Green Mosque Initiative: Commitment to watersaving mosques in the Middle East
- Author: Christiane Fath
Economising on the use of water is one of the most important aspects of environmental protection and sustainability worldwide. This is particularly true of those regions that do not have a positive water balance. In many cases, evaporation is greater than precipitation, which means that people are forced to make their consumption of water as efficient as possible. With its Green Mosque Initiative, GROHE has cooperated with local partners to convert the largest mosques in the Middle East and North Africa region into green Mosques and equipped them with water-saving products.
GROHE considers its responsibility for people and water, their most important resource, not only to be a question of producing sustainable products but as a holistic task. One of the measures relating to environmental protection is the Green Mosque Initiative in the Middle East, where water is scare and therefore particularly valuable and expensive.
View of the Umayyad Mosque with the Old City of Damascus in the background.
Since its beginnings in 2009, GROHE has been providing support to this initiative – the programme has been successfully introduced in five countries to date: the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. As a company, GROHE has developed products that help users to save water. For their ritual ablutions in mosques, Muslims need between ten and 15 litres of water each day.
This means that any possibility to economise has a significant effect on consumption. As mosques are of central importance to people’s social life, they are especially suited to convey economical use of water to as many visitors as possible. As part of an international project, GROHE is equipping the ablution facilities in mosques with water-saving products and thus helping the regions to permanently reduce their water consumption.
Mosque of ‚Amr ibn al-‚As.
In the meantime, the company offers a full spectrum of products with a special technology for all sanitary areas: the GROHE EcoJoy® series. These products in mosques show the way towards sustainable action. The Green Mosque Initiative reduces the amount of water consumed in ablutions by some 30 per cent. This helps protect the environment and lowers costs. EcoJoy® products have integrated water-saving technology that lowers consumption without detracting from comfort and the effect of the water. GROHE converted the water saved in this way into food for the needy: one box for every ten litres of water saved.
The call of the water.
This means that the mosques and the people in the region alike benefit from the commitment to this project. The initiative and the programme were rewarded with the SABRE Award in 2014 and in 2016 they made it onto the shortlist for gold.
Turning water into food: the water saved is converted into food parcels.