Doha: Qatar Cool held a ceremony to mark its support to the Ministry of Municipality and Environment's (MME) initiative ‘Plant a Million Trees’ by planting 300 trees in one of its district cooling plants in the West Bay area.
The Ministry launched the initiative in 2019 in line with Qatar’s international pledge and support of the Paris Agreement on reducing carbon emissions. The initiative aims to boost biodiversity, make use of treated water for irrigation, improve air quality, increase the green area, and reduce gas emissions.
Chief Operations and Services, Nahar Al Mutawah commented on the occasion: “District Cooling advances environmental sustainability by being more energy efficient, reducing CO2 emissions and utilising treated wastewater in its operations. With Qatar Cool’s environmental savings over the past 11 years, it was natural to support the Ministry in their initiative.
“To date, Qatar Cool has saved over 5 billion kWh of energy and reduced over 3 billion tonnes of CO2. To put this in perspective that is equivalent to removing over 570 thousand cars off the road or planting over 300 million trees. These figures show our operational contribution to the environment, whereas supporting local initiatives, as a Qatari Company, such as the Plant Million Tree allows us to further put our savings back into the country and have a tangible reminder of the sustainable achievements of district cooling. We were honoured to be a part of this initiative and thankful to the Ministry of Municipality and Environment, we look forward to further supporting the country and the Qatar National Vision 2030”.
The cooling plant is nestled amongst the Doha skyline in West Bay and boasts its own garden connecting the Thermal Energy Storage Tank and the main cooling plant building. The garden is amongst many environmental features of the cooling plant and makes it the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) plant in Qatar.
Qatar Cool’s CEO Yasser Al Jaidah said: “Qatar Cool are active in our efforts to further improve and advance sustainable operations in the district cooling industry. Furthermore, giving back to our community and supporting our country is paramount, we are a proud Qatari company and that reflects in everything we do, we will continue to make every effort to make Qatar a greener more sustainable environment”.