Moggie: Earth Hour means more than switching lights off.

KUALA LUMPUR: For Earth Hour this year, let's move beyond just giving up an hour of light for Mother Earth.

Instead, be creative and find ways to be more energy efficient in everyday life, said Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) chairman Tan Sri Leo Moggie.

“Make energy efficiency a daily habit. We can switch off unnecessary lights, adjust air-conditioning to be comfortable rather than freezing cold, and turn off the television. Industries can install energy-efficient equipment,” he said at a ceremony to support the campaign.

Earth Hour is a global initiative by WWF that invites individuals, businesses and governments to turn off their lights for one hour on March 31, at 8.30pm to show support for environmentally sustainable action.

For this year, TNB said it was teaming up with WWF Malaysia to come up with the month-long TNB-WWF Malaysia 2012 Awareness Campaign.

He added that TNB's participation in this annual event showed its commitment to green energy initiatives.

“We encourage our customers to make prudent use of electricity as a lifestyle because saving the planet should go beyond the symbolic one-hour switch off' of non-essential lights,” said Moggie.

The campaign's website, wwf.org.my, allows Malaysians to make “go green” pledges.

The campaign kicked off on Feb 27 and will go on until March 30.

Executive director and chief executive officer of WWF Malaysia Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said: “In order to meet the increasing demands of a growing population, we are depleting our natural resources faster than they can be replenished, polluting natural habitats and releasing large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.”

He added that scientists warned that collective and immediate action must be taken to achieve deep cuts in global carbon emissions by 2050 in order to avoid the devastating effects of climate change.

-TheStar-