Engro Corporation, Pakistan’s largest group of companies, joined thousands of organizations worldwide to commemorate the global Earth Hour campaign for the year 2018. Engro Corporation turned off all its external lights and dimmed all non-essential lighting in its facilities as people and organisations around the world turned off their lights in support of action on global climate change, thus, reinforcing the company’s commitment to addressing environmental changes and driving an even larger impact.

Created by World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Earth Hour began in 2007 as a way for individuals and businesses to show how simple steps can make a significant impact on addressing climate change. It became a global movement in 2008 with more than 50 million people participating, and today it is the largest grassroots environmental movement in the world with more than 7,000 cities and towns in 172 countries and territories and hundreds of millions of people participating across seven continents.

In line with the Earth Hour Campaign, the team behind Engro Fertilizer’s premium fertilizer product, Engro Zarkhez organized a tree planting activity. Engro Zarkhez, through its green initiatives, has made significant contributions in its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint. The contributions and achievements made by the Engro Zarkhez team include reduction of annual water consumption by more than 50%; saving 365,000 gallons of water annually by recycling water and reduction of the electrical loads of its admin building by more than 20% using alternative energy sources and energy conservation methods.

Expressing his comments on the event, Mr. Wajid Hussain Junejo, Head of the Green Office Initiative at Engro stated, “Earth Hour is one of the ways we show our commitment to energy conservation. We have been diligent in rolling out various organization-wide green initiatives that we were proud to be at the forefront of. Over the last few years, we have been met with great support not only from other organizations in Pakistan, but also the government and WWF Finland”. He further stated that, “We’re proud to have been globally acknowledged for our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint on Earth and will continue to demonstrate our focus on the environment and our efforts to align our corporate interests with the nation.”

Over the last 3 years, Engro Corporation has successfully reduced its electricity consumption by 42% which is a major factor of carbon dioxide emission. Furthermore, it has achieved a 56% reduction in paper usage, 82% reduction in waste and 44% reduction in carbon footprint against baseline benchmarks.