Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) organised the 9th Annual Conference for Best Practices in the fields of Quality, Health, Safety, and Environment at Grand Hyatt Hotel. HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of DEWA inaugurated the conference, which is considered a leading conference for best practices, identifying current challenges, consolidating local and international efforts to address them, and reviewing the experiences of leading and innovative partner companies in smart, innovative, quality, health, safety and environmental solutions through day-to-day dialogues and workshops.
The conference was attended by HE Ahmed Buti Al Muhairbi, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Energy, senior officials from the public and private sectors, EVP’s, VP’s from DEWA, as well as local and international specialists in the field of quality, health, safety and the environment.
“With great pleasure, I welcome you to the 9th Annual Conference for Best Practices in the fields of Quality, Health, Safety, and Environment, which has been organised by DEWA, for the past nine years, in line with the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and with the National Agenda and UAE Vision 2021, aiming to make UAE one of the best countries in the world. As His Highness once observed, ‘The National Agenda 2021 sums up government work and shortens the goals which we set to make our people happy. We will focus on these objectives as a priority and a goal of the government work’. Our work focuses on the concept of ‘sustainable environment and integrated infrastructure’ which guarantees the achievement of 11 of the National Agenda indicators by 2021, by ensuring the continuity of sustained development, environment protection and achieving a balance between economic and social development. This will be done by achieving targets related to the quality of air, reserving water resources, increasing reliance on clean energy and applying green development, in addition to enhancing the quality of electricity and communications supply for the country to be at the forefront of states regarding smart services, along with focusing on the quality of life for citizens and residents,” said Al Tayer.
“To achieve the Dubai Plan 2021, which aims for Dubai to become a smart city with clean, healthy, and sustainable environmental elements, we at DEWA apply the highest standards and best global practices in the fields of quality, health, and safety. This comes as part of the integrated management systems policy, through which we are committed to the effective application in our systems for electricity and water production, transportation and distribution, according to the highest standards of availability, reliability, quality and safety to achieve happiness for our customers, partners, employees, and protect the environment and our natural resources. The Management Systems Policy includes complying with all legislative requirements related to raising awareness and preventing injuries, diseases and accidents, and managing natural resources in ways that ensure its sustainability; and managing waste disposal, contributing to reducing and recycling waste. We constantly take into consideration the requirements of quality, health, safety and environment in designing, construction, operation and maintenance work, and planning, controlling, monitoring, and measuring the performance of quality, health, safety, and environment systems,” added Al Tayer.
“We have accomplished great achievements through full compliance to health and safety requirements which exceeded 98%, and is considered one of the best rates globally in this field. We obtained these outstanding results in the environmental field, due to our full compliance with international environmental laws, using the best and latest technologies and environmental practices concerning air emissions, solid and liquid waste and integrated marine and land protection to reduce our environmental violations to zero, by deploying the latest environmentally friendly technology methods, planning and executing the sustainable environmental strategic objectives, and monitoring environmental strategic and action plans and sustainability programmes, for continuous improvement,” noted Al Tayer.
“We are committed to providing a healthy, safe, and happy work environment for all employees, partners and customers, through adopting best practices, and the effective and successful application of quality standards, and promoting quality policy among all concerned parties. We also check its effectiveness, since we are keen to keep all employees, partners and customers aware of the latest management systems for quality, health, safety and environment. This contributes to avoiding any possible risks, as well as avoiding injuries and occupational diseases, and reducing working hours loss, thus improving corporate efficiency, enhancing job satisfaction, and increasing productivity,” added Al Tayer.
“Our efforts culminated in a global recognition of our leadership and distinction. In 2016, DEWA was awarded the Sword of Honour for Health and Safety for the 10th time. The British Safety Council declared that we are the only organisation worldwide to win two awards: Globe of Honour Awards for the environment and the Sword of Honour for health and safety, for five consecutive years, to be the first international organisation to win the two prestigious awards at the same time. Our persistence to achieve the objectives of our sustainability strategy had a primary role in winning these awards for consecutive years, making us the first in the GCC to receive this international recognition. Winning the Globe of Honour Awards for the environment makes us the first in the MENA region and among only 7 countries worldwide to win both awards for six consecutive years, from 2011 to the current year,” continued Al Tayer.
“We look forward for this conference to be a good opportunity for us to share knowledge, experiences, best practices, and discuss opportunities for improvement for what is best for our society, as well as protecting the environment and sustaining natural resources, how to mitigate risks, and providing a safe and healthy environment for all our employees and society which is everybody’s responsibility to ensure a bright future for generations to come,” concluded Al Tayer.
The conference included several sessions, including Jamil Qureshi’s ‘Fit for all Purpose’, followed by ‘Climate change phenomena and mitigation measures; what can we do?’ by Dr. Bassam Mrayyan.
The conference also included a Youth Panel entitled ‘For Generations to Come’, followed by another one entitled ‘Excellence Speech’ by Israa’ Al Mubaydin, and a session about climate change in Tanzania. The conference ended with a summary and recommendations.