The Greener Path is a WAYA original series sponsored by Royal Herbs highlighting eco-friendly startups in Egypt.

Picture an oasis in the middle of the Western Desert where sustainability reigns. Royal Herbs’ Bahareya Village is that place, powered by solar energy and built using recycled materials, it is a sustainably built masterpiece. The tea company built the village to house its workers who prior to its existence, used to have to travel to and from work on a daily basis, costing them money and using a significant amount of energy.

Royal Herbs is a cultivator, producer and supplier of tea. The company has a range of organic teas which it sells locally in the Egyptian market and exports abroad. The tea company has 8,000 acres of farmland spread across Egypt in Faiyum, Mina, the New Valley, Oases, Beni Suef, Assiut, and Aswan.

WAYA asked Royal Herbs’ Chief Sustainability Officer, Salma Khalil about the importance of sustainability in the company. She said “We believe that sustainability is part of our DNA. It is not something that we have to do, its not a duty, not something we do in marketing, it something that exists with us every day, from our farms to our factories to the production, in everything basically”.

However, it took time and effort for the company to reach the level of awareness it has today. The company had guidance from its clients and it learned how to comply with international sustainability standards which made exporting to markets around the world easier. Year on year, the team at Royal Herbs gets more educated, their sustainability goals have expanded to all aspects of the business and become implemented in their policies. From reducing water usage while farming to their beekeeping project, which entails creating a place for bees (nature’s primary pollinators) to live and produce honey which is then sold at an affordable price to employees, the tea company is making an effort in multiple ways to create a more sustainable world.

Perhaps the most impressive sustainability project is the green building in Bahareya Village. This building boasts of 33% of energy savings, 22% of water savings, and 35% of habitat savings. Khalil tells us that life in this village is a habitat that has even had a positive effect on the psychology and lifestyle of the workers living there.

On sponsoring The Greener Path, Khalil said “We chose to sponsor Greener Path because we believe in collaboration, we believe there are a lot of products in the Egyptian market that deserve to be highlighted and Egyptian people when they know that there are these kinds of products that they are green, environmentally friendly and so on, it will help us grow as a community and be responsible to the environment”.