Hong Kong celebrities (plus Spiderman) make sacrifices for Earth Hour

The Earth Hour campaign, in its sixth year, is the ‘one-hour lights out’ event that sees skylines and landmarks in more than 150 countries go dark. It takes place on 29 March at 8:30 pm.

“As the world has limited natural resources, these Hong Kong celebrities were chosen because of their positive image and their past eco-conscious deeds and belief," Vani Cheung, senior communications officer of WWF Hong Kong, told Campaign Asia-Pacific.

This year's Earth Hour theme, “I give up” prompts people to examine their clothing, eating, living and travelling choices and ask, 'What can we give up today to make tomorrow better?'.

According to WWF’s Hong Kong Ecological Footprint Report 2013, if everyone in the world lived a similar lifestyle to Hong Kong people, we would need 2.6 Earths to fulfill all our resource needs.

The four local celebrities feature prominently in a promotional video on the Earth Hour website, sharing tips on how to reduce consumption to sustainable levels, including saying no to eating shark’s fins, not turning on the air conditioning all year long, using more public transportation, biking, and consuming sustainable seafood.

For example, Hong Kong is a 'more is better' society as far as clothes are concerned, but the four celebrities feel that returning or donating sponsored clothes after they’ve been worn for a shoot or an event is the way to go.

The campaign has extensive support from brands and media partners including The Body Shop, Canon, CLP, BMW, Swire Properties, Yahoo, RoadShow,  Milk Magazine and Weekend Weekly. A TVC and print campaign will be running from now through April. Starcom MediaVest is the media agency.

Meanwhile, global brand ambassador Spiderman (actor Andrew Garfield) along with actress Emma Stone, will arrive in Singapore on 29 March for Earth Hour ahead of their new film launch in May.