MANAMA:  Three Kuwaiti organizations have won the GCC Corporate Social Responsibility awards 2024 in recognition of their remarkable contributions to the development of their societies and the implementation of the national sustainable development goals.

The Kuwaiti winners are EPSCO Global company, the Soroptimist Kuwait and the Gulf Bank. The awards were presented to the representatives of the winners by Bahraini Minister of Social Development Osama bin Ahmed Khalaf Al Asfoor in a ceremony held in Manama on the sidelines of the 2nd Gulf Cooperation Council International Corporate Social Responsibility Conference and Award 2024.

EPSCO Global for General Trading Company won the award for its game-changer project to recycle millions of unwanted used car tires, meanwhile the Soroptimist Kuwait and the Gulf Bank were honored for their role in empowering women. In statements to KUNA after receiving the award, CEO of the EPSCO Global Eng.

Alaa Hassan pointed out that her company won the award for its role in recycling used tires in order to solve the problem of tire accumulation on an area of approximately one million square metres. In a less than seven months the company has managed to transport 14 million tires to AlSalmi recycling plant, she clarified.

 Hassan vowed that the company will transport the remaining 40 million tires to the plant to be recycled and utilized instead of occupying lands designated for establishing a residential area and to put an end to the repeated fires that erupt in the tires and emit smokes harmful to health and the environment. She explained that this project contributed to the manufacture and transformation of solid waste into profitable and valuable raw materials that are used in efficient production lines to produce rubber tiles, planting pots and car plastic parts.

She added that the products of the recycling plant are exported to Gulf and Asian countries. She pointed out that it recycles from 1.5 million to three million tires annually. For her part, the President of the Soroptimist Kuwait for Dr. Zainab Al-Musailikh expressed her pride in receiving two awards during the event.

Al-Musailikh thanked the organizing and judging committees for appreciating the efforts of her organization in empowering Kuwaiti and Gulf women academically, health-wise, economically and environmentally by activating sustainability programs in addition to ending violence against women and girls. Deputy head of the Human Resources Department at the Gulf Bank Nada Razoogi expressed jubilation at the bank receiving the award of the best GCC organization in sustainable development in the workplace.

 She pointed out that the award is a new certificate of appreciation for the role of the bank in consolidating the principles of sustainability. Razooqi noted that the bank has succeeded over the past ten years in increasing females share in leadership positions from 10 percent to 30 percent while raising their percentage in the Bank staff to 42 percent. She pointed out that Gulf Bank is committed to complete equality between employees of both sexes in terms of job benefits and signed the United Nations principles for empowering women. (end) kna.ibi