EMAL celebrates World Environment Day

Aligned with the theme of the World Environment Day (WED), Emirates Aluminium (EMAL) launched an awareness campaign for its employees demonstrating the impact of food waste on the global environment. The campaign included; environmental presentations, individual and group discussions, as well as educationalliterature on display. As a demonstration of the strong culture of environmental awareness at EMAL, the campaign received overwhelming support by employees from all departments.

World Environment Day is the most notable global day for environmental awareness. This year’s theme, ‘Think.Eat.Save’, focused on food waste. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) about 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted every year. The impact of such waste does not only affect world hunger, but the resources (such as land-use, energy and water) needed to produce food in turn has a detrimental impact due to increased pollution and greenhouse gases.

Commenting on this year’s theme, EMAL President and CEO Mr Saeed Fadhel Al Mazrooei said: “The Think.Eat.Save theme for this year’s World Environment Day was an ideal opportunity to increase awareness of the links between every day actions and the sustainable future that is vital for our world. Encouraging people to think before they act, is something we ask all our employees to do, and it is equally important that it happens both at work and home. The enormous participation among EMAL employees once again demonstrated the strong culture of care for the environment that exists at EMAL.”

WED is just one of the activities EMAL participates in to raise awareness and create a culture that is focussed on preserving the environment. As part of its strategyto minimize environmental impact, EMAL asks every employee to ‘Think before you act’ in everything they do and this is something that not only protects the global environment and resources, but is having a positive business impact.

In 2013 EMAL has seen a 34 per cent increase in the material it recycles from the previous year. Commenting on this achievement, Al Mazrooei,said: “Protection of the environment is one of our core values at EMAL, which we have been committed to since the project’s inception. Reducing waste is a central feature of our environmental strategy and by investing in the best available technology and instilling a culture of awareness among the workforce, EMAL managed to increase its recycling rate to 78 per cent this year: something all EMAL employees can be truly proud of.”

EMAL’s waste management strategy is based around 5 principles: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, Recover and Responsibly dispose. Waste is diverted from landfill by either being sold or recycled offsite. As a result only 14 per cent of waste at EMAL is sent to landfill.