Expolanka celebrates Earth Hour 2013

Uniting people to protect the planet, Expolanka Holdings PLC made a pledge to celebrate this year’s Earth Hour by uniting hundreds of Expolankians to join hands and celebrate this global voluntary environmental campaign to fight climate change by creating awareness and making a difference.

Together with hundreds of millions of people in 7,000 cities and towns, in 135 countries and territories across seven continents around the globe to commemorate ‘Earth Hour’ this year, Expolanka began its campaign by launching a Facebook activation of ‘I Will if You Will,’ a challenge to people requesting them to ‘Go Beyond the Hour’ and do something for the environment.

It could be something simple as planting a tree, recycling plastic bottles, refraining from using plastic bags etc. Participants were a plenty and the commitment seen on the Facebook promotion was indeed a success. Partakers were selected and provided with exclusive Earth Hour merchandise such as t-shirts and lucky entries stood a chance to walk away with Rs. 10,000.

On Saturday 23 March 2012 Expolanka launched an event at its premises unlike any other, where loyal and motivated Expolankians joined hands to celebrate earth hour and fight climate change. The event was graced with the screening of ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ an award-winning documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Aore’s campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show, that was by his own estimate made in the film.

The motion picture was followed by a pledge, where the employees of Expolanka were seen taking to a 60+ Earth Hour board to put down their signatures and marking their support towards global warming.

Outlining initiatives to observe ‘Earth Hour’ this year, Head of Marketing, Corporate Communications and CSR of Expolanka Holdings Paddy Weerasekera said: “Every year we continue to make a statement to support this global cause and on behalf of all Expolankians, I would like to say that our support to saving Mother Earth is an ongoing promise that we fulfil every minute of every day in the best ways possible. We’re humble to be a part of this gigantic universal project and have spared no pains to spread the message and engage as many Sri Lankans as possible. We invite all Sri Lankans to switch off as many lights as possible and continue to support this cause every day.”

Expolanka together with YES FM launched the Planet Watch campaign which focused on building awareness about a number of topics including green energy, transportation, sustainable development, conservation and bio diversity, recycling and waste reduction, etc. Mass media was also used to promote the values of Earth Hour and drive listener traffic towards the Expolanka Earth Hour Facebook challenge.

“Expolanka has been in the forefront of environment protection and we were one of the first corporates to be associated with Earth Hour. We have embarked on a number of projects in relation to the environment which include being the first Sri Lankan freight and logistics company to obtain the Carbon Neutral Certification, tree planting campaigns, carrying out energy audits in, in-line companies and programs on saving water to name a few. We will continue to build awareness and lead by action as a responsible corporate citizen,” Weerasekera concluded.

‘Earth Hour’ is the world’s largest voluntary environmental campaign to fight climate change and was held this year on Saturday 23 March 2012 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. where everyone was humbly requested to switch off all non-essential lights as a symbolic act to support this cause. Sri Lanka is part in this global event initiated by WWF with Expolanka becoming a national partner for the ‘Earth Hour’ event to take place in this country.