GLUMAC - Engineers for a sustainable future

Christine Herman, Corporate Marketing Coordinator, Portland Office

The Second Anniversary of Earth Hour 2008 took place on March 29th this year. This momentous event, which began last year in Sydney, Australia, grabbed the attention of the entire world, gaining a large community of participants.

Quoted from EarthHour.org:

"It started with a question: How can we inspire people to take action on climate change?

The answer: Ask the people of Syd­ney to turn off their lights for one hour.

On March 31^st, 2007, 2.2 million peo­ple and 2,100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour. This massive collective effort reduced Sydney's energy consumption by 10.2% for one hour, which is the equivalent effect of taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year.

With Sydney icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House turning their lights off, and unique events such as weddings by candlelight, the world took notice. Inspired by the collective effort of millions of Sydneysiders, many major global cities joined Earth Hour in 2008, turning a symbol­ic event into a global movement."

Glumac employees stepped up to the challenge and pledged to turn off their lights for Earth Hour. Across all Glumac's of­fices, 81 employees and their families participated in the event, joining a community of over 100,000 people and 7,000 busi­ness worldwide taking action to save energy.

Although only one city with a Glumac office (San Francisco) officially committed their entire infrastructure to the event, Glumac signed on as a corporate participant. Glumac also teamed with the Cascadia Green Building Council to put the challenge up to the entire Pacific Northwest green building community €“ and Glumac succeeded in being the firm with the most employee participation. (Please see the April 2008 Cascadia Green Building Council Newsletter for Glumac's recognition).

For Earth Hour next year, Glumac will make efforts to involve even more employees and firms from the architectural-engineering industry to participate in this event. Joining the world in addressing energy consumption is one more way Glumac is committed to a sustainable future.