Young entrepreneur Alex Tan led his restaurant in responding to Earth Hour’s global switch off campaign and even gave the income earned during the hour for charity. (Photo by Lim Chee Wah)
Besides having its lights switched off from 8.30pm to 9:30pm to mark Earth Hour 2012, the organic vegan burger fast food restaurant who has gained much popularity since its inception in 2010 also urged its customers to “come with your own eco-friendly light-source... bring down lanterns, flashlights, fireflies in a jar – whatever you can rustle up” to spark up the scene.
The restaurant founder, Alex Tan, continued to infuse the environmental event with a charitable cause by donating the income earned during the hour to Tzu Chi Singapore and the Singapore Red Cross Society. This was his second time combining charity with environmental protection in the Earth Hour activity.
Mr Tan became a vegetarian in 1998 at a young age of 25 when the plant-based diet helped improve his stomach bloatedness, thanks to a friend’s suggestion after he tried visiting all sorts of doctors. Realizing that his overall health was improving with the diet change, he began reading and researching more into vegetarianism and his diet naturally became vegan by choice.
He conceptualized VeganBurg in February 2010 and launched the restaurant in October that same year hoping to introduce a fresh atmosphere to the local vegetarian scene. VeganBurg’s hip and trendy branding has proved to be successful with the young as many youths can be seen patronizing its outlet.
After the lights were out on 31 March evening, many customers came in one after another – majority of them were young people.
Mayank, who came to support the event together with his friend, was among the crowd. The vegetarian since young penned a comment and pinned it on the message board. It reads, “Go Vegetarian! Save the Earth! One hour, one day, one month at a time. Saving your HOME PLANET starts with YOU.”
His friend Ms Lim, who is trying to veer toward vegetarianism, shared what she thinks: “Earth Hour should extend to become Earth Day or even longer. Most importantly is everyone should start contributing to our planet consciously.”
Christine Crawford, WWF-Northern Ireland Communications Manager said during Northern Ireland’s official signing up for Earth Hour on 27 February 2012, “Earth Hour is not just about saving an hour’s electricity; it’s much bigger than that. It’s about realizing that the actions we take, from the energy we use, to the food we buy and water we drink, has an effect on the world.”
Indeed, only when environmental awareness is rooted deeply in people’s mind and everyone starts turning it into action can we truly expand the scope and efficiency of our global energy saving and environmental protection efforts.
Customers have come to dine in during the lights out period, mostly to support Earth Hour. (Photo by Lim Chee Wah)
Cashiers taking orders for customers against the faint light. (Photo by Lim Chee Wah)
Mayank and his friend Ms Lim poses for picture with our Tzu Chi collegiate member, Lim Yu Jing. (Photo by Lim Chee Wah)
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