Even if you’re an eco-conscious person and you want to make a difference to the only planet we have, it can be hard to know where to start or how to begin. Sometimes, being a lone wolf on a green crusade can feel like a thankless task and you might wonder what impact, if any, you are having.
Earth Hour and Earth Day aim to resolve this quandary by bringing people together for short periods each year to raise awareness of the environmental dilemma we face as a species. These movements endeavour to influence lawmakers to create paths towards a more sustainable future and you can do your part too.
Earth Day is, in fact, the largest secular observance in the world, with more than 1 billion people from over 190 countries gathering to highlight and fight the causes of climate change. Earth Hour is one of the world’s largest environmental grassroots movements and, although younger and currently less observed than Earth Day, it generates a striking illustration of what a small amount of positive change can accomplish.
Read on to find out more and discover what you can do to help.
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Frequently asked questions
Earth Hour is an environmental movement started by the WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007. It aims to engage millions of people in switching off all their lights for one hour in an effort to show support for the planet and spread awareness of climate change.
Earth Hour is generally held on the last Saturday in March. However, in 2024, it will be held on 23 March. This inspirational hour is always between 8.30 and 9.30pm in your local time zone.
Earth Day is an annual global celebration of what it means to love our planet. It is also a not-for-profit organisation aiming to raise awareness of environmental preservation. It was born in the USA in 1970 and became global in 1990.
Unlike Earth Hour, Earth Day is held on the same day each year. It was founded by Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson on 22 April 1970 and is held on this spring day every year.
Although similar in their ideals, Earth Day and Earth Hour do have their differences. The former looks to promote environmental appreciation and the dangers facing it. The latter encourages the protection and management of energy, namely electricity.
Earth Hour actually gets more press than Earth Day. Perhaps because it is a shorter, more focussed time slot or maybe because it is more visually appealing to the media due to UN Heritage Sites and other landmarks turning off their lights.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the day when the amount of natural resources that humanity uses up in a given year exceeds the amount that the Earth can produce in that year. This day is getting earlier in our calendar each year and in 2024, it falls on 25 July.
Earth Hour
Like every year before it, Earth Hour 2024 will be pushing for legislative changes that will have a positive impact on our environment. On Saturday 23 March, show that you can make a difference and join in by switching off all your lights (and perhaps all of your electronic devices) for one hour between 8.30 and 9.30pm.
Below is a list of things you can do with the hour you have just gained.
Earth Hour activities you can do outside
Stargaze – if the weather is fine, grab a telescope or some binoculars (or just use your peepers) and head out into the garden or onto your balcony and see what constellations you can find. This is a great opportunity to gaze up into the endless void of space and realise that there really is no Planet B.
Take a tour of your neighbourhood – see your community in a whole new light. Take a torch with you and maybe some snacks and investigate your surrounding area, discovering things you never noticed before. You might even see some nocturnal animals scurrying about.
Exercise – seize the evening and head out for a run, a bike ride or visit your local swimming pool. You’ll feel so much better for it and you never know, it might form into a habit. Just ensure you have reflective gear and appropriate lights if running or cycling at night.
Turn off outdoor lights too – by this, we mean festoon lights that you might have out for decorative purposes. They can drain a lot of energy and they also have an impact on nocturnal creatures that rely on darkness. Turning them off, being more strategic with their placement and even swapping white/blue lights for warmer, orange glow lights can help nocturnal creatures immeasurably.
Check-in with your neighbours – take this opportunity to return that cake tin or the DIY tool you borrowed or just say hi over the back fence and make sure they’re doing alright. The smallest gestures can make a world of difference to some people; you can’t always tell what’s going on in people’s lives and a little kindness can have a big impact.
Listen to music on a walk – take advantage of the playlists created by Earth Hour on Spotify or the WWF’s Earth Hour playlist and listen to some nature-inspired songs and truly uplifting tunes.
