SriLankan Airlines won the Best Aviation Sustainability Program Award, beating 118 other submissions at the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum (SMBR) Global Aviation Awards for its groundbreaking signature upcycle project, ‘Mathaka’ in Montreal, Canada recently.
Project Mathaka was SriLankan Airlines’ answer to minimising its contribution to landfill waste and ecological footprint by repurposing the airline’s scrap material into a variety of lifestyle products.
SriLankan partnered with the House of Lonali, a Sri Lankan organisation that designs and manufactures upcycled lifestyle products, to develop the exclusive range of products under the ‘Mathaka’ brand including travel bags, wallets, books, key tags, and jewellery.
The items, made entirely from disposed airline uniforms, aircraft interior components and other material, will eventually be introduced for sale onboard SriLankan Airlines’ flights and through the website and retail partners of House of Lonali. All proceeds from the project will go towards funding the airline’s other corporate sustainability initiatives.
The project allows the airline to take its planet friendly corporate philosophy a step further by transforming waste into new products, thereby reducing landfill waste and environmental pollution.
SriLankan will empower women through its project partner, House of Lonali, which is also a social entrepreneurial venture focusing on providing employment opportunities to talented women from low-income communities. People employed by House of Lonali across the production process of Project Mathaka will be empowered to showcase their talent at an international level and earn a living at the same time.
The SMRB Global Aviation Awards were given out at the 41st General Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).
SriLankan was the first airline in Asia to introduce ‘Planet Friendly Flights’ back in 2009 and was named the second lowest carbon emitting airline in the Asia-Pacific in 2016 by Business Traveller.
Collaboration with like-minded partners and being part of the solution is the only way to fight against climate change, a spokesman for SriLankan Airlines said.