Earth Hour: European Parliament to switch off lights

The European Parliament will once again participate in the global WWF initiative 'Earth Hour' in order to raise awareness of the need to combat climate change.

Hundreds of millions of people are expected to switch of the lights as part of the 'Earth Hour' action organised by WWF on Saturday night.

In Parliament, the lights will be turned off twice: on Saturday 31 March from 20.30 to 21.30, as part of the worldwide 'Earth Hour' action and also on Friday 30 March from 20.30 to 21.30, in an additional action shared by other European institutions.

Parliament's participation in the 'Earth Hour' is just one of many initiatives it has taken to reduce its impact on the environment.

Under the EMAS environmental management system, Parliament has set the ambitious target of reducing its own CO2 emissions by 30% by 2020 and has developed a series of CO2 reduction projects:

• 100% of the electricity supplied to Parliament’s buildings in the three places of work comes from renewable sources, since 2008 (mainly hydropower, wind power and solar power),

• the lighting systems in the buildings in Brussels have been made more efficient,

• in Strasbourg geothermal energy is used for heating, and

• using high-speed trains, instead of charter planes, between Brussels and Strasbourg has drastically reduced CO2 emissions resulting from transport between the work places.