Well, Earth Hour 2009 came and went, and it was a huge opportunity lost. Sure, it rallied more than 4,000 cities in 88 countries, and Googling it brought up over 49 million results. But, like Joel Makower and countless green bloggers, I wonder why there wasn’t communication from event organizers about what people can do during the other 8,759 hours of the year.
Watching the lights of San Francisco’s city hall and the Bay Bridge wink out from a darkened flat in the Mission district was a bit anticlimactic: the city still looked too well lit. Prior to the event, “Mean Clean Tech” posted on Treehugger, “I will probably have everything off except the TV (ncaa tourney). Like others said, an hour is great but many of us try to reduce our use of energy on a daily basis 24/7 365.”
MCT’s post points up a critical dichotomy: people only change their behavior if it’s convenient, yet they want to be able to save energy all the time. That means, among other things, that communications should inspire action, show people what’s possible, and provide concrete actions.
One company, Toronto Hydro, had a great idea for Earth Hour with its “How Low Can We Go T.O.?” contest. But as of today, there’s zip on the website about who won or how much Toronto saved during Earth Hour—and nothing about what consumers can do every day to save energy or how to extrapolate the Earth Hour savings to sustained results. Ikea, famed for its sustainability practices despite its big-box business operations, participated in Europe, but had nothing going on the United States. Why not? Even the sponsoring organization, the World Wildlife Fund, doesn’t have much about the event results yet.
Maybe next year?
