TikTok ties up with WWF-India for Earth Hour

TikTok is the official online media partner for WWF-India's #Bee4ThePlanet challenge in India, which encourages people to pledge their support to biodiversity conservation

Short video platform TikTok and NGO World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-India  have tied up to promote Earth Hour 2019, aimed at building awareness about environmental issues among India's youth. 

TikTok is the official online media partner for WWF-India’s #Bee4ThePlanet challenge in India, which aims to encourage people to pledge their support for the cause of biodiversity conservation by helping reduce plastic pollution, paper, and water wastage.

 TikTok users will see the fun bee sticker created especially for this campaign along with the hashtag ‘Bee4ThePlanet’. Users have already published videos to show their support, which has almost 3 million views on TikTok, the two said in a joint statement. 

Earth Hour celebrates people’s commitment across the globe to fight threats against declining biodiversity. Skylines around the world will go dark on Saturday 30 March 8:30 p.m. local time in different regions. 

Speaking about the campaign,  Ravi Singh, Secretary General & CEO, WWF-India said, “Earth Hour is about people coming together to celebrate the planet and raise awareness about the need to protect it. This partnership with TikTok will help us reach out to the young populace of India, the future leaders of tomorrow and build new constituencies of supporters who will take forward the message of conservation in the years to come.”

According to the Living Planet Report 2018, we are living through the Great Acceleration – a unique event in the 4.5 billion-year history of Earth – with exploding human populations and economic growth driving unprecedented planetary change through increased demand for energy, land and water. Over the past 50 years, the global ecological footprint (one measure of our consumption of natural resources) has increased by over 190 per cent. 

The Living Planet Index suggests that India’s ecological footprint per person is less than 1.75 global hectares/person (which is the lowest bracket and is smaller than that of many large countries). However, India’s high population levels make it likely that the country would face a widening ecological deficit if current per-capita levels of resource consumption remain the same.

“As a part of our commitment to users with fun engaging challenges, through this campaign, we hope to do our part and encourage our users to leverage their talent and creativity to participate and spread the word in raising awareness on the need for biodiversity conservation,” said Sumedhas Rajgopal, Senior Manager, Strategy and Partnerships, TikTok. 

Launched in 2018 by WWF, the GIVEUP to Give Back initiative has seen individuals, organizations, corporations, schools and governments set their GIVEUP initiatives as voluntary actions and policies to bring about sustainable change. Earth Hour 2019 will build the momentum further with its focus on asking citizens and organizations to GIVEUP single use plastic, paper and water wastage and contribute to the betterment of the planet.