon light advertisements and the lighting of T-Pont shops and office buildings were switched off during the specified period. As an additional campaign offer we gave energy-saving bulbs for used batteries and telephone sets in 18 shops that were still open in that period, additionally fliers with practical advice on energy saving were distributed to visitors from 12 a.m. till the end of business hours. In the context of this campaign offer, we managed to distribute close to 2200 energy-saving bulbs. We made a video about the campaign and the lights-off event.

Origo and iWiW also joined the initiative and both sites were presented with black background at 8.30 p.m. promoting the action. Additionally iWiW established the Earth Hour 2009 Club where people switching off their lights could join. While Origo started its collection of daily tips named 365, where you can find useful, sustainability ideas for everyday life.

Also on this day, Magyar Telekom organized voluntary works for its employees in the whole country. In the works 500 Magyar Telekom workers were participating in Budapest, Budakeszi, Győr, Miskolc, Nyíregyháza, Pécs, Debrecen Kiskunhalas and helped to place in order kindergardens, schools and the Budakeszi Zoo.

Shops participated in the campaign