Hilton Hotels in Beirut united with Hilton Worldwide Team Members and franchisee employees around the world to protect the planet by participating in the celebration of Earth Hour 2015 through a number of innovative projects. For an entire hour, the hotel's external lights and unnecessary internal ones will be turned off, while corridors, outlets and lobbies' lighting will be dimmed to the minimal level. Alternatively, candles forming the letter "H" for Hilton logo and "60+" for the Earth Hour logo will be lit.
The event took place from 8:30p.m. to 9:30p.m. on Saturday, March 28, 2015. Hilton Hotels in Beirut joined hundreds of Hilton Worldwide's more than 4,300 global properties, once again connecting with guests in demonstration of their commitment to living sustainably.
"Celebrating Earth Hour is one of the many ways we demonstrate how we conserve waste, water and energy every day, and we are encouraging our guests and neighbors to join us in support of this global effort," said Naif Zureikat, Cluster General Manager, Hilton Beirut Habtoor Grand and Hilton Beirut Metropolitan Palace.
Participation in Earth Hour is part of Hilton Worldwide's commitment to Living Sustainably, one of the four pillars of the company's responsibility and sustainability strategy, Travel with Purpose. In 2014, Hilton Worldwide achieved ISO 50001 certification in 2014 for energy management for its global portfolio through a major upgrade to LightStay, its proprietary measurement platform, which complements other global system-wide ISO certifications of ISO 9001 and 14001.
The original idea for Earth Hour was conceived by WWF in 2007 during a meeting held at Hilton Sydney, and Hilton Worldwide has a long history of supporting the event. It's a way for individuals and businesses to show how simple steps can make a significant impact on addressing climate change. When this worldwide effort began in Sydney, Australia more than two million people turned off their lights for an hour and reduced the city's energy consumption by more than 10 percent. It became a global movement in 2008 with more than 50 million people participating, and today has become the largest grassroots environmental movement in the world with more than 7,000 cities and towns in 162 countries and territories and hundreds of millions of people participating across seven continents. In 2014 alone hundreds of millions of people participated. This year's theme focuses on climate change, one of the biggest environmental challenges our planet faces today.
