Hilton Worldwide Team Members and franchisee employees around the world will unite to protect the planet by participating in the celebration of Earth Hour 2015.

Hilton Worldwide and its portfolio of 12 brands announced that for the fifth consecutive year, its Team Members and franchisee employees around the world will unite to protect the planet by participating in the celebration of Earth Hour 2015 through a number of innovative projects including:

Switching off of main building exterior lighting and rooftop neon signage

Dimming of interior lobby and reception lighting

Hosting candlelit dinners with low carbon menus and sustainable cocktails

Showcasing acoustic music sessions including classical music and jazz in the dark

Organizing candle making activities

Earth Hour will take place from 8:30p.m. to 9:30p.m. local time on Saturday, March 28, 2015, and hundreds of Hilton Worldwide's more than 4,300 global properties will once again be connecting with guests in demonstration of their commitment to living sustainably.

"Managing natural resources and energy use are key to Hilton Worldwide's overall long-term business strategy," said Maxime Verstraete, vice president of sustainability, Hilton Worldwide. "Celebrating Earth Hour around the world is one of the ways hotel teams work with guests to demonstrate how we conserve waste, water and energy every day,"

Participation in Earth Hour is part of Hilton Worldwide's commitment to Living Sustainably, one of the four pillars of the company's responsibility and sustainability strategy, Travel with Purpose. In January of 2015, Hilton Worldwide announced Meet with Purpose, a concept designed to make it easier for meeting professionals to reduce waste and incorporate sustainable practices into meetings and events.

In addition, the company achieved ISO 50001 certification in 2014 for energy management for its global portfolio through a major upgrade to LightStay, its proprietary measurement platform, which complements other global system-wide ISO certifications of ISO 9001 and 14001.

The original idea for Earth Hour was conceived by WWF in 2007 during a meeting held at Hilton Sydney, and Hilton Worldwide has a long history of supporting the event.

It's a way for individuals and businesses to show how simple steps can make a significant impact on addressing climate change. When this worldwide effort began in Sydney, Australia more than two million people turned off their lights for an hour and reduced the city's energy consumption by more than 10 percent.

t became a global movement in 2008 with more than 50 million people participating, and today has become the largest grassroots environmental movement in the world with more than 7,000 cities and towns in 162 countries and territories and hundreds of millions of people participating across seven continents. In 2014 alone hundreds of millions of people participated. This year's theme focuses on climate change, one of the biggest environmental challenges our planet faces today.