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At 8.30 on Saturday night, it was Earth Hour. Across 172 countries, from Antarctica to the International Space Station, WWF's annual celebration of switching off brought the world closer together to highlight the need for climate action.

From the first lights out event in Samoa, across seven continents to Tahiti, people around the world committed to use their power to change climate change.

“Earth Hour confirms our belief that in order to change climate change we need to act together,” said Sudhanshu Sarronwala, Chair, Board of Directors, Earth Hour Global.
"WWF will continue to do its share to shape strong, global climate solutions.”

This was the ninth Earth Hour and for 2015 was focused on sending a clear global message that climate action is a political priority. Supporters in Scotland, Switzerland and Colombia signed digital petitions for stronger climate action. Australia, the UK and Finland hosted sustainable candle-lit dinners to highlight the impact of climate change on agriculture, while participants in India, the Philippines and China promoted access to renewable energy.

Manchester illuminations

Here in Manchester we’ve always had a slightly tricky relationship with Earth Hour, with some of our greenest corporate players sometimes forgetting they’d signed up to the switch off and with very real debates amongst city leaders and campaigners alike wondering whether this one, singular action brings about long-lasting change whilst we’re focused on longer term cultural change, for example through our carbon literacy programmes.

If you look out across the city skyline after dark there are still too many offices, schools and university buildings shining bright into the night even though their occupants are long gone.

Regardless of where you stand on the campaign, in our city, we clearly do need to do more. Lighting controls are still not smart enough and if you look out across the city skyline after dark there are still too many offices, schools and university buildings shining bright into the night even though their occupants are long gone.

With up to 40% of a building's electricity use accounted for by lighting, and with Manchester still having a mountain to climb on tackling energy use across our non-domestic buildings, there is a real business case for doing a major review of lighting policies, smart lighting controls and - if you’ve not already done so - making the switch to LED.

And at home, it’s time to crack out the tea lights, open the curtains and do all that you can to shave some pounds of the 18% of your annual electricity bill that gets burnt out through lighting. We’ve got the ongoing challenge in Greater Manchester of half a million homes that are under-insulated but switching off the lights is something we can all do, today.

Finally at a city scale, is it time we organised our own, Manchester-focused, lighting revolution? There are still areas of the city where lighting could be more efficient and as members of the ‘daylighting’ movement will happily testify, we’re still not being smart enough in our use of natural light as we design new spaces and buildings for the original, modern, but still too illuminated city.

Image of Earth Hour in Brunei by Earth Hour