Dubai has always been a city of extremes, where on one hand the city not only spends in its exuberance of showing off what it is capable off on the other hand the pseudo slave rules or unjust labor laws drive the land as well. In all of their ambitions to make the city, a city for the future with the latest of technologies and biggest, tallest and largest they have indeed created an ecological disaster in the desert. UAE today has one of the largest carbon footprints on the planet as a country, and it’s not pretty.

Although the government is trying to encourage the usage of recycling, and other such concepts it will not drive in completely without the participation of companies. When companies and small businesses take charge is when the world can change. I remember working on a presentation a while back talking about ‘Green Business Practices’ that can make a difference to the world. Today’s post I will provide an opinion on two businesses in Dubai one consciously and one sub consciously help people work with green principles; and no I am not talking about all the green rating companies that are after your money.

Dubai Investments

My wife works here and as a great green initiative within the organization, they have educated their employees and also provided them with what is called a “Green Passport”. A green passport that has pages with tips and tricks that can be followed to reduce your carbon footprint as well as an incentive scheme to have the employees work towards greening their lives.

From providing a location of collection of plastic containers right through to giving points on how many cans and plastic they have segregated and collected, the green passport is an initiative that can help save Dubai in the long run. We have been segregating trash religiously and providing it back into Dubai Investments where they collect the same for recycling. The effort are showing a huge change in lifestyle choice, trying not to purchase non recyclable packaging as well as segregating them when done.

The largest impact is the number of people that are associated with this now, most of our friends that come home now notice this and are beginning to follow it as well, and we can proudly say we have played a small part in making this good initiative become what it can be. A big congratulations to the team at Dubai Investments who thought about it and implemented it.

The other reason why Dubai Investments is above the next company is the fact that one of their subsidiaries is actually a company that produces juices and milk called Marmum. Now I know most of you guys are already groaning and telling me growing something in the UAE is ecologically wrong anyway,The biggest advantage is the fact that nothing has to t ravel thousands of kilometers to reach UAE, since its made here it does not travel much making it more eco friendly option.

Dubizzle

No I don’t really know people working at Dubizzle nor do I know if they are running a similar scheme in their offices. I know a lot of people would be surprised to see Dubizzle listed here. But they are also reaching out to the masses and helping save the planet in the process. We all know that UAE and Dubai in particular is not a place particularly known for manufacturing, cultivation and agriculture. Partly it is because of the heat and partly its because of its history as a port city. So all goods that actually we see in the gigantic, gazillion malls in Dubai actually travels thousands of miles in the process using a lot of fuel to get here.

So regardless if you are buying a eco friendly product, the fact that it has gotten here means that its carbon footprint is already large. Enter Dubizzle. A local classifieds website that allows people to post their stuff that they are willing to give away, sell rent or sometimes even for free. What this means is that people do not need to buy new things all the time, due to which the carbon footprint of the existing products is reducing (as multiple owners enjoy the goodness of the products) unlike before when people would just trash things and buy new things all the time.

Yes there are people who still do that, but there are a large majority who shops for used things for the home like furniture, electronics etc reducing the carbon footprint of the country in the process. Best of all the service of posting ads and responding to them is completely free. With Dubizzle now expanding to other countries and cities their impact on the environment is larger and this is one thing I am happy to say, is negative footprint.

I am not sure if Dubizzle was started with this intention at all, but sub consciously they are playing a big part in reducing the carbon footprint of the city. And yes, like a lot of you out there, I have purchased stuff off of Dubizzle and it has I some small way reduced my carbon footprint compared to before Dubizzle. Of course Dubizzle is not the only one there are more, but this has to be the most notable.

Do you know of other organizations doing the same in Dubai ? If yes, please mention we can add to our list of green Dubai companies.