Earth Hour activities you can do inside
Make a family plan – start conversing about conserving. All you need is an hour of your family’s time to sit down and come up with a plan on how you can save energy, reduce waste and contribute positively to your own life and the lives of those around you. Set some achievable yet challenging objectives and, by Earth Hour next year, you can see how well you’ve done and the effect you’ve had.
Have a candlelit dinner – this one may seem obvious but in an age of ever-present screens, we may forget that the simple pleasures are often the best. Whether it’s with a loved one, your family or your friends, an intimate supper whilst catching up on each other’s lives is such a positive thing to do with this golden hour.
Watch a documentary – if you do decide to pop the TV on, rather than sticking on the latest season of Traitors, why not stay on theme and educate yourself with a documentary? There are so many worthwhile films and series to watch that may inspire you to go further than ever to combat climate change. A few of our favourites include Ice on Fire, The End of the Line, I am Greta, Seaspiracy, and Wild Isles.
Read a book – light the candles and read a book aloud to the kids or grab some ‘me time’ and start that novel you’ve been meaning to read. A great way of recycling is to share the book with a friend once you’re done with it.
Play board games – you never need an excuse to play a good board game. Use your time wisely with a strategy game like Catan or test your skill with a classic like Monopoly. Break out Kerplunk if the average age is slightly lower or stick with a family favourite like Jenga. You really can't go wrong.
Have an indoor picnic – a nighttime picnic can be gallons of fun! Spread out a blanket, share the food and try your best not to create any waste. A zero-waste picnic can be fun and economical. Why not go one step further and camp out in your living room? Pitch a small tent, roll out the sleeping bags and snuggle down for an early night.
Plant a seed – this is certainly one for those of you with children; the pride you’ll see on a little one’s face as they engage in creating new life is worth an hour of anyone’s time. Start this activity inside and then as it grows and your child’s satisfaction increases, re-pot it and move it out to the garden.
Glow-in-the-dark party – if you don’t have kids or they’re already tucked up in bed, this is a fun way to spend an hour – and who says the party has to stop at 9.30pm? Invite your friends, get them to wear their best neon outfits and play some 80s tunes until the wee hours.
Earth Hour activities you can do at work
This section might be a little different as the majority of people won’t be at work during Earth Hour, as it is always on a Saturday and it’s in the evening.
Switch off – if you are working on a Saturday evening, you could start by turning your lights off (where it’s safe to do so). Even if you work in a call centre, for example, and you finish at 5pm, you could request that your employer turn off the office lights for the evening. And for offices that are closed over the weekends, ensure the employees switch off all monitors and lights when they leave on Friday evening.
More candles – if you're in hospitality, you could use candles for one hour (again, where it’s safe to do so). It might even make the evening a little more special for your clientele and could garner you some positive interest on social media if you take some aesthetic photos for Instagram.
Go plant based – if you’re due a break between the hours of 8.30 and 9.30, you could have a plant-based meal or snack. Studies show that animal agriculture creates more greenhouse gases than all transportation emissions combined, so it’s a great chance to try some vegan food and put to bed the stereotype that all vegan food is bland. There are so many meat substitutes on the market these days, the world is your (vegan) oyster.
Green Team – other things you can do at work include getting involved in your business’ Green Team, or incepting one if you don’t currently have one. This would clearly take more than an hour but it’s a step in the right direction and the impact to your business and the world at large could be significant.
Emails – unsubscribe to unwanted or unnecessary email newsletters – every email sent has a carbon footprint so if you can avoid receiving some of them, you’ll be doing some good. According to BBC Science Focus Magazine, it is estimated that sending 65 emails is the equivalent of driving 1km in your car. And on average, each Briton will add 130kg of CO2 to the atmosphere in a year – that’s comparable to driving 320km in your vehicle!
