The Pearl Island has gained international recognition for its excellence in community services and sustainability practices

Doha – Qatar – 9 August 2023: United Development Company (UDC), the master developer of The Pearl Island and Gewan Island, has been announced winner of the Communitas Award 2023 - Community Services Excellence Award concurrently with winning the SEAL Environmental Initiatives Award 2023 for the second consecutive year. 

These awards recognize UDC's dedication to delivering an outstanding customer experience through sophisticated and intelligent methodologies inspired by global best practices in community services. Moreover, they highlight UDC's unwavering commitment to sustainability and the successful implementation of environmental initiatives.

Communitas Award

The Communitas Awards were established in 2010, in Dallas, USA. Communitas is a Latin word that means “people coming together for the good of a community". The award recognizes exceptional community service businesses, initiatives, community engagements, organizations, and individuals that generously give of themselves and their resources, and those that are changing how they do business to benefit their communities. 

UDC’s The Pearl Island Master Community was nominated and won the award following the careful evaluation of the judging panel that declared UDC as a winner, due to its all-encompassing role in serving the community through UDC’s official contact center on The Pearl Island “ITTISAL”.

ITTISAL offers challenging and diverse services for The Pearl Island community, co-owner association, residential tenants, visitors, IPTV, and limousine services, and hence the  award was granted for The Pearl Island ITTISAL services, in recognition of the last three years of development a progress that took customer experience to a new level; a progressive customer satisfaction score of more than 90% and where ITTISAL handled more than 228, calls (in bound and out bound) up to date in 2023.

UDC is a proud recipient of the Community Services Excellence Award that recognizes outstanding community service activities and initiatives, such as volunteerism, philanthropy, ethical, and sustainable business practices. 

The judging panel reviewed key projects constructed for The Pearl Island community such as community gardens and enhanced facilities including pet park, playgrounds, beach centrale, etc. The panel also considered UDC efforts to transform traditional work methods into automated ones and was impressed with the community complaints management and effective measurement, SLA and service contract management, customers' ability to reach out to a single point of contact and reaching resolutions in a timely manner.

Community services has deployed a strategic approach to addressing complaints, with a success rate of more than 95% while maintaining a customer effort score of 96%. This showcases how quick the community services department is at registering, following up and tracking complaints. Contact Regulation scored 88% in terms of resolutions made by community services. With UDC receiving this international award, UDC affirms its commitment and ability to provide premium, high-end customer-centric services, effective complaint handling and optimization.  

Additionally, the Communitas award recognizes The Pearl Island community services for the luxury level of service provided in terms of cleaning, maintenance, and waste management. It also recognizes behind the scenes operations to maintain the community at a high level. 

The award acknowledges the extensive quality measures and assessments implemented to achieve different customer satisfaction levels thus far. ITTISAL complies with ISO 10001: Quality management — Customer satisfaction, ISO 9001: Quality management systems, and COPC standards. The Pearl Island community is the first to receive ISO 22301 Business continuity and resilience certification from the British Standard Institution (BSI), which demonstrates the strict measures in place to ensure community services operate efficiently and with minimal disruption while controlling associated risk. 

It is worth noting that this year, UDC's ITTISAL received a silver Stevie Award for its outstanding customer service operations. This was at the 17th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. This achievement is a testament to UDC’s success in customer centricity through training and coaching techniques implemented to improve agent performance and quality, meeting customers' needs and expectations in the very competitive market it operates in.

SEAL Business Sustainability Award

This award is part of the SEAL Business Sustainability Awards which stand for sustainability, environmental achievement, and leadership; and recognizes organizations in four award categories: environmental initiative, sustainable innovation, sustainable product, and sustainable service. 

Once again, UDC demonstrates its commitment to sustainability and the success of its environmental initiatives, it was honored amongst 50 global companies with sustainable impact, making it a true leader in sustainability. 

Reduced Carbon Footprint

UDC was honored for its carbon emissions reduction efforts, activities, and sustainably driven projects at The Pearl Island, including its 5-year comprehensive strategy for carbon reduction, that covers the usage of waste management and recycling procedures, such as ENVAC, a smart waste disposal system, and the application of energy reservation and optimization measures. 

