With the eleventh annual Earth Hour just days away, Central Group Vietnam will launch a series of programs with its strategic partners and member companies including Nguyen Kim, Lan Chi, Robins and Big C to help Vietnam protect its natural environment. The program calls upon staff, customers and partners to join together in a program aimed at offsetting climate change and protecting and preserving our environment for the generations to come.

Commencing on 24 and 25 March, Central Group Vietnam with its strategic partners and member companies will greatly restrict its use of electrical devices throughout its outlets nationwide.  This will include the turning-off of lights, changes to the temperature of air-conditioning, and close monitoring of the use of electrical devices throughout its stores.  The Group has set a target of a 7,5 percent reduction in power consumption.

Additionally, stores throughout the group will be calling upon customers to support Earth Hour, with banners and regular announcements helping to inform customers.  Big C stores will additionally offer free recyclable carry-bags for customers who spend over 500,000 VND, to help customers decrease their reliance on plastic bags.

Sister company Nguyen Kim will run a promotion called « Solutions for Summer »,  where appliances, including refrigerators, which feature a power-saving mode and are enviromentally-friendly, will have discounts of up to 20-30 percent offered  Similarly, supermarket chain Lan Chi will offer promotions of between 15 and 49 percent of fans, lights and other appliances which offer electricity saving options.

Central Group Vietnam and member companies will also hold an exhibition which will introduce their 15,000-strong team to the importance of cutting energy consumption and adopting greener, more environmentally friendly practices.

“We wanted to go beyond a one-hour switch-flick this year,” representative of Central Group Vietnam said. “So instead of just calling on our team to turn the lights off for an hour, we wanted to focus on a deeper, broader message that stresses the importance of adding more environmentally friendly behaviors into our lives each and every day.  We wanted to raise awareness on the importance of green products, of reusable bags, of cutting power usage and so forth.  We view these practices as being central to Central’s mission to improve the quality of life for people in Vietnam.”

Central Group Vietnam has long been active with its member companies and strategic partners in undertaking activities that protect the environment.  They have run programs that encourage customers to use and reuse Lohas rather than nylon bags; Big C has run a program across its 34 stores that collects and recycles batteries, taking in over 700kg of batteries in 2016 alone; numerous other outlets have switched to powersaving lighting options including natural light, solar power and so forth.  In fact, Big C Di An became the first supermarket in Vietnam to use solar power. More recently, Big C has rolled out its ‘Bag For Life’ where, for just 3,000 VND, customers can reduce their reliance on nylon, with the reusable bags being replaceable at no cost should they break in any way, with no limits on the number of replacements.

These activities of Central Group Vietnam and member companies have further proven the commitment of the enterprise to contribute to the prosperity of Vietnam.

More information

Earth Hour is organized by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) since 2007, encouraging households and enterprises to turn off the lights and equipment that do not much affect daily lives in one hour from 20h30 to 21h30 on the last Saturday of March. The campaign aims to call the community to change habits that are not good for living environment, use the power more efficiently, contribute to increasing the awareness of the neccesary actions before climate change. After 10 years of establishment and development, starting from Australia, until now, there have been 200 countries and nearly 2 billion people to join the campaign and Earth Hour has become an annual environmental event that is supported most by the planet.

In Vietnam, Earth Hour has been first organized in 2009 in six provinces and cities, including Hanoi, HCMC, Can Tho, Hoi An, Hue, and Khanh Hoa with the participation of hundreds of inviduals and firms. After that, the program continued to spread widely and attract more and more people in more and more regions in Vietnam.