Limitless possibilities

Many small practices result in a big change. How about multiple big practices? What result would that bring? Gulf News Wipe out Waste (WoW) campaign looks at different companies, both local and international, that try their best to reduce the amount of waste produced in terms of electricity, water and money. Find out how these organisations changed their processes to become environmentally friendly and reduce their carbon footprint.

To wipe out waste, sometimes you need to go back to the original R – that is reduce, reuse and recycle.

Limitless, a real estate master developer based in Dubai, has made environment protection one of its main agendas since its establishment in 2005.

One of the major initiatives that Limitless has successfully implemented was making plastic bottles a thing of the past.

The company has cut out the use of plastic bottles at its offices where staff used to consume 300,000 half-litre bottles of water every year.

This would have essentially saved around 95,000 litres of oil needed to make the bottles, as per manufacturing statistics.

Mugs for all

Instead, Limitless provided every one of its 400 staff members with their own reusable mugs, eliminating the need for plastic or paper cups in the office.

Limitless CEO Saeed Ahmad Saeed said: "We want to embed environmental awareness into the Limitless culture by encouraging staff to think green in all they do — not just at the workplace, but at home, too."

The other initiative that Limitless is working to accomplish is saving one tree a day — reducing use of 8,000 sheets of paper.

It is becoming more common to perform internal procedures through intranet to minimise use of paper.

However, if there is a need to print, the staff's computers have been configured to automatically print on both sides of the paper.

Mohammad Iqbal, a marketing assistant in the company, went the extra mile and collected abandoned letterheads to make new notebooks for employees.

Iqbal turned 8,000 old sheets of paper into nearly 100 notebooks.

He said: "I wanted to do my bit to help the environment, so I decided to take something old and create something new and useful."

Notebooks from waste

Iqbal felt that it was a waste to see all the sheets of usable paper being thrown away and so he decided to change its appearance into something that the company can make use of.

Another 'green' initiative Limitless is working on is planting trees at their building complex in Downtown Jebel Ali.

Saeed said: "Our life-enhancing developments are designed around people, because we believe that they, not buildings, matter most when it comes to responsible development. That is why sustainability is at the core of all our developments."

A total of 200 trees are being planted to provide more shade and a cooler atmosphere for people in the area.

Limitless has also been involved in local eco-friendly drives such as May's Emirates Environmental Group Can Collection Drive, where more than 600 aluminium cans were collected in one week.

Have your say
Does the company you work for practice ways to wipe out waste? What do you do to save resources in the workplace? Tell us at readers@gulfnews.com or fill in the comments form below.

Hi sopho, that is an interesting article
Sophie Shellim
Dubai,UAE
Posted: August 23, 2009, 10:58