Read our blogs – one last thing you could do with your hour is to read these blogs about the benefits of seagrass and saving our wild isles – we hear they are really rather good. Encourage your co-workers to follow suit and do some of these activities and you’ll not only feel better, but you will have the knowledge that you have contributed some good alongside millions of other like-minded souls.
Top tip: Since young children will likely go to bed earlier than 8.30pm, how about taking part twice and turning off your lights earlier as well? If 8.30pm is too late for your child’s routine, why not host your own Earth Hour with the kids from 6.30pm-7.30pm. The benefits are the same, the children will feel like you’ve made a real effort AND they get to bed on time, which is a win-win-win!
Earth Day
As we mentioned earlier, Earth Day is the largest non-religious observance on the globe. It has the power to change people’s thinking in their daily decisions. We need more of this. You may think that one person or one day cannot make a difference but it’s important to take one step forward and not two steps back. Like drops in a bucket, the little things add up so fast.
Earth Day is one day a year, but it should be every day. There are some things in this list that would be hard to accomplish regularly but there are certainly those that could easily become part of your daily routine. Read on.
Earth Day activities you can do outside
Watch the sunrise or sunset – they happen every day but, honestly, when was the last time you saw one? And we mean really saw one. When was the last time you took the time to sit and breathe it all in, whether alone or with the ones you love most? Set yourself a wake-up call in the morning or put the screens aside in the evening and go and marvel at our natural world.
Earth Day meditation – practise some mindfulness and spend some time being thankful for Mother Nature. The benefits of meditation for your mind and your body are well-documented so head outside, find a nice tree to settle beneath and take a moment to be still.
Go plogging – if you haven’t heard of plogging, Earth Day is the perfect time to begin. Taking its name from the Swedish for ‘pick up’ (plocka upp) and the English for jogging (jogging!), this activity was started nearly ten years ago to help clear up the streets of Stockholm. Pop on your running trainers, grab some gloves and a rubbish bag and start clearing up your community’s litter whilst getting some much-needed exercise. Also, this is a great way to take part in the Marine Conservation Society’s Source to Sea Litter Quest.
Transform your garden into a wildlife haven – this is an appealing activity if you have children. There’s so much you can do to help save nature. Plant some beautiful native plants to help our pollinators do what they do best. Non-native species may look wonderful, but they often outcompete the native wildflowers to our pollinators' detriment. Other activities for you and your family include building bird feeders or hedgehog highways, or just letting your grass grow to encourage more wildlife to enter your sphere.
Listen to a podcast out on a walk – go out on a lengthy stroll, take in that fresh British air and listen to how you can make a difference to nature. Podcasts like the WWF’s Call of the Wild are a good place to start. If you want the topics to be quite hard-hitting, check out Outrage + Optimism or if you’d prefer to keep it lighter, Sustainababble is a comedy podcast that still tackles big environmental issues.
Just be outside – getting outdoors on 22 April is a must. No matter what you’re doing, you’ll be joining billions of others in celebrating all things green and natural. Visit a national park, head to the coast, strike up a conversation with a stranger about what they’re doing for Earth Day this year or find a local Earth Day celebration – there are lots of organised events all over the UK. You never know where your adventure will take you.
Earth Day activities you can do inside
Reduce waste – like the old adage says, reduce, reuse and recycle. You could organise your fridge in a way that helps you reduce food waste. For example, if you have a fancy fridge, place vegetables in the high-humidity drawer and fruits in the low-humidity drawer. Place any leftovers high up so that you’ll see them and mark them with dates.
Food that needs to be eaten next could go in the fridge door so that it’s easily accessible, but don’t store milk or eggs in the door as it is the warmest part of the fridge. If you eat meat or fish, store these on the bottom shelf where it is coldest. Remember, food waste produces methane which is 25 times more powerful than CO2.
