Northwestern Flips the Switch to Support Earth Hour

Institution joins millions around the world to raise awareness of climate change

Millions of homes, businesses and national landmarks will go dark Saturday night as part of Earth Hour, a global movement to galvanize support for energy efficient practices.  Northwestern encourages its employees and students to turn off non-essential lights from 8:30-9:30 p.m. local time, and in keeping with its many environmentally friendly and green initiatives also plans to participate as an institution.

In recent years Northwestern has strengthened its recycling program, reduced electricity consumption through dimming down or turning off lights and standardized two sided copy machine programming.  Future green initiatives include eliminating styrofoam on patient care units and promoting public transportation via two transportation fairs later this year.