Yes, you heard it right. Majid Al Futtaim, the much-loved creator of ‘Great Moments for Everyone Everyday’ has announced its company-wide pledge to phase out single-use plastic by 2025. Starting one country at a time, the company will phase out single use plastic from its operations.
It’s a mammoth task for a multi-national organisation operating 26 malls, 13 hotels, 46 VOX Cinemas and more than 285 Carrefour stores across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Just last year, Majid Al Futtaim’s shopping malls welcomed 192 million visitors and it is estimated that if each one of those visitors took home just two Carrefour plastic bags, that would total more than two million kilogrammes of plastic waste.
It’s hard to change old habits, so the pledge will help customers reduce their use of plastic by removing freely distributed plastic items from Majid Al Futtaim’s supermarkets, cinemas and hotels.
On-shelf merchandise like garbage bags, detergent bottles and cleaning products will still be available for customers to purchase.
As part of the new pledge, Carrefour stores will take 500 million plastic grocery bags out of circulation each year – a huge step towards a plastic-free future.
Speaking at the launch of the pledge, Ibrahim Al Zu’bi, Chief Sustainability Officer, Majid Al Futtaim – Holding, said: “Our sustainability journey begins with our mission to deliver truly ‘Great Moments for Everyone Everyday’, and we simply can’t do that at the sake of the environment. For business to be sustainable, it must be in harmony with the planet. I believe we need to continue to push the sustainability agenda at a faster pace, and our customers are very much a part of that. We listen to them, and we want to make it easy for them to make smart choices to live a sustainable life – and hopefully to support brands that are making a real difference in the war on plastic.”
To help customers get started with their best plastic-free life, they are encouraged to sign up for Maijd Al Futtaim’s new lifestyle rewards programme, ‘SHARE’. Each re-usable bag bought between November 6th and 7th will be credited back in ‘SHARE’ points. Plans are also underway to introduce an initiative where customers who shop with their reusable bags will receive even greater ‘SHARE’ rewards. Sounds like the kind of eco-friendly deal everyone loves!
