The Dubai Airport Freezone has won the Best Environmental Initiative award in property management at the just concluded Kingdom Expansion Congress 2009 held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Organisers said the event was a huge success with over 350 participants attending from across the globe from various industry sectors. The opening ceremony incorporated a Gala Kingdom Expansion Awards function that honoured leaders in the public and private sector from the region.
Dubai Airport Freezone was honoured for “Ensuring the preservation of environmental sustainability in 2009” during a ceremony organized by the Arab Institute for Urban Development in Saudi Arabia, to celebrate the successful Arab projects and companies working in the fields of infrastructure, construction.
Engineer Adel Ghafan, Executive Director of Engineering Section, received the award on behalf of the Freezone. He was accompanied by Abdel-Hameed Al Marzouqi, the Director of Projects.
Engineer Ghafan said “This is one of the most important awards that encourage us to promote and apply the concepts of environmental sustainability in the property, facilities and services management.”
He also noted that building projects that meet sustainability criteria “Is mandatory to provide the best investment climates for the companies, especially global ones.” The environment, cleanliness and maintenance are the most important conditions on which companies depend when selecting their operation sites.
He added that this award is a welcome addition to the other awards received by the Freezone during the past years which consistently upheld high quality standards.
Other awards and citations received by the Dubai Airport Freezone in the past were the ISO Award,  FDI Magazine Award for the “Fastest economic free zone to attract companies,” and the MELA award for “Best Airport Free Zone in the Middle East”  for two consecutive years (2006 and 2007), among others.
He said that consistently winning awards year after year was due to the tireless efforts by the Department of Strategy and its “excellence in translating our commitment into best practices in environmental conservation and pollution prevention and others with respect to our facilities in the airport free zone.”
In his acceptance speech, Mr. Ghafan thanked the Saudi officials and the Arab authority for Urban Development for their unique initiative to promote private and public institutions to foster excellence in performance and implementation of projects.
Ibrahim Turki, the Executive Director of the Arab Institute for Urban Development, said "The main objective of celebrating private and public enterprises for their excellent performance is to promote a climate of success in economic activities and higher levels of performance, which is reflected positively on overall economic activity in our Arabic and Muslim countries."
The winners were chosen by an independent panel of judges selected from the Middle Eastern infrastructure development and academic sectors. The information provided by nominees in response to questions listed on the nomination form was used in the judgement process. Nominees were scored on the basis of a pre-set criterion.
“This has produced satisfactory results with a number of deserving Arab companies winning the awards; Bin Laden Group has won the award for the “Best  Developer of  Infrastructure,” while  Dallat Albaraka was awarded with the “The Best Company in the Private Sector award, and the Qatar Science Oasis was the winner of the award for “Best Achievement.”
The award for “Best Construction Firm,” was won by Arabtec and the Dubai Metro project was awarded the largest project in the region.

© 2009 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)