Conserve water – there are so many changes you could make to your daily water consumption habits that don’t have to only happen on Earth Day. Let’s rattle some of them off:
- Switch to showers rather than baths: most water companies will send out free shower timers to help you keep your washing time to under 4 minutes
- Turn off the tap: most taps can waste as much as 6 litres per minute so turn it off when brushing your teeth and applying soap to your hands
- Fill up the washing bowl: clean the cleanest items first (like glasses) and save the dirtiest until last and this will save enormous amounts of water when compared to washing everything under the tap
- Fill your dishwasher up: making the switch to a dishwasher can save you up to 6,000 litres a year – that’s a lot of extra cash too! Make sure you buy some second-hand crockery so that you don’t run out whilst waiting for your dishwasher to get full
- Save your cooking water: this water or the water from rinsing fruit and vegetables is great for watering household plants
- Fit low-flow aerators on your taps: these don’t compromise on pressure but use a lot less water - additionally, most water companies offer these for free
- Don’t overfill the kettle: only use what you need and you’ll be saving both water and electricity
Food swaps – all food goes on a journey before it arrives at its destination, aka your plate. And some of the ways we produce food are putting an intolerable strain on our environment. Simple swaps, if made by enough people, can and will make a difference. Food production is the number one driving force for deforestation with clearing land for livestock feed and palm oil as two of the biggest contributors.
Swapping meat and dairy for plant-based alternatives is more affordable and proven to be healthier too. Buying frozen vegetables can help you stock up as they are usually sold in bulk, plus it will reduce food waste as you’ll only use what you need. Swapping some fresh produce for the canned alternative will mean the food lasts longer and reduces waste – just make sure you recycle those cans.
Choose the right products – whether this means buying eco-cleaning products for your home, ensuring some of your food is from local sources, or that when buying clothes or equipment, you go second-hand, choosing the right product can have far-reaching ramifications.
Calculate your carbon footprint – everyone has the capacity to improve so spend part of your day taking this WWF questionnaire and find out if there are ways to further cut your footprint.
Order a nature-friendly planner – if you’re having trouble sticking to your newly formed habits, order one of the WWF’s nature-friendly planners to get tips to help you stick to your routine and track your progress. Learn exciting things like which plants are best for your home and how to help a bee in need.
Earth Day activities you can do at work
As an employee, there are many small changes you can make for Earth Day. Throughout the day, you can turn off any lights that aren’t being used, for example, toilet lights. Toasters, kettles and microwaves don’t need to be left on when not in use. Try to avoid printing anything unless absolutely necessary and unsubscribe to print catalogues if you no longer need them. If you’re leaving the workplace to grab some lunch, see if it’s possible to walk rather than drive, and if you’re going out for a takeaway coffee, bring your own reusable cup.
Eco-cleaning – you could find out whether the person who cleans your workplace uses green cleaning products and advocate for a change if this isn’t the case.
Quiz – some things you could do with your fellow co-workers include sharing any of the books or documentaries you’ve recently read/watched or organising an Earth Day quiz. A quiz could be a fun yet eye-opening experience and might subtly influence your co-workers to change their ways for the better.
Green pension funds – if you want to attempt some larger changes, encourage your employer to choose a sustainable pension fund. According to the WWF, choosing a sustainable pension fund is 21 times more effective than stopping flying, going vegetarian and switching your energy supplier all put together!
Watch an inspiring film – finally, get your business or employer involved by screening one of these four films put together by the WWF, the RSPB and the National Trust. The aim of these films is to show businesses what they can do to halt the nature depletion currently rife in the UK. Another film solely from the WWF titled Our Planet: Our Business is an inspiring watch and tells a story that every business should know.
Celebrating together
We hope that you have found some inspiration within this list of tips and activity ideas. Ultimately, Earth Hour and Earth Day are about celebrating what we have, not feeling solemn about what we have lost. Every small change we make has an impact so let’s start now and honour this planet of ours and rejoice in its beauty for generations to come.
Read about how we, at holidaycottages.co.uk, are trying to do our part for local communities and the environment.
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