Climate campaign Earth Hour to move headquarters to Singapore

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Climate movement Earth Hour is moving its global headquarters from Sydney, Australia to Singapore, most probably in May.

Andy Ridley, executive director and co-founder of Earth Hour, said Singapore offers the level of connectivity and opportunity the campaign needs to move forward, Singapore broadcaster Channel NewsAsia reported on Monday.

"Great for business, great for communications, brilliant for digital. And it's got great people who can work for us," Ridley said.

The movement started as a one-city campaign in Sydney in 2007 and has spread to 5,251 cities and towns by 2011, reading some 1.8 billion people in 135 countries.

It encourages individuals, businesses and communities to switch off lights for one hour on the last Saturday of March every year in order to raise awareness for climate change and the environment.

"To move to Singapore in a geographical sense makes total sense - Earth Hour is growing really big in India and in China and in Indonesia, as well as Latin America and the United States. So many reasons to move here," Ridley said.

Earth Hour has recently been encouraging people to go "beyond the hour" in their commitment to environmental protection.

"Sydney is the most beautiful city and we'll be sad to move from there but it's a long way away from the rest of the world," he said.

This year's Earth Hour takes place on March 31 at 08:30 p.m. local time this year.

Source: Xinhua