Majid Al Futtaim’s premier shopping mall, City Centre Bahrain, demonstrates increased efforts to build on its net positive carbon and water targets.
Rethinking its priorities to address its use of resources for a Net Positive impact has been the core focus of the Centre’s sustainability plans for the kingdom.
Investing in the best sustainable practices since the start of its operations in 2008, City Centre Bahrain has been working towards significantly reducing the company’s water consumption and carbon emissions to put more back into the environment than it takes out. This is in line with the kingdom’s commitment to cut emissions by 30 per cent by 2035.
Net Positive goal
The mall’s sustainability initiatives are part of Majid Al Futtaim’s overall community-centric sustainability strategy, tying into the company’s commitment to becoming Net Positive in carbon and water by 2040.
The Mall’s initiatives range from infrastructural to community-centric enhancements of mall’s assets. All efforts are being undertaken to improve the Mall’s overall energy efficiency and sustainability.
These include introducing a recycling programme by setting up 85 recycling bins at the mall to encourage environment-friendly behaviour among mall visitors, switching to 15,746 LED light bulbs, installing a Reverse Osmosis water plant system, and investing in solar panels to use sunlight as a source of energy to generate direct current electricity of 4.7 megawatts.
Through these initiatives, City Centre Bahrain resulted in reducing its energy consumption by 17 per cent and water consumption by 23 per cent. The mall has also improved its waste management by approximately 35 per cent.
Advancing sustainability initiatives
Duaij Al Rumaihi, mall director at City Centre Bahrain, said: “We continue to scale up our sustainability initiatives by exploring new opportunities and innovative solutions to make a Net Positive impact on the local community while playing a leadership role in accelerating action within the retail sector,” reports Zawya.
“Putting in place best practices and environmentally friendly behaviours allows us to collaborate with our retailers and partners to make significant strides in our sustainability drive while encouraging our mall visitors and the broader community to adopt an eco-conscious attitude.”
City Centre Bahrain has also been engaging its retailers and tenants to reduce energy, waste, and water use to make their daily operations ‘greener’ while offering sustainable products. This is based on the mall’s ‘Big Vote’ customer campaign that reveals City Centre Bahrain visitors support brands that engage in eco-friendly initiatives such as having vegan menus, upcycling fashion, using sustainable materials, and giving back to the community.
The mall continues to introduce initiatives that could be effective in influencing consumer behaviour and empowering them to make more sustainable choices.
