WWF Earth Hour
On October 10, 2023, in the Senate Room of the University of Wrocław, an agreement was signed between Wrocław and Opole universities and the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, the National Energy Conservation Agency and the Bank Ochrony Środowiska [Bank for Environmental Protection]. The agreement concerns the development of a pilot nationwide model for the energy transformation of university operations.
The idea is to develop pathways for universities to, among other things, raise funds for various purposes to foster their necessary energy transformation, restructure heating installations, replace light sources or introduce energy savings and thus reduce their carbon footprint. The signed agreement is the result of the energetic cooperation established at the end of 2022, Interuniversity Green Energy Group, which promotes the idea of environmental protection.
Another example of the Green Energy Group’s activity will be to join the Earth Hour action, organised under the aegis of the WWF. The action will take place on Saturday March 23 and will involve switching off as many lights as possible from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm.
This is how the members of the Green Energy Group will express a symbolic gesture of concern for the future of our planet. They will become participants in the activity of hundreds of thousands of institutions switching off the lights in the buildings they manage. Every year, up to tens of millions of people and several hundred cities around the world take part. In Poland, close to a hundred cities got involved in the previous editions, switching off their public lighting.
The University of Wrocław welcomed the dedication of this year’s WWF Earth Hour event. In Poland, the action is dedicated to rivers, which form ecosystems with plants and animals. And for people, rivers are also places of recreation. Rivers are our heritage in need of urgent protection. Meanwhile, our human activities and the transformation of the natural environment, with hydraulic engineering developments and especially anthropogenic pollution (including salty post-mining waters), have left only 1.1% of Poland’s rivers in good condition. Polish rivers are dying and need our human support. Immediate, decisive steps are needed.
Therefore, the University of Wrocław, together with the Green Energy Group, joins the WWF’s EARTH HOUR campaign: SATURDAY 23.03., from 8.30 pm to 9.30 pm.
Translated by Oliwia Chanasińska (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
