Habiba Hassan Sultan Al Mar’ashi Al Hashimi is the Co-founder and Chairperson of Emirates Environmental Group (EEG), a pioneering non-government organisation established in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 1991. She guided EEG to become the first environmental NGO in the world to receive ISO 14001 certification. She single-handedly established the Arabia CSR Network in 2004, as the MENA region’s pioneering and only multi-stakeholder platform with local and multinational entities. She co-founded the Emirates Green Building Council in 2006 and serves as its treasurer and board member. 

Al Mar’ashi co-founded the Emirates Environmental Group to fulfill her desire to save her country in the field of environment. She simultaneously held a full time government job while running a flower business being the 1st UAE national to do so during those times. “We took every opportunity and space to meet and advance and develop the goals of EEG. It was only in 1997 that we managed to get a small office located within a shopping mall where we started functioning as a full-fledged NGO."

Working closely with the private sector, the government and academic institutions, EEG developed many pioneering programmes to raise awareness, educate and engage individuals and organisations in the cause of preserving and protecting the environment. Gradually EEG became a household name, synonymous with the civil society movement in the region.

Being a woman in the field

“Challenges are a part and parcel of life and I wouldn’t want to genderise them. The most important lesson that I have learnt is self-reliance. Because I led an NGO with limited resources, and no grants or aids, I was pretty much left to my own devices to sustain and simultaneously grow the organisation,” she says. 

The EEG team had to come up with a strategy to secure funds and make the best of limited resources, including human capital. So resource efficiency in any form is critical for sustainability. 

“I am very focused, practical and optimistic, and that has helped me to tide over many difficult times and situations and turn them into waves of opportunities.”