As a result, UDC's supply chain process saw great improvement where work efficiency has been enhanced and time needed for task completion has been reduced, due to the implementation of specific business process changes in an environmentally and sustainably conscious approach.

Moreover, this allowed UDC to maximize its lifecycle and address areas that require improvement. 

UDC who owns the largest cooling district plant in the world in The Pearl Island, operated by Qatar Cool, was able to save over 1.7 billion kWh in energy, and in turn clearing the air from over 950 million kg of CO2, and since 2010. 

It is also worth noting the UDC Tower, the company headquarters is GSAS Certified for maintaining the highest standards in terms of indoor air quality. 

Ecofriendly Transportation

Over the years, UDC directed its focus towards eco-friendly mobility, which is a key component of UDC’s environmental strategy, and with millions of vehicles passing through the Island's gateways per year producing all sorts of harmful carbon emissions, UDC was motivated to implement sustainably friendly initiatives and was able to replace 50% of its transportation vehicles to electric ones, including hybrid limousines. This allowed more than 5,000 passengers to be transported every month while maintaining very low CO2 emissions compared to 2022. 

Sustainable Materials Usage

UDC is driven by maintaining a sustainable society while promoting a circular economy that promotes recycling waste, preserving resources, and lowering CO2 emissions. As such, UDC uses sustainable construction materials that are recyclable and environmentally friendly. The recycling percentage saw a great rise from 23.4% since 2021 to 36.4% recycled waste to date. Recycled materials included plastics, paper/cardboard, aluminum cans, e-waste, and batteries. 

The environmental impact has been significant, because more than 36% of total recycled waste has resulted in saving 8,444 trees, 2,258,352 kWh of electricity, and 2,218 cbm of saved landfill space and 3.4 million gallons of water.
Additionally, a number of initiatives were introduced by UDC, such as a dedicated bin for disposing of used batteries in UDC offices and promoting the use of rechargeable and recyclable batteries. UDC’s staff has been encouraged to take non-functional technical gadgets such as a mouse, keyboard, cables, to the IT department for proper disposal and recycling. These initiatives demonstrate UDC's commitment towards promoting environmental sustainability. 

Seabin Project

A unique initiative led by UDC, was the Seabin Project, that was launched in 2021. In this project, UDC placed ten seabins in Porto Arabia marina, to collect all types of sea pollutants, and plastics, including micro-plastics that are harmful to the marine life. Since inception, a total 1,305 cbm of waste was collected from the sea.

This project represents the value that UDC places on the marine ecosystem, and the wellbeing of marine species. UDC is the only real estate company in Qatar to develop such a unique project with an innovative vision, and with that UDC aims to expand this project further by providing 10 additional seabins in several locations across The Pearl Island by end of 2023 in Porto Arabia.

Tree Planting Initiative

In collaboration with the green organization, UDC launched a unique initiative last year, as a part of its of carbon emissions reduction plan. This initiative is planting a tree for new employees joining the company, and successively for every five years they spend at UDC. 

In total, 686 trees have been planted to date, and each new employee received a certificate stating the joining date, and tree planted. Currently, The Pearl Island has about 8,500 trees that compensate more than 210 tons of CO2.

Indeed, the tree planting initiative is a unique approach in reducing carbon dioxide from the air and replacing it with oxygen, trees support the carbon reduction efforts, preserving natural resources, and promoting climate change. 

There is no doubt that green spaces are crucial to UDC's carbon reduction efforts, as well as the nation's mission in combating climate change, and supporting the Ministry of Municipality efforts means increasing the total number of integrated parks. In doing so, UDC has increased its park and green spaces from just 5 parks in 2020, to 9 parks in 2022. 

UDC’s range of green spaces allow visitors and residents to enjoy clean air quality, and engage in a healthy lifestyle, with the dedicated routes for walking, jogging, and cycling, such as The Pearl Island Community Garden launched during Qatar Sustainability Week 2022, Duck Lake, and more.