PRISA teams up with the WWF for the world’s biggest global campaign in defense of the environment

As in previous years, PRISA was eager to join the initiative devised by the NGO WWF and known as Earth Hour. The largest global movement to champion the protection of the environment, it was launched in 2007 in Sydney (Australia) as a symbolic gesture. This year, a million people participated in 178 countries worldwide as the lights were turned off on famous buildings such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Empire State Building in New York, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan and the Sydney Opera House.

Since the global initiative was first launched, PRISA has thrown the full weight of its range of media behind it with a major operation across all its outlets (radio, press and internet) and in all those countries where it operates. The awareness campaign in the run-up to the event and subsequent coverage of Earth Hour is given ample space in the pages of El País, Cinco Días and AS, in the online newspaper El Huffington Post, by the publisher Santillana and on Cadena SER and of all PRISA Radio stations’ programs in Spain and around the world. The Group also actively participates in promoting the campaign through social media, where it reaches more than 33 million followers, and invites its more than 8,000 employees to get involved through internal communication channels and on Company corporate websites.

With the slogan "Now is the time. Make a change for the climate", Earth Hour 2016 warned of the urgency of tackling climate change and the need to apply the Paris Agreement signed in December 2015 to prevent global warming exceeding 2ºC. This is the tenth year of the WWF global initiative and the eighth in which PRISA has actively participated.

In Spain, 300 cities and towns supported the initiative and turned off the lights on monuments such as the Alhambra and Generalife in Granada, the Royal Palace in Madrid, the cathedral in Palma de Mallorca and the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Catalonia was the region to see the highest number of participating towns, followed by Andalusia, Valencia and Madrid. The organization highlighted the case of Valencia, which joined the campaign despite it coinciding with the city’s festival, the Fallas. Among the novelties this year, the NGO urged Spanish municipalities to declare themselves CO2 Free.The NGO asked them to go one step further and pass a motion during plenary sessions to this effect and to progressively increase their ability to deal with the consequences of climate change.

The number of cities participating in Latin America has grew this year. 86 cities took part in Brazil, in Argentina 13, in Mexico 10 and in Bolivia 6, among other countries. The lights also went out at two World Heritage Sites: Quito and the Galapagos Islands. In addition, online voting accompanied the Latin American edition of Earth Hour with various environmental causes participating. Thus, a wide range of issues such as Chilean forests, Colombian water and the Paraguayan Chaco Gran competed for survival, as well as species such as the whale shark, the mountain tapir and the Mexican monarch butterfly.