Sky Tower Powers Down in Support of Earth Hour 2011

MEDIA RELEASE
March 2011

Sky Tower Powers Down in Support of Earth Hour 2011

The staring feature of the Auckland skyline, the Sky Tower, will go dark this Saturday night (26 March) at 8.30pm for an hour in support of the global environmental initiative, Earth Hour. The Sky Tower will be the first major monument to ‘go dark’ being followed around the dateline by the likes of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Gateway of India in Mumbai, Berlin’s Brandenberg Gate, Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, the Obelisk in Argentina and Pakistan’s National Mausoleum.

Last year, 1.25 million New Zealand adults were amongst hundreds of millions of people across 128 countries who took part in Earth Hour, which since its inception in 2007 has grown to become the world’s biggest voluntary action for the planet.

This year, the theme for Earth Hour is ‘Beyond the Hour’, which marks the start of a new phase for the Earth Hour movement, asking people and organisations to commit to an action, big or small, that they will sustain for the future of the planet.

SKYCITY Auckland, which operates a major site in the centre of the city, is dedicated to environmental sustainability including employing a full time environmental co-ordinator who works to identify ways for the business to become more environmentally efficient.

SKYCITY is home to two large hotels, the SKYCITY Hotel and the SKYCITY Grand Hotel which both attained Qualmark Enviro Gold last year, with the business also winning commendations for the Energy Management Strategy from EECA at their 2010 EECA Awards. A commendation for energy efficiency for the main SKYCITY car park was also won from the NZ Illumination Engineering Society.

Matt Howells, Facilities Manager from SKYCITY Auckland says: “We are dedicated to long term change and implementing strategies that will take us into a future of consuming in a more sustainable way. We have already cut our energy consumption by well over 10% in electrical, gas and water consumption in the last several years. Our eco-vision is to see those energy savings increased even as our property continues to grow. We are fully committed to environmental sustainability and are focused on achieving lighting efficiency gains, so that lighting is now less than 13% of our electrical consumption. Our next major focus is on ventilation and cooling efficiencies, and we are pledging to play hard and play well and use fewer resources doing it.”

About Earth Hour
Earth Hour is a global initiative in partnership with WWF. Individuals, businesses, governments and communities are invited to turn out their lights for one hour on Saturday March 26, 2011 at 8:30 PM to show their support for environmentally sustainable action. Earth Hour started in Sydney, Australia in 2007 through a partnership between WWF Australia, Leo Burnett and Fairfax Media, when two million people in one city switched off their lights. By 2010, Earth Hour had created history as the largest voluntary action ever witnessed with participation across 128 countries and every continent, including the world’s most recognised man-made marvels and natural wonders in a landmark environmental action.

ENDS

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