Sustainable Development

Ordinary II - 2020

Erik de Ruiter

Shopping Mall Project

Members:

David Quiroga Macías

Jatniel Andrés Santos Chunga

Renata Paola Vacacela Peralta

Valeria Belén Sánchez López

Introduction

On December 2nd, 2015, El Universo News wrote about the inauguration of this new
concept of commercial city, Riocentro El Dorado built by the group El Rosado Inc., to be the
first of its kind in Ecuador. It is located in León Febres Cordero Avenue, Samborondón,
strategically surrounded by residential areas such as, Matices, Fuentes del Río, Sambocity.

Even though its hipermarket is running since 2013 as an extension of Riocentro Entre Rios,
when Riocentro El Dorado opened its 160K m2 doors as a shopping mall, it had 28 food
outlets in its food garden, five different restaurants, including Chili’s, Red Lobster and Olive
Garden. today there are more than 200 outlets with different commercial activities, medical
centers, theaters, etc.
According to Sumac Inc. this commercial city project would have different plants of water
treatment for residual waters and rainwater, sophisticated automation and control systems
for all of its buildings, efficient air conditioner and ventilation equipment and “Plan de
Educación Verde'' training programs for the community as part of the sustainable input.
Chapter I

For any local business to be successful and have customers, it has to be accessible for the
people. It doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be located downtown with busy streets and a
vast transit of pedestrians, but it has to be a place where people can have easy access to,
including paved roads and avenues, bus stops, parking lots, sidewalks, etc.

Sustainability is a topic for discussion and one to be considered in macro projects such as
shopping malls, either for ecological purposes or economical interests, it has the same goal
of getting the most out of resources and providing the activity a chance to last for ages. One
of many options for sustainability is the reduction of water usage and electricity consumption
with lots of devices available in the market to get this goal to reality.

Energy is another topic when talking about sustainability, big companies are always on the
search for other ways of producing energy to save money and to have less impact on the
environment around us. Ecuador has fossil fuels as one of the resources of energy, since the
exportation of petroleum is one of the main income in our country, according to the Central
Bank of Ecuador selling 1.9M USD on the second third of 2021 (Subgerencia de
Programación y Regulación et al., 2021).

These macro projects not only have responsibilities over the resources they need to make its
buildings work but also the waste management programs they plan along its activities. This
is very important not only for the outlets and food places that produce a great amount of
waste disposal but also for the customers that buy and consume products. A good approach
with programs on the community and customers is a great way to solve these problems,
making people aware of the waste management and disposal having an impact on the
environment we live in.
Chapter 2
After answering the six questions about the shopping mall, it was my group's turn to score
this place’s sustainability. The 160K m2 giant El Rosado’s Riocentro El Dorado has a score
of three out of six in terms of sustainability.

This mall has easy access, since it has three entrances, at the beginning, middle, and end of
the mall with a large parking lot. Located four minutes away from a bus stop, according to
Moovit App, it is a place where you can access very easily on public transportation and by
car. There is no option for parking bikes or electric cars to be charged, so you have to use
some fossil fuel to get there.

This shopping mall is located in Leon Febres Cordero Avenue, a very busy avenue in the
province. Due to its strategic location this place is well known and visited by people living in
the nearby residence areas and for its enormous infrastructure and great variety of outlets
and theaters, even people on a 68 to 80 minute ride come to visit this beautiful mall on
weekends.

The Riocentro El Dorado shopping center has several pedestrian entrances, one of them is
located in the middle of the mall, which has a decoration of palm trees. It gives the visitors
and customers a sense of summer chill, so it is a great architectural design with low
maintenance plants, which saves tons of water.
At entrance number two of the shopping center, it has an open roof, which allows daylight to
give a great source of natural lightning during the morning and midday hours, saving lots of
electricity in this large area. Overall, this giant architecture feat has a great management of
natural light sources with enormous skylights covered by clear glass, it also creates a great
environment for the plants to grow happy and healthy, and for people to have a calm and
relaxing walk.
 .

They also implement eco-friendly advice signs in bathroom spaces, related to saving water,
using less toilet paper, and not contaminating the toilet water with paper. It also alleges that
the water usage on sinks is 20% more saving than conventional sinks because of its low
consuming faucets.
Other places such as the HomeTown Gym have crafty trash cans for disposing of water
bottles for recycling. Not only plastics are an issue to solve for HomeTown Gym but also
paper towels being replaced for cloth towels, to reduce the impact on waste disposal. It is a
great way to get clients into action when it comes to reducing waste.

It is a very important thing to say that by no means we were able to take pictures of the place
very freely, staff started staring very suspiciously and it turned into a very uncomfortable
situation, thankfully no one got kicked out of the place or called upon by security guards. As
a group we debated the idea of sending an email to the shopping mall administration to have
a conversation about waste management and energy sources but in the end we decided not
to have that approach since we would be targeted as potential intruders when visiting the
location.

In the end, this is the information that we could collect as a group without help of any of the
members of the shopping mall staff and by only inspecting the facilities curiously and having
in mind all the sustainability goals learnt during the lectures.
Chapter 3
The Shopping mall has a vast parking lot distributed around the entire shopping center and
also has several entrances and exit doors that maintain current biosecurity measures
established. However, it would be great if they improve its sustainability by integrating a bike
station, through which the use of healthy means of transportation does not negatively affect
the environment.

When visiting the mall, we were able to notice the lack of garbage cans for recycling, both in
restaurants and in other parts of the mall. Therefore, we recommend implementing recycling
bins distributed throughout the building and promoting recycling to the customers and
visitors of the shopping mall, making people more aware of their waste management and
how to be more environmentally proactive.
Regarding energy, even though there are many skylights across the mall, we could notice
the excessive use of light bulbs all over the mall even in daylight. So we suggest they can
implement solar panels to reduce the use of energy, which can be more eco-friendly.
References
¿Cómo llegar a Centro Comercial El Dorado en Guayaquil en Autobús? (2022, September

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l_Dorado-Guayaquil-site_131502708-5550

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