CHENNAI: Scores of tiny white candle-diyas dotted a long stretch of The Accord Metropolitan — across the lobby, up the stairs, and the cafe -- on Saturday night. A rangoli-Earth decorated the entrance of the reception area. From 8-8:30 pm, the hotel staff were given instructions while being handed placards.
Onlookers waited in wonder to understand what was going on. Right then, at 8:30 pm, the lights went off, and the hotel staff, led by Pankaj Katyal, general manager, started marching across the candlelit areas, holding a candle each.
Upon realising that the symbolic activities were in commemoration of Earth Hour 2022, onlookers, too, joined in. When the lights came back, hotel management and staff took an oath, holding placards that spelt out the 5 R principles of environmental preservation — reduce, refuse, recycle, repurpose, reuse.
Speaking about the significance of the event, Pankaj said the hotel wanted to deliver a promise to improve the wellbeing of the planet. They chose Earth Hour as an occasion to motivate their employees, visitors, and guests, to think about small, everyday steps of action.
“Earth Hour is a commendable grassroots movement that goes beyond just an hour a year. The pledge that we, as a collective, made today needs to be thought of every day — We will reduce electricity consumption. We will refuse single-use plastics. We will recycle our e-waste. We will repurpose household items. We will reuse clothes,” Pankaj reiterated. These fundamentals need to stay in our consciousness in order to reshape the future, he said.
Earth Hour, organised by WWF - The World Wide Fund for Nature, in 2007, has since become a tradition that unites people around the world in making and renewing a commitment to care for the world we co-inhabit.
Sharing how the hotel reaffirms their undertaking towards the same, Pankaj said, “At Accord, we recycle our papers. Most of our administrative tasks are digital. We check our water consumption, too. We keep thinking of ways to do our work that are sustainable and practical,” he assured.