Raji Hattar

Chief Sustainability and Compliance Officer, Aramex

HOW ARE YOU CREATING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR THE REGION?

Creating a sustainable future has been part of our DNA since the beginning of Aramex’s journey and it is a strategic enabler to our success and livelihood as corporate citizens. We work closely with our operations and different business units to realise a sustainability culture. For 40 years we have led the conversation on sustainability in the region, publishing the first annual sustainability report in 2006.

We created over 16,000 jobs with around 55% in the MENAT and GCC region with focus on hiring local employees. We also believe that women greatly contribute to a more sustainable world and we support women at Aramex through our policies to grow and provide a supportive working environment. In 2021 the rate of return of new mothers following maternity leave was 84% and 28% of new hires were women. We even chose to add the female Arabic language to our corporate website to help women feel more empowered.

Our key pillars under “Delivering Good” in pursuit of a sustainable future are; Environmental Stewardship and Climate Change Mitigation, Education and Youth Empowerment and Entrepreneurship.

We are committed to decarbonisation and create innovative solutions to reduce our negative environmental impact and combat climate change by adding new technologies; LEV, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles in Egypt, electric vehicles in Jordan and Dubai, electric forklifts in warehouses and using renewable energy through with solar farms in Jordan and Dubai. And currently working on two solar farms in both Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Taking an all-rounded view of our business, we have added a socially responsible procurement policy that addresses sustainability with the suppliers across our value chain. In 2021, 85% of our spending was based on embedding sustainability for the local suppliers in all our global operations.

Startups and small and medium enterprises

(SMEs) are the drivers of a sustainable future and we support them with special commercial rates for growth, mentorship and sustainable strategies. We’ve supported over 35,000 SMEs across the globe.

We also stay on top of international best practices, trends and future guidelines adopting the United Nations Global Compact, Sustainable Development Goals and Carbon Disclosure Project so that our work is in line with the ambitious agendas of the UAE Vision 2021, 2030, 2050 and 2071 and Saudi Vision 2030 targets. This is possible through our sustainability strategy and shift towards renewable energy and carbon footprint reduction efforts.

In 2016, we set the goal of 20% reduction emissions per shipment by 2020, a goal we have now surpassed it thanks to substantial investments in renewable energy, electric vehicles, Energy efficiency and awareness building on energy use. To that effect, since our baseline year 2012, we achieved 60% emission reduction.

Currently we are working on the Science based targets initiative to be able to cut an- other 42% (baseline 2020) of the emissions by 2030 from Scope 1 and 2 and 25% from Scope 3. We remain ahead of the curve where we set ambitious goals to achieve Zero Carbon Emissions by 2040 ahead Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI) goal of 2050.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU FACE?

The biggest challenge we face in the logistics sector is the technology available in our countries of operations. Despite green and sustainable technology becoming more scalable with solutions for energy efficiency, recycling and renewable resource, these are not always easily accessible in some countries where we operate due to regulatory restrictions.

The regulatory ecosystem will either provide an enabling environment that will grow the green economy and facilitate meeting sustainability targets, or they will hinder efforts that mirror international demands. That is why we are always researching and exploring solutions with different stakeholders and the wider community to maximise our future sustainability agenda.

HOW ARE YOU OVERCOMING SAID CHALLENGES?

We work hard to be a key player in capital markets and team up with regulatory bodies, governments, start-ups and NGOs. We also partner with like-minded businesses to promote sustainable practices and raise awareness through education, which helps us pool great support to face sustainable challenges head on. You need to add real examples here of those companies/ NGOs. I’ve added one below on W3W.

We also partner with the local regulatory bodies in our areas of operations to create a more enabling regulatory infrastructure to support the move to a greener future.

We recently teamed up with What3Words to simplify addresses and shorten delivery times. The technology divides the world into 3-metre squares and turns any address into three unique words, making it the easiest way to find and share exact locations.