The Reality Of Middle East Sustainability In 2022

Q: Although ‘sustainability’ is a word that has found a lot more spotlight recently, you have been passionate about the subject for a long time. Could you tell us a bit more about how it all started?

A: It’s been a very progressive journey that I went through personally and professionally throughout my career. 

I used to live in Sweden, a country with a lot of perfectionists when it comes to the environment and social justice with government structures.  

Although my educational background is predominantly in business and economics, I've always found a great gap between business and humans. Everything in economics and business, for me, sounded like a proven economic model. And that did not appeal to my nature. And I had a lot of other concerns and interests when it comes to the business world.

As millennials, the more we grow, we see that the business world is packed with social and environmental issues that are hardly being addressed in a balance sheet or income statement. And the question is, where does this human side of the business fit in? 

Living in the Nordics, I found that a lot of emphasis was given to what we call ‘Sustainability’ today. When I first started, it used to be called corporate social responsibility or responsible business or ethical business practices, etc. 

The human being in me was quite eager to understand how our emotions, our well-being and our interests as people is reflected in business practices. And so I focused on environmental and sustainability management in my graduate studies and which took me into a career dedicated to the human and biological side of the business. 

Q: And how did your move to Sustainable Square in Dubai come about? And what was the transition like?

A: The business and sustainability-industry reality are that I moved from a very mature leading market when it comes to sustainability and corporate sustainability to a country that is just discovering how to 

get around it. So, it’s a massive shift.

For me, having grown up in the region, I always felt that the Middle East needed its own human resources that would contribute to improving the region, which has given you a lot. I understand the culture here very well, which helps. My role evolved from a conversation I had with the co-founder which allowed me to bring sustainability to the table here.

I was always interested in giving back here in this part of the world. I mean, especially in topics that are still not fully explored.

Q: Where do you see the biggest gaps in sustainability in the region? And what is the biggest change that you would like to see?

A: The Middle East is becoming more of a world player. It is definitely picking up on world trends. At the end of the day, sustainability is a business case. Although the region might be a bit behind on putting sustainability at the heart of its burgeoning economy, when it comes to the implementation it is definitely coming to the surface. There is a start or shift from the business and as well from the government and legislation.  

The sustainability agenda is moving up to the surface and is being actively managed.

Q: If we look back at your time in the region, how do you see UAE and the Middle East has changed on the count of sustainability over all these years?

A: When it comes to the biggest achievements in sustainability, I would point out the social side of sustainability. Recently, there were many significant policies passed around labour laws and rights including many health and safety measures, social contributions, social entrepreneurship, women empowerment, ensuring women play a role in top management etcetera. A lot of social issues that were quite prominent here in this part of the world are being actively tackled. You can see the results on the ground today. And that is something definitely very exciting.

Furthermore, I see a massive challenge in environmental sustainability. I mean, there are a lot of reasons behind it but the challenge itself lies in the fact that environmental sustainability especially related to the net-zero initiative however I believe that the pathway around legislation and governance is constantly evolving and strengthening especially mandating companies to begin monitoring, evaluating and actively managing their emissions as they do globally. 

Q: And vis-à-vis the Middle East do you feel that the Nordics or the EU is a place where the mandates towards net-zero have been fully locked down?

A: Yes, definitely. For example, all the stock exchanges in the European Union are mandating all publicly listed companies to have a certain GHG inventory in a certain reporting structure and evaluation structure that are caps to carbon. There is a lot of things happening in Europe, even carbon, even now carbon tax is coming into play, I think in the coming two to three years. So, when it comes to active management, Europe is at the forefront of this.

The Nordics are very progressive and have already made a significant transition to alternative energy when it comes to the accountability and management of emissions. They are also unbiased and accurate in their reporting and they take accept full accountability when it comes to energy consumption. 

Comparatively, the part of the world that we live in is a predominantly Oil and Gas economy. Shifting from that has layers and layers of challenges. And it is definitely feasible but quite complex. European economies have transitioned quite slowly over the last three decades into a very diverse economy.

But the biggest challenge here is economic transition. Alternative energy is just being discovered and explored in the region. 

Today you have a nuclear plant happening, you have DEWA committed to massive solar plants. You also have the two biggest stock exchanges, ADX, which is Abu Dhabi Exchange market and DFM Dubai Financial markets now mandating all publicly listed companies to have their sustainability reports in place published along with their annual reports and financials. 

So, I would say transparency is now being mandated you can see the move you can see it, you can feel it. I feel this should happen in parallel with innovation, and alternative solutions and sustainability-pro entrepreneurship being put at the table, supported by more legislation and more mandates when it comes to actively managing carbon and energy consumption.

Q: Please tell us a bit more about Sustainable Square and its footprint.

A: We have quite a big footprint across the GCC. Our biggest footprint and impact are our differentiation, our competitive edge and our advantage. Sustainability is at the heart of what we do and has accumulated the industry knowledge needed for large scale and multi-industry projects. 

Our work solidly revolves around supporting projects with their needs of sustainability reporting, sustainability assurance, sustainability strategies and roadmaps, climate change strategies and roadmaps and obviously social impact strategies and roadmaps as well. 

We work on the three pillars of sustainability.

Q: So, as a result of the pandemic and as a result of some of the natural disasters that have occurred over the last few years are you seeing more conversations around sustainability? Has there been a spike?

A: There has indeed been a massive spike, due to many social, political and environmental issues, including the pandemic, are definitely things that are putting sustainability as a core strategic business objective, rather than just a side strategy that just goes in parallel with whatever the company's doing on a day to day basis. As a consultancy, we are growing by the month.

When I joined this company, our project exposure was much was smaller. But today, our footprint is over five countries. We are a global team today being led in Dubai, being the headquarters. So, the whole sustainability phenomenon is growing.

Q: And finally, so this latest report from the UN Climate Change panel has multiple models on temperature change that is projected right from 1.5 degrees to eight degrees Celsius, which is very scary. To limit the projected climate change numbers, it's being said that we need to reduce fossil fuel extraction by 3% per year. What is your opinion on where we are headed right now?

A: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes published by the UN in August 2021 is a sad report, simply because once and for all, they did not give you a solution. They just gave you what is going to happen, i.e the impact. They drew the pathway to 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature change but the pathway is humongous in its impact for us to change as economies. I am still an optimist. I do see change happening. Cop26 was definitely, a very strong collaborative power preceded by the Paris Climate Change Agreement. 

The concept of climate change is by far the biggest and the most peculiar challenge we humans have ever faced. It puts us all on one plate. For example, we have never faced the challenge as humans that a cause such as burning coal in China, would result in a flood in the States for example.

The challenge by itself we have never been faced with anything of that scale. We've never been faced with a challenge that doesn't know any borders, any geographies, any continents any culture etc. So there's a lot of work to be done, there's a lot of governance, there is a lot of institutional change that has to be done, economical change, socio-economic change, the way that we run our economies today has to change and the challenge is definitely massive but when you see the passion, especially from the youth as well as the varied initiatives, plans, strategies, visions, coming to the surface, we find that we are definitely doing a lot.

Is it enough? I'm honestly not sure. But it is moving forward and that's something that makes me a bit optimistic. I can see the world as being capable of change and we changed a lot of things due to a lot of different circumstances in the past wars and we have changed a lot of our economies since the Industrial Revolution, and I can see things happening today too.