Savola shares its successful drive 'Negaderha' at the 5th Arab meeting

02/01/2018 07:52 AST

FOLLOWING the success of its drive "Negaderha", Savola group presented its first of kind initiative at 5th Arab Roundtable Meeting on Sustainable Consumption and Productions which was organized recently in Cairo by UN Environment in collaboration with the League of Arab States, UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia and the Centre for Environment and Development in the Arab Region and Europe.

The objective of the 5th Roundtable was to focus on implementing Sustainable Consumption and Production at the national level "From Action Plans to Implementation", and to discuss progress made by countries in their quest towards meeting their national targets under Sustainable Development Goals.

During one of the main sessions held at the meeting, Savola's case was presented by Tarik Ismail, Executive Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability and Secretary of the Board of Directors at Savola who introduced "Negaderha" program - a sustainability program aimed to reduce and manage food waste in KSA, in partnerships with national and international organizations.

Tarik said: "The idea of the program is targeting households and families of all parts of the community in addition to business owners from the restaurants, hotels and cafés sector to reduce food waste."

He noted in his presentation that Savola had provided a million containers to store food leftovers in collaboration with many interested parties, in addition to raising awareness and educating the community to participate in the reduction of food waste and development of the relationship between public and private sectors on one hand and society in the other hand to participate in supporting this cause and mitigating the factors behind excessive food waste to reach solid and sustainable solutions for this cause.

He revealed that about 8 million meals are wasted daily in Saudi Arabia, with its value estimated at SR70 million and that 90% of Saudi Arabia houses are disposing remaining meals in waste.

He also said that partnership between Savola and UNEP aims to reach the maximum effect in KSA where Savola got technical assistance to provide the methodology, ideas and models related to food preservation and food waste management and a manual for business owners to reduce excessive food waste and how to manage it from a legal, social, health and ethical perspective.

Saudi Gazette