WWF Earth Hour Capital Challenge a huge success

On 27 March 2015 the Earth Hour Capital Challenge was held in the South African city of Tshwane and saw teams of people participate in a race to highlight carbon emissions.

The event was held to highlight the carbon emissions left behind by using private vehicles and to encourage the use of public transport. Students from the Tshwane University of Technology and partners took part in a race that had them use various forms of public transport to get them from start to finish while also undertaking a variety of challenges. Using the newly released FindMyWay app (available on a variety of operating systems) students calculated their carbon emissions while learning what forms of transport were more environmentally friendly (for more watch the youtube launch here).

The six teams rode busses, trains, taxis and even tuk-tuks in order to finish the race with the aptly named team ‘Panda’ coming in first. The race also came just days after the City of Tshwane was named South Africa’s Earth Hour Capital for 2015.

At the closing event Executive Mayor Councillor Kgosientso Ramokgopa pushed for a more integrated transport platform that would see a one-card system in the future, much like many found across Europe, and stressed the importance of initiatives like the new A Re Yeng rapid bus service. City of Tshwane Mayoral Spokesman Blessing Manale added “Reducing the City’s carbon footprint is heavily dependent on reducing our transport-related emissions and this event takes us one step closer to that goal.”

Download the official WWF South Africa press release here.