V&A WATERFRONT TO HOST CAPE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA BY CANDLELIGHT IN SUPPORT OF EARTH HOUR

Date: March 23, 2013
Time: 20h30 to 21h30
Cost: Free
Venue: Amphitheatre, V&A Waterfront

Cape Town, 20 March 2013 – The V&A Waterfront will host a special performance of the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra at its Amphitheatre between 20h30 – 21h30 on 23 March as non-essential lights are turned off in support of global Earth Hour.  The energy that will be saved equates to the electricity supply for an entire household for a day.

Earth Hour, first initiated by WWF in 2007, has grown into the world’s largest environmental awareness initiative and, during 2012, attracted participation from more than 7 000 cities and towns across 152 countries, on seven continents, reaching an estimated 1.8 billion people.

The V&A Waterfront will play its role in Earth Hour and join the City of Cape Town and other countless cities, businesses and individuals around the world in showing their support of energy saving.   All non-essential lights, particularly around the Amphitheatre, where the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra will perform, will be switched off at 20h30 for an hour; the lights on Table Mountain will also be switched off.

The event will be attended by Head of the Living Planet Unit for World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Saliem Fakir, Councillor Garreth Bloor (City of Cape Town) and talk show host Africa Melane.

This symbolic event comes on the back of the V&A Waterfront’s new energy efficient lighting system which has  reduced electricity consumption and demand resulting in a total saving over three years of 26 000 kilowatts hour, or enough electricity to supply 80 000 homes for a month.   The new energy efficient escalators save 4 608 kwh per a month.

In March 2013, the V&A Waterfront’s new No. 1 Silo building became South Africa’s largest, and latest building to be awarded a six star rating by the Green Building Council of South Africa. This exceptional accomplishment is the first six star rating of commercial office space of this scale in South Africa and the first building to achieve this rating in the City of Cape Town.

“Sustainability is at the heart of the V&A Waterfront’s business strategy. This includes incorporating world-class energy efficiency practises and responsible management of our resources in all our operations,” said Green.

“Our goal to set standards in sustainability in Africa and to date we are very pleased with what we’ve achieved, and the awards we’ve received.”

The V&A Waterfront was recently awarded three prestigious energy efficiency accolades:  the Energy Efficiency Award for Commercial Buildings (November 2012), the eta Eskom Award for energy efficiency (November 2012) and the Heritage Gold Environmental Certification (December 2012).