By: Renadia Kusuma Sanusi & Karenina Shevayarra (Volunteer Panda Mobile)

Earth Hour has become a public movement to save the planet. This year, Earth Hour involved 178 countries, 7,000 cities, and more than 1 billion people around the world. Individuals, groups, corporations, and government agencies enthusiastically contributed to this movement. One of them is Central Park Mall and Neo Soho.

Last Saturday (25/03) was the 7th time Central Park contributed to the Earth Hour activity. This year, Neo Soho also participated for the first time in the activity dedicated to Earth Day on April 22. The theme this year is "Kindness for Earth" and collaborates with three other shopping centers, namely Kuningan City, Senayan City, and Plaza Balikpapan. The five big malls together raised the #BeliYang Baik campaign, which is aimed at the retail industry to sell environmentally friendly products and to consumers to choose environmentally friendly products. This event is routinely carried out in collaboration with WWF, Earth Hour Community, and The Body Shop Indonesia.

The Earth Hour Indonesia community celebrated Earth Hour this year by creating the #SejutaAksi movement, which is a movement that invites one million individuals (or groups) to make and donate used T-shirts to be used as shopping bags in an effort to reduce the use of plastic bags. In this regard, WWF-Indonesia, Earth Hour Community, and Neo Soho Mall held a recycle workshop on how to make shopping bags from used t-shirts on the 4th floor of Neo Soho Mall just before the Earth Hour switch-off. The bags made from used t-shirts will be distributed to traditional markets across Indonesia. This can certainly help people reduce the use of plastic and replace it with reusable bags.

[Read also: Earth Hour 2017: From Moment to Movement, Time to Ignite Real Action to Change Lifestyle]

With the same goal in mind, The Body Shop created a campaign themed "Beautiful Earth Beautiful You" by giving one point for every shopper who returns an unused bottle of The Body Shop packaging to help reduce non-biodegradable waste.

At 20:30-21:30 WIB, Central Park held a switch-off. Uniquely, visitors could experience "Shopping & Dinner in the Dark." In addition, stores also provide special discounts at this time. Guests can also get discounts until April 23, 2017 on the condition that they use reusable bags when shopping. During the switch-off in Central Park, visitors around the ""Kindness for Earth"" stage were illuminated with candles that formed a 60+ configuration.

The plus sign (+) behind the number 60 means that we not only contribute by turning off the lights for 60 minutes, but also take concrete actions afterward. The real action can be in the form of buying environmentally friendly products, using reusable bags when shopping, protecting flora & fauna, and the simplest thing is to throw garbage in its place. Simple things that start from ourselves can help care for and preserve this earth