About
Wataniya launched its service in the Maldives on 1 August 2005. The company provides a wide range of leadingedge wireless voice and data services, delivered with high quality, designed to cater to the demands of today’s discerning customer. Wataniya is a brand of Wataniya Telecom Maldives Pvt Ltd, which is a subsidiary of Qatar Telecom.
Wataniya Green Initiative
The program is an initiative by Wataniya Telecom Maldives to be a more environment friendly company and also to be the first local company to take the initiative to contribute towards the country being a carbon neutral country by 2020.
Strategy
a. Reducing emissions as much as possible
The first and most important step is to reduce our emissions as much as possible - for example, by switching off the lights when not in use, driving less, taking vacations closer to home so you don't need to fly as much, etc.
b. Choose which remaining emissions we wish to offset.
For example, we might want to start with just the electricity consumption of the company. Or we may choose to offset all of our major sources of emissions, like air travel, driving, among others.
c. Calculate our emissions.
To do this, we will choose an appropriate online carbon calculator for each of the emissions.
d. Purchase the necessary offsets There are many vendors online that sell offsets and these will be considered at a later stage.
e. Review our strategy annually
Even though we begin with the reduction of emissions from one source; gradually we will approach towards reducing emissions from more sources in order to achieve the level of being a carbon neutral company.
Waste Management
Clean up
A clean up day will be held by the staff of Wataniya once every month or at a predetermined schedule where they will clean up a certain part of Hulhumale’ (Hulhumale’ is the island which Wataniya Telecom Maldives head office is based)
Biodegradable Material and Recycling
There must be a strategy towards preferring biodegradable material and towards recycling those materials in a proper systematic way.
Current achievements can include usage of biodegradable material for recharge cards which has the widest range of circulation and which is easily discarded by the user as well. Electronic Recharge will be recommended as the environment friendly option.
All printed bills and other materials can be on biodegradable or recycled paper. And it will be advised to customers to opt for electronic version of the bill in order to save paper, etc.
Energy Management
Environment Friendly Tower Stations
The tower stations across the country will join the effort to be environment friendly. The best and most preferred option would be for the tower stations to be solar powered and use traditional electricity only as a backup in times of emergency. However this concept must be worked out whether if it’s technically possible. A local party about a year back developed wind turbines which generated electricity for lights at a outdoor cricket pitch; an installation of such a wind turbine at the top of the tower can also be used to generate the required electricity for the tower’s equipment.
Societal Contribution
Eco-Friendly Solutions for Islands
The company will work with a local party towards providing eco friendly solutions for some islands. There are still some islands in the country that has shortage of electricity or water solutions. In such small communities, Wataniya can invest towards wind turbines or any other eco friendly solution which will make a big difference to their lives.
Environment Friendly Products
Proper Expertise
With the help of the UNEP, Climate Neutral Network or any other third party consultant proper expert advice must be sought on how the company can further make its operations more environment friendly and carbon neutral. Huawei which has previously assisted Wataniya in certain projects have been known to have a vision of “making green telecom real” and their assistance could play a pivotal role.
Public Relations
The logo of this initiative will be placed in all or most of the marketing communications. A special website or a special portal will be developed for this initiative that details out what we do. We will be transparent about the activities and when we are going to be carbon neutral, etc. This portal can serve as information tool for other students, companies and stakeholders to know more about carbon neutral concept, our effort, etc and what we they themselves can do individually to contribute towards reducing carbon emissions.