São Paulo – The Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce has kicked off a sustainability campaign this Monday (13). The initiative will start with measures such as replacing plastic cups for porcelain cups and plastic stirrers for others made from reforested wood for the staff consumption. The campaign will be developed and shaped according to the staff’s suggestions.
“The world is concerned with sustainability and we can see the consequences of not caring about that. The more we look at sustainability and participate in this movement, the better,” Arab Brazilian Chamber president Rubens Hannun told ANBA, pointing out that there is a lot of actions and researches about this in the Arab countries.
In addition to change coffee implements, the Arab Brazilian Chamber will replace plastic cups for glasses for water consumption. Internal emails will show awareness messages to the staff about printing and conscious energy consumption, such as printing only the necessary material on both pages and turning off computers after the workday. A message about conscious printing will also be at the email signature of the employees.
Arab Brazilian Chamber Human Resources manager Fábia Buonafina (pictured above) presented the campaign to the staff on this Monday. According to her, sustainability is not only about environment but has also economic and social pillars. Fábia and Hannun pointed out that this fits the Arab Brazilian Chamber goals to connect Arabs and Brazilians in order to foster economic, social and cultural development.
Sustainability represents the world’s capacity to economically and socially develop, respecting nature and assuring the survival of next generations. The economic aspect is based on accounting transparence and corporate governance as well as other factors; the social one encompasses aspects such as work conditions, respect to human rights and citizen-oriented policies; and the environmental pillar includes the rational use of the water, wastage reduction, emissions reduction, respect to biodiversity, and others.
The campaign came from an idea of the CEO Tamer Mansour and other managers. The layout started to be done around two months ago in an interdepartamental way, involving the areas of Human Resources, Finance, Marketing, Processes, and Information Technology. “Sustainability awareness is an idea increasingly present in the new and old generations. It is part of the day to day, the family, educational and business environment,” says Buonafina.
Mansour says this sustainability venture is related to the process of innovation and modernization the Arab Brazilian Chamber is going through, which is changing the way managers and employees think. Around a year ago, the chamber started to formulate a forward-looking strategic plan assisted by the international consulting company Ernst & Young (EY). The sustainability project is an instance to show the team ideas, according to Mansour.
“It is a very important campaign for the people, the institution and the world,” he told ANBA, pointing out it made the staff think in something that does not involve only the job itself, but the day-to-day work and life. The entity has already adopted some measures for sustainability. This month, the Arab Brazilian Chamber won the prize Stand APAS Show by Popai 2019 in the category Best International Stand with a stand decorated with reforested wood and Arab inspirations.
The Arab countries have many ongoing sustainability projects. The UAE have an energy strategy to make clean sources account for 70% of its energy matrix by 2050. Last week, Egypt announced measures to encourage the use of electric cars, and the Saudis have a plan to make its capital Riyadh to have its green coverage to grow from 1.9% to 9% by 2030, which involves planting 7.5 million trees.
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
