For a sustainable lifestyle, we have to look back to our ancestors for inspiration – Tatiana Antonelli Abella, founder of Goumbook

Tatiana Antonelli Abella, Founder and Managing Director of Goumbook, the oldest Social Enterprise of UAE, recently organized the first MENA Ocean Summit in Dubai. Established in 2009, Goumbook has dedicated its efforts to raising awareness among the local community on Sustainability and Green Living. At the summit, The Brew News spoke with Tatiana on her initiatives and campaigns.

In the course of our in-depth discussion with Tatiana, we learned how Goumbook successfully manages different projects such as Give a Ghaf and Trees Matter, regional and global tree planting programs to encourage reforestation and rehabilitation of ecosystems. Most recently, Goumbook conceptualize and manage Dubai Can project, a campaign by HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai.

During her 17 years in the UAE, Tatiana has garnered a strong reputation and she is actively involved in the green arena. Considered one of UAE’s top sustainability influencers, Tatiana discussed with The Brew News, basic issues of sustainability and public engagement towards green efforts.

Q: What is the role of Goumbook?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: Goumbook is a social enterprise. We started back in 2009. And the aim is to raise awareness about sustainability. It was, I would say at that time, the main goal of raising awareness. Now today we really talk about accelerating sustainability and climate action in 14 years things have changed massively in terms you know, of environmental and social impact. So today we talk about very big topics such as climate change, circular economy, and sustainability.

Q: What was the moment in your life when you decided to start this movement?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: For me, it was becoming a mother and understanding that I had a role to play for the future of my children and I felt like I was responsible for future generations, together with my peers. We had to, you know, act and change the way we were doing things the way we were consuming and wasting was wrong. And this is how I changed my mindset before. As a young adult. I was, you know, careless. And just thinking about the day-to-day becoming apparent really changes your perspective completely.

Q: Now, the problem is big and the participation of everyone is important. It’s not only the government, but you also must engage everyone in society. So, what is your approach toward public engagement?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: I think this is something that makes Goumbook unique. The first question I always get is, what is your audience? What’s your target audience? We don’t have a target audience because we understand that we need to really talk to everyone. We want to talk to the public, we want to talk to academia, but we also want to talk to the private sector and government. We believe that they need, and we all need to work together with more collaboration, and partnerships. This is the way we do business at Goumbook, we always seek out partners for advice for expertise, for solutions for enabling campaigns and initiatives such as this MENA Oceans Summit 2023, the first dedicated forum in this region to accelerate the pace of comprehensive ocean action.

Q: We are very fortunate that we are in the UAE where the government is supporting all these kinds of initiatives. How will you see the role of government and how important a government approach toward the cause?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: The government has a key role in terms of enabling but also in terms of regulating rights. The government is the one that can help different sectors, different industries. Take the right step in the right direction. Because of policies because of us putting together working groups, putting together a regulation, doing research understanding what is needed, what are the impacts of determined activities or products, they play a very important role, but they cannot do this on their own. And this is where they also need the private sector and civil society to come forward and highlight challenges, issues, and problems needs of the society or the environment. So, I think it’s an open-door relationship.

Q: We have seen the role of Goumbook in the Dubai Can campaign. It’s an amazing initiative, but still a lot to do as the market of flooded with plastic.

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: One of the biggest challenges in the UAE is that we have a transient population, right? So, we always do a big effort into educating people in doing the right thing, but then suddenly hundreds of 1000s of people leaving and other hundreds of 1000 coming to the UAE, so you start all over again. But the important part of a campaign such as Dubai Can is that it’s not temporary, it’s something that’s here to stay the fountains that have been installed around Dubai are permanent, and they’re here and they become a part of the natural habit. Dubai can start with you, raising awareness about plastic bottles, but it goes beyond sustainability.

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Q: In any campaign, how important is the role of celebrities to populate any welfare idea?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: We always look for influencers from totally different backgrounds to turn and look at the environmental or social impact because they help turn their audience towards these new topics. For example, we had a great event with a luxury beauty brand, which is a sector related to fashion and luxury beauty, nothing to do with the environment. But suddenly when you have those millions of followers following that brand.

Q: How important is it to adopt sustainability and green energy into the school curriculum, to shape the pupil’s mind at an early stage?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: I think the local government is actually very active compared to other governments around the world and in a few years, things here have changed a lot. Recently the Ministry of Education has announced that all schools will have to follow a specific environmental education system, and even teachers will have to be coached. This is phenomenal. I mean, if you look at other countries, even in Europe, they might not actually have such a program. It’s about understanding the methodology, and the frameworks on how to do this because we have different schools with different curriculums from different nationalities in different countries. So, the fact that you’re regulating already so many different entities, you need to understand how to do it without creating chaos, making sure it aligns with every curriculum, that is something easy to embed, you need to have everyone on board you and this is an incredible thing of the UAE it’s never enforced against your will.

Q: What small change you will refer to in the public to adopt a sustainable lifestyle?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: I think we need to go back to old times. We need to look at previous generations, our grandparents, and there’s nothing to reinvent, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just going back to reusing things and respecting nature looking back at nature and its modern times. We don’t even know our neighbors. We don’t know how to grow a seed we don’t acknowledge and respect nature for what it gives us. If you think about it, my grandparents’ nature was the primary source of food for water, and it was highly respected. So going back to the love of nature and understanding how we’re intact, interconnected with it, and yet just forget about the modern times that are very convenient.

Resources are not infinite. You know, we need to make sure we preserve them. But again, it’s awareness education, when we say changing mindsets, we believe that one little piece of information can start your journey. You don’t have to be perfect today. But by sticking one step, you’re going to go and start your own sustainability or green journey, and that will help everyone.

Q: Do Goumbook have any network where all the corporates can come together on one platform, and they can share their ideas?

Tatiana Antonelli Abella: Yes, we have a program called the Global Goals program. It’s linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, where we invite the private sector to join us and share best practices or learn from other companies who are maybe more advanced, as I said, it’s a journey for us individuals, but it’s also a journey for businesses to start. We see large companies already doing a lot of work. I think the challenge is with SMEs. They are small, they don’t have much budget and for them to think about sustainability or the road to net zero might be something they think is completely out of their way or they don’t have the means or they don’t know how to do this, so I think now we need to focus on SMEs who are a huge part of the economy, there are drivers of the economy and so they can actually make a big change.

– As talked with The Brew News Managing Editor Shaneer N Siddiqui