The Ministry of Environment and Water hosts a Green Economy Public-Academic Partnership Seminar today with the British University in Dubai (BuiD) under the title of “Quantifying Green Economy Potential: The case of building retrofitting as overlooked opportunities of energy efficiency”. This seminar is the second in the series that the ministry is organizing with academic institutions in the country to establish strong partnerships between government, industry and academia that will help enhancing and facilitating the implementation of UAE Green Growth Strategy.
The UAE Green Growth Strategy was launched in January 2012 under the slogan “A Green Economy for Sustainable Development” by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The Strategy provides existing national and emirates’ development plans with a unified umbrella for leading the path to transform the national economy to a greener economy. Currently, a national plan for implementing the Strategy is being prepared, while diverse relevant initiatives have already made a significant progress in different sectors.
Approximately 50 experts gather from federal ministries, local governments and the private sector. Aisha Al Abdooli, Director of Green Development department at the ministry explains about the objective of this seminar, saying “making a transition to a Green Economy will bring significant opportunities and competitive advantages for the UAE in such areas as renewable energy, sustainable transport, green buildings and low-carbon agriculture. The strategic investment in green technology research and development and supporting business development for green economic diversification are one of the vital areas where we need active help from academic institutions in the country.”
“The UAE government has been working hard to build domestic human and knowledge capital, through improving the quality of teaching and research as well as hosting high-profile international universities. This effort has already beard fruit but the existing resources and capacity in those institutes have been under-utilized to allow industry and government to equip for overcoming Green Economy challenges. We consider that academia is among key implementation partners for the Green Growth Strategy, and we wish to facilitate building strong partnerships between government, industry and academia.”
In his lecture to be held at BUiD campus in Dubai International Academic City, Professor Bassam Abdel Karim Abu Hijleh points out that as buildings produce around a third of GHG emissions globally, consideration of environmental impacts from buildings needs to be at the heart of the Green Growth Strategy implementation. He argues that the focus until now has been mainly on regulations for new buildings but if the UAE is to significantly reduce its carbon footprint the inefficiencies of the existing building stock needs to be addressed too. His presentation looks at different strategies that can be used to improve the thermal performance of existing buildings based on the results of recent research conducted on the potential savings of refurbishing existing buildings in the UAE. This also guides policy-maker audience on how to quantify the cost and benefit from different greening measures.
Through this seminar series, Green Economy practitioners in government and industry are expected to acquire the latest knowledge and explore opportunities for more support and collaboration. The Ministry of Environment and Water plans to organize the seminar quarterly with different institutions.