February 2022
Saoud Al Emadi and Abdullah Shaat
Saoud Al Emadi and Abdullah Shaat co-founded their company, Enavra, when they were still university students, studying engineering at Texas A&M University at Qatar. While visiting a café in their Student Centre, they admired its efforts to use eco-friendly paper straws but were dismayed at the low quality of the product.
“We thought that cafés that try to be eco-friendly and protect the environment should not suffer from having low-quality products,” says Abdullah. “We saw a gap in the market and we thought we could fill it”.
Their vision was to create a product that was eco-friendly, a plastic alternative, and supported vendors’ green values, all while being enjoyable for the customer. “We tried a lot of products until we landed on our avocado seed-based ones,” says Saoud.
Enavra’s innovative products are made from avocado seeds, as they have a similar molecular structure to plastic, making them a perfect bioplastic source. Mixed with only a small percentage of synthetic polymers, Enavra products are able to biodegrade within one year. “Its lifetime is only one year compared to 200 years of plastic,” notes Abdullah.
Enavra started supplying the same café they visited as students, and then quickly began distributing their products to vendors across Qatar.
“We have seen our community support increase over time, as there are more and more people who are sustainably aware and want to make a difference in Qatar and the whole world,” says Saoud.
Saoud and Abdullah have just completed Qatar Business Incubation Centre’s Green Manufacturing Programme, and are building their first workshop in Qatar in order to manufacture their products locally. “Our aim is to diversify our products and replace as many plastic products out there as possible,” says Saoud.
“The community in Qatar is socially aware of the impact on the environment from so many plastic products,” adds Abdullah. “We hope that when we display our products, we remind people of why we’re doing this and why we should all care”.
