Bupa Arabia for Cooperative Insurance has reaffirmed its commitment to proactive digitization efforts in order to protect the planet by launching digital insurance cards and adopting the Council of Cooperative Health Insurance’s “Easier for You” initiative, which reduces the use of plastic cards.
The campaign entails the use of personal ID for citizens and iqama for residents as the basic identifier for the insured upon visiting a healthcare provider. This means the insured does not need to show the health insurer’s card any more at the clinic or hospital.
Bupa Arabia’s digital transformation efforts come amid a renewed global focus on the increasing scale of plastic waste and its significant negative impact on environmental sustainability as well as on humans, animals and plants.
Alshereef Hamideddin, marketing director at Bupa Arabia, said the company was able to successfully adopt the digital cards initiative due to its long-term investments in radically improving and updating all its digital services in line with the latest global digital customer experiences trends.
“Bupa Arabia will continue to work to provide unique digital experiences to our customers through our Bupa Click platform, helping them to receive services with ease and flexibility,” Hamideddin said.
He added: “Since last April, the digital card transactions reached 99 percent, which have had a substantial positive environmental sustainability impact. We previously provided 2 million printed plastic cards. Moreover, the digital card initiative was designed and implemented to significantly reduce plastic waste, which is classified as one of the top 20 products in terms of the manufacturing process. This step is an integral part of Bupa Arabia’s environmental objectives, and it intersects with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) agenda as well.”
The 6th Global Environment Outlook report, released by the UNEP in 2019, estimated the amount of plastic waste reaching the oceans annually at about 9 million tons, threatening aquatic communities and organisms with an unprecedented rise in plastic pollution. Only 9 percent of the world’s 9 billion tons of plastic is recycled. Most plastics do not biodegrade and remain in the environment for hundreds of years, and continuing indifference and accumulation in large quantities year after year sooner or later will lead to disastrous environmental and health damages and risks.
