Al Jimi Mall shows support to UAE’s environment campaigns

February 23 - March 07, 2008
Issue 43
www.alaintimesuae.com


A leading shopping centre in Al Ain has proven that it is not only a leisure and entertainment destination but an educational and environment-friendly mall as well.

Through their No Smoking policy in their food court, the Al Jimi Mall has encouraged their customers to care for and protect their environment. There are still smoking areas within the mall but advertisements on the disadvantages of smoking were also displayed in the digital televisions the Al Jimi Mall has on their vicinity.

“Surprisingly, we did not suffer on the business side. Most of our food outlets actually noticed an increase of sales because more families started to come to us and enjoy the food court experience in a smoke-free zone,” revealed Konrad Kolankiewicz, Retail Marketing Manager of the Property and Management Division of ALDAR Properties, which is the owner of Al Jimi Mall.

A programme designed to teach the young and adults alike on energy and water conservation was also conducted in July last year. “The ultimate goal of the Eco Club is to create an activity for the children as well as for the parents that relate to environmental issues. Within this project, children can learn to recycle different products, which they would normally just throw away, while the older residents were given the chance to see The Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore and Planet Earth by BBC through the Eco Club Cinema… Somehow, environment seems to be a boring subject, so we will try to present it in an interactive way when we carried out the Eco Club again this summer,” Kolankiewicz said.

“The Al Jimi Mall and ALDAR Properties are taking environmental issues seriously. We apply certain policies and procedures in our operations that are environment-friendly, and that is what we do as an entire company.”

More and more awareness

Although it is the customers of the Al Jimi Mall who have suggested the centre’s No Smoking policy, it would still depend on them whether the environmental campaign would be successful. “Al Jimi Mall will remain to be in the environmental path. We would come up with project and activities to promote an environmental lifestyle, and stay open and willing to the recycling companies and environmental organizations that wanted to coordinate with us and employ the mall’s facilities.”

“But then, everything would still depend on one’s maturity. We might bring the best campaign or the best concept, but in the end, it is up to you and me and thousands of other customers if they are going to protect the environment... They have to have that sense of maturity that the environment is something we all have to share, and therefore, something we all have to protect,” Kolankiewicz added.