Corporate Ireland joins Earth Hour 2009

Dublin, March 27th. Business in the Community Ireland (BITCI), a network of some of Ireland's biggest companies dedicated to corporate responsibility, has welcomed the active involvement of many of its members in tomorrow's Earth Hour initiative. A number of leading Irish companies are actively engaging in the campaign by switching off lights at company offices, high street stores and branches throughout the country, as well as communicating to thousands of staff in Ireland the importance of their own involvement at home. Earth Hour 2009 (www.earthhour.org) takes place on Saturday, March 28th at 8.30pm across the world. This is the third annual Earth Hour and one billion people, in more than 1000 cities around the world are expected to take this symbolic action against climate change. According to Eirgrid, some 50 megawatts of electricity was saved in Ireland during last year's Earth Hour, with resultant savings in carbon emissions. Business in the Community Ireland member companies such as Abbott Ireland, AIB, Bank of Ireland, Coca Cola, Dell, Deloitte, Diageo, Oracle, Sodexo, Tesco, Ulster Bank and Vodafone are all actively engaging in the Earth Hour movement through not only turning off the lights in factories, stores, offices and buildings but also actively encouraging their staff to get involved. Commenting on the involvement of member companies during Earth Hour, Tina Roche, Chief Executive, Business in the Community Ireland commented, “Corporate Ireland has a huge role to play in tackling the urgent issue of climate change so I am delighted to see so many Irish companies engage in an innovative way with the Earth Hour movement and even more impressively, encouraging thousands of their employees to get involved too.” Here are some examples of how corporate Ireland is engaging with Earth Hour 2009: • Abbott Ireland is providing free candles to all their staff to encourage participation at home. In addition a text reminder will be sent to all staff on Saturday to remind them to get involved. • AIB are communicating to all staff about Earth Hour to encourage everybody to get involved in addition to ensuring that lighting is minimized in their large sites particularly Bankcentre and IFSC • Bank of Ireland will turn off the lights during Earth Hour at their landmark building at 2 College Green. All non essential lighting will also be switched off in all other locations around the country. All staff are being asked to make a special effort this weekend to ensure all PCs and other non essential equipment are powered off on Friday evening. • Coca-Cola Ireland will ensure all appliances, lights, plug sockets, switches are all turned off in offices over the weekend as well as communicating to all staff the need to get involved. • Dell are turning off lights in their facilities during Earth Hour. • Deloitte will be switching off all non-essential external lighting services over the weekend in all their buildings and asking all staff to celebrate Earth Hour in their own homes. • Diageo are promoting Earth Hour through their ezine to all their staff. • Oracle are encouraging all staff to get involved and are turning off lights in their offices and facilities. • Sodexo has emailed all their 1,680 staff encouraging them to join in. • Tesco Ireland will be switching off the front lights in 10 of their biggest stores at 8.30pm for one hour. • Ulster Bank is aiming for lights out in all their branches from Friday to Monday. Their group buildings in Belfast and Dublin will also observe the lights out policy during Earth Hour itself. In addition all staff have been given advice on how to get involved and this week they are launching an Environmental micro-site on their intranet, providing a one stop shop for news and information not just about Earth Hour but about all of the initiatives underway in the bank to reduce their carbon footprint. • Vodafone Ireland is communicating Earth Hour to all of its staff. For further information, please contact Moira Horgan, Marketing Manager, Business in the Community Ireland, Tel: 086 172 2105 or email mhorgan@bitc.ie