Being a company based in Dubai, Riet says the company was well aware of the importance of ensuring sustainability in terms of meeting HVAC operations. “When you talk about water treatment, it is important to ask, what is the conversion rate of the water, which is the water you get, compared to the water that ends up in the bottle?” he asks. “You will always have wastewater. What do you do with that wastewater? On site, we use our own water treatment plant; the water we don’t use, we use for our cooling towers.” For cooling towers, Riet says, the factory uses polished, RO-treated treated sewage effluent (TSE), and that 60 cubic metres of TSE is fed into the cooling towers on a daily basis.

At the end of the day, Riet says, sustainability comes in many flavours, adding that it’s about all stakeholders having a constant consciousness towards the environment, even it means paying a premium, be it for the shareholders to invest in solar, or for consumers to pay for a recyclable bottle. “I think the real and fundamental challenge one is looking at is your expectations on the time,” he says. “The trick with solar, and many other [forms of renewable energy] is you do the capital investment upfront and, ‘energy is free’. It’s not always that way, but in large part it’s the case. Mai Dubai, while it is a limited liability company, the shareholders are part of Dubai Energy and Water Authority (DEWA). Since DEWA is a shareholder, and they run solar plants and are familiar with energy, they were keen for pushing for this initiative. That’s why we have been doing this, and they were supportive. DEWA has a long-term view in mind and the best for environmental aspects – that’s the driver behind it.” Riet says that in view of this, the design input of Etihad ESCO, a sister company and subsidiary of DEWA and a consultant company, was invaluable. “They,” he says, “do the economics and study and help with the execution of the programme, and that’s how we got what we have, and it was delivered within the budget set.”