COMMUNITY
The meaning of Corporate Social Responsibility
DUBAI REAL TIMES
V
36
ictory Heights, the luxury golfing residential development in Dubai Sports City, held a special community tree planting initiative to celebrate World Environment Day and Children’s Day which saw young participants plant trees and plants in different parts of the development, highlighting the importance of responsibly maintaining the environment. The children also enjoyed a number of games and competitions in Estella Park set in Victory Heights. Victory Heights has fast become popular for the way its luxury villas are taking shape among the beautiful landscape, walkways and the world-class designed golf course. Luxury villas and townhouses here come in a choice of classical European, Spanish Andalusian, and Mediterranean architectural styles, with custom finishes and a variety of options. Offering peace of mind, Victory Heights has appointed Bureau Veritas, a highly respected international firm, to provide a quality accreditation monitoring service from design to delivery. The record-breaking industrial machinery auction conducted by Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers in Dubai recently had an unusual beneficiary: Foresight, a Dubai-based organisation that raises funds to help find a cure for blindness caused by hereditary eye disease and also helps improve the lives of people with visual impairment. Southwest Middle East LLC donated the full proceeds from the sale of an unused Cat skid steer loader at the auction to Foresight. An on-site bidder from the
UAE purchased the skid steer loader for US$30,000. "I'm genuinely lost for words; this has been beyond what we would normally expect," said Sally Prosser, PR Manager at Foresight. "From the moment we heard the good news right through until the excitement of the auction, this was a unique and wonderful experience. We try to fund one research project per year and this will certainly allow us to achieve this year's objective. In addition, financial resources are always required to assist with our ongoing work in the community, assisting those who have lost their sight. Mobility training would be a prime example of this." In addition to the charity skid steer loader, the company sold al-
Mohammed Binbrek, Group CEO, Dubai Properties Group
most 2,300 heavy equipment items and trucks for more than 220 sellers, generating almost $46 million in gross auction proceeds. There are 73 unreserved Ritchie Bros. auctions on the calendar at http://www.
rbauction.com, including the next one at its Dubai site on August 10 to 12, 2009. Dubai Properties Group (DPG) has announced the release of its inaugural Corporate Responsibility Report, the first by a real estate company in the Middle East to be endorsed by the Amsterdam-based Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). It considers it not only a matter of philanthropy, but an ethical obligation to reduce the negative impact the company's operations might potentially have on the environment and increase the positive influence on the market, communities and people. Under the Society segment, nearly 150 Dubai Properties Group employees volunteered to donate blood while the group itself spent over Dh7million in employee medical insurance during the year. Under Environment, employees recycled over 28 tonnes of office waste, while DPG deployed environmental friendly substances (such as Inergen) for fire extinguishing sys-
tems, and utilised Green Building programmes in three major sites, one of which will comprise 73 per cent green space. Under the Marketplace category, DPG established 'Accountability' as one of its Brand Values, trained over 22 per cent of its employees on brokerage laws and conducted 36 inspections and audits to suppliers. In the People segment, DPG achieved zero fatal accidents for employees, conducted an appraisal process for 100 per cent of its staff, trained over 834 of them and received 495 suggestions from employees, of which nearly 10 per cent dealt with CR issues. DLA Piper's commitment to sustainability in the region was recognised at an award ceremony, where the leading international legal practice was given the Sustainable Initiative Award for its efforts to reduce its carbon footprint across each of its offices in the Middle East. The company has a global commitment to sustainability across all its offices which includes programmes designed to reduce business travel and offset emissions, purchase items manufactured from sustainable sources; and recycle plastic, paper, glass and cartridges. In addition, DLA Piper is the first international legal practice to achieve certification in the globally recognised environmental standard ISO 14001 across all its offices worldwide. The Sustainable Initiative Award win follows a week-long internal campaign – EnergySMART – to reduce energy output in all regional offices at DLA Piper. The campaign concluded in early May.