Wipro to support 'Earth Hour' campaign

BANGALORE, INDIA: Indian IT major Wipro Limited would support WWF’s Earth Hour 2009, the global climate change campaign.

Wipro is supporting this campaign under the aegis of its eco-eye initiative. Earth Hour is WWF’s largest global campaign on climate change, the release added.

In this campaign all participating countries would switch off lights and electrical appliances for one hour, at 8.30 pm in their local time on March 28, 2009.

Earth Hour is being observed in over 2000 cities across 85 countries of the world. Millions of individuals and hundreds of organizations would turn off the lights for one hour and show that by working together, they can make a difference in the fight against climate change, the release added.

Wipro would switch the lights off in all its buildings in India during Earth Hour. Its website www.wipro.com too would be dimming the website during this period.

To encourage employees to be part of this drive, Wipro has undertaken an internal communication campaign across its facilities.

It has also put up all the information on Earth Hour campaign to motive employees to sign up for individual pledge. Wipro is also organizing a Green Mela on March 25 and 26 across its IT and BPO campuses.

This would give employees an opportunity to see and buy eco-friendly merchandise.

Meanwhile, Wipro and Greenpeace came together to discuss the impact of climate change and how organizations can lead in tackling the biggest environmental threat of our times.

Speakers at the seminar included  Sven Teske, director - Greenpeace Renewable Energy Campaign, Prof Eswaran Subramanian, research fellow and project director, Centre for Science, Technology and Policy, K. Jairaj, Principal Secretary, Energy Department, Government of Karnataka, who presided as the chief guest, and Dr. H.S. Mukunda, Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Teske delivered the keynote address.

The Speakers discussed the possibility of India becoming the next Energy Technology hub and what will it take for India to seize this opportunity.

Teske, one of the lead authors of the upcoming IPCC solutions report, set the context by outlining the climate challenge and the solutions that make Energy Revolution technically and financially possible, said the press release.

The seminar organized under the aegis of Wipro’s eco-eye had participants from industry, environment, academia and the government, the release added.

The discussion also focused on the increasing trend of companies starting to address their own contribution to the climate change issue - by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and by building more energy efficient products and solutions. Many IT companies are sensing an immense opportunity in ‘Green IT’ and in ‘IT for Green’ and have taken the lead in this regard, it added.