Earth Hour: Standard Bank Headquarters joins the Eiffel Tower and turns off the lights
The country and the world celebrated Earth Hour in March 25, an initiative marked by the traditional act of turning off the lights from 8:30 pm to 9:30 pm, as a symbolic gesture aimed at raising awareness of the humanity to the impact of climate change and to appeal to the rational use of natural resources.
In Mozambique, the central celebrations, promoted by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), with the motto “I am Water, Energy, Forest. I Vote for Climate Action” took place in the city of Maputo, at 10 de Novembro Avenue, in front of Standard Bank headquarters, which used its building to show solidarity with the cause.
This is the second time that Standard Bank joins the Earth Hour movement in Mozambique, and it is the eighth at Group level, to turn off the lights of all its headquarters in the African continent.
According to Standard Bank representative Paulino Pires, the bank joined the initiative because it is aware that Mozambique and the world can only move forward if the sustainability of its natural resources is guaranteed.
“The presence of these people makes the movement much broader and this is very positive and encouraging. It means that we are no longer fighting alone for the sustainability of our planet”, said Paulino Pires, addressing the audience that was present at 10 de Novembro Avenue.
Carlos Serra, representative of the Ministry of Land, Environment and Rural Development, called attention to the need to invest in environmental education to reverse the harmful effects of human action on nature.
“The planet is showing signs and we have to be able to interpret them and begin to change our attitude towards it. Last year the south region of the country faced severe drought.
This year there are restrictions on water supply in Maputo city, and there is also lack of charcoal, used for domestic purposes, floods and high winds in some provinces. There are so many examples that show how our actions are being harmful to the planet”, said Carlos Serra.
The first edition of the Earth Hour movement took place in March 2007 in Sydney, the capital of Australia, and since then it has not stopped growing. What started as an isolated event has become global, involving more than one billion people in more than 7,000 cities in 172 countries.
Some of the world’s well-known monuments, such as the pyramids of Egypt, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, the Acropolis of Athens and even the city of Las Vegas in the United States of America, have been in the dark for an hour, to mark this event.