Sofia Laknit
Al Akhawayn University
Mary Grace Neville
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Ménara Holding is a Moroccan company active in many important sectors in Morocco: transport, building and civil engineering, urbanism, energies, automobile, real estate, and others. It is considered as one of the few Morocco companies that innovate for the preservation and protection of the environment. They want to produce more, and pollute less. Indeed, they believe in the "zero waste " concept in all of their domains. They invest in sustainable social and environmental development.
“With you, we build the future” is the mission statement of this Moroccan Holding group that saw itself growing really fast lately in a lot of sectors. Indeed, thanks to a continuous development of organization, innovation, R&D and investments, Ménara Holding is always ahead of its biggest competitors. Indeed, the current CEO of Ménara Holding, Mohamed Zahid, invests a lot of money in innovation because for him “One must always innovate. We need to have the will to do so and be very persistent to achieve what we really want. We always need to come up with new product to always be far ahead of our competitors.”
The group believes in the “ zero waste” concept in all their domains. This notion is about waste and energy recovering to be used for other matters. Their aim is to improve resource efficiency, quality and productivity, meaning doing more with fewer resources and less waste. The CEO claims that the company is a “ citizen group”, which involves social actions, but also environmental actions.
The company's teams have set as a priority the respect of scarce resources. To produce more and pollute less, the boss of Menara Holding has chosen to invest in sustainable development, by installing expensive equipment with high ecological impact for a total cost of 800,000 dollars.
Concerning the construction field, the company recovers clay mud mixed with water to make bricks of raw clay. They also reduced their water consumption from 400 m3/hour to less than 40 m3 today: wastewater passes through a clarifier and is then reused at 95%. Another innovation consists of the use of Turkish pumice of small stones to produce cement blocks, replacing advantageously the double walling method, and with a much better thermal efficiency. Besides the financial benefit, this innovation saves energy and reduces CO2 emission. They also have machines for sorting wastes of used oils, tires, batteries, and metal waste.
Ménara Holding is investing in innovation for years now, but with the management of the new CEO, it got better. Indeed, the CEO believes that companies don’t have to take the environment for granted, and that natural resources should be used efficiently and preserved as much as possible. Indeed, the main activities on Menara Holding are possible thanks to the environment, so it is for their own benefit to take care of their natural resources, and consequently their raw materials, to continue to produce and be present in the market. He says: “We want to and must be exemplary and demonstrate that in our fields, we can work with nature and not against it...” Also, the company is working hard to reinforce their strategy for environmental management, and that to get the ISO 14000 certification. This very wanted certification will help the company improve its environmental performance by using resources more efficiently and reducing the waste, as well as gaining a competitive and financial advantage and the trust of the stakeholders, and more engagement of the employees.
Ménara Holding is one of the few companies in Morocco that is engaged in preserving the nature, and invests in innovation for that matter. They work to reduce water waste, energy waste, to reduce the emission of CO2 in the air, and to recycle their waste of natural resources to use them for other matters.
Even if Ménara Holding invests a lot of money for environmental conservation and preservation, the company is a unique one in Morocco. Indeed, it’s the only and first company that has introduced the Eco-built autonomous buildings in Morocco, a concept that will benefit a lot of regions in Morocco, since the buildings are independent from any infrastructural support services, and have the capacity to produce its own electricity and water. Moreover, Ménara Holding is also the one and only company that has won the Essec Trophy for change in 2015, which awards projects of change, corporate strategies, innovation and support, and professional mechanisms for change. Also, Ménara Holding was under the spotlights in the COP22 for their amazing work and continuous innovations. The company will have a lot of benefit in the long term, especially that the world right now is really focusing on social and environment responsibility.
Ménara Holding is a one of a kind company that offers social and environmental benefits.
The company works for the conservation and preservation of the environment, and that by reducing their wastes, reducing the emission of CO2, and most importantly preserving water.
Ménara Holding started constructing autonomous buildings in the most rural regions in Morocco, with no electricity and with a restricted access to potable water, and that using material that perfectly meet thermal and acoustic regulations such as pumice and compressed earth block. Those buildings have also the possibility to produce clean electricity from photovoltaics for a total autonomy. In addition to that, we can also find drinking water, thanks to a 10-micron filtration and UV treatment to eliminate all germs.
To demonstrate the eligibility of this new concept, Ménara Holding has also constructed many schools, in regions where education is abandoned, and that with a collaboration with its own foundation, which is called “ Fondation Zahid”. Their aim is to enable children in the farthest and deepest regions in Morocco to have proper education and development.
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Mohamed Zahid, CEO of Ménara Holding
