Social Impact Marketing

Earth Hour was born in 2007 as an idea to unite people and deliver a firm message to the then climate-sceptic government - that climate change is an issue of global importance. In the years since, it has evolved into the world’s largest grassroots movement for the environment.

Over the years the symbolic action of switching off the lights for one hour to show unity in the rally against climate change has grown awareness, however this year we made it our goal to turn awareness into action beyond the hour itself.

To show people how their individual actions could ripple into bigger, collective impacts for the future, we urged them to donate one of the most powerful communication tools they have – their social feed.

Earth Hour 2016 began with an awareness film entitled “The Future Starts Today”, that demonstrates how actions we take in the present can spark change that will be felt for decades to come. This got the public’s attention across Facebook and Twitter, directing them to earthhour.org, where they could pledge to donate their Facebook feed leading up to Earth Hour on 19 March 2016.

We took over participant’s feeds by posting relevant content and encouraging them to apply a special #ChangeClimateChange filter to their profile pictures.

earthhour.org displayed a live counter, demonstrating how many people had signed up to the cause and pledged to take climate action.