PROUD WINNERS OF THE 2018 ZAYED FUTURE ENERGY PRIZE
From schoolchildren and small businesses to scientists, the people who made history
The Zayed Future Energy Prize winners were announced yesterday during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week.
The winners included five schools which were chosen from a shortlist of 15.
Lifetime Achievement Award: Shuji Nakamura
LED is one of most sustainable forms of light that exists today and continues to be one of the most important innovations of the last 100 years.
Shuji Nakamura, from Japan, has been described as the father of LED light.
Lighting uses 22 per cent of all electricity produced but LED is one of biggest revolutions in the past decades, with scientists working on inventing the blue light since the 1950s.
Prof Nakamura, of the University of California in Santa Barbara, invested in the blue and green lights.
“LED efficiency is so high, so if you use it for all kinds of lighting you can reduce energy consumption dramatically. The award means my invention contributed a lot to sustainability all over the world.”
Non-Profit Organisation category winner: Selco Foundation
Based in India, the Selco Foundation works to improve quality of life and increase incomes for the poor. It encourages disruptive ideas and decentralised energy solutions that can be developed and replicated around the world.
The foundation’s philosophy is that technology, finance and social aspects must be combined to demonstrate the link between environmental sustainability and poverty alleviation.
It was started in 2010 with a focus on rural and tribal areas on poverty. The company tries to solve poverty by using sustainable energy as a catalyst.
Some of its examples include a solar-powered blower for blacksmiths and solar-powered sewing machines, as workers lose their incomes without electricity. It has a great potential to enable financial inclusion.
“The legacy of Sheikh Zayed was to include the poor in every process and once you do, sustainability will automatically fall in,” one of Selco Foundation’s employees said.
Small and Medium Enterprises category winner: Sunna Design
This French company designs, makes and sells smart solar street lighting. The lamps are made using a nickel-metal hydride battery that is resilient in low and high temperatures and has a 10-year lifetime.
The company has installed about 10,000 lamps in 40 countries across Africa, parts of the Middle East and India. It is originally a tech company that sought to deliver electricity in remote areas.
“We have a product that can sustain 15 years in deserted and tropical conditions,” said Thomas Samuel, Sunna’s founder and chief executive.
“It is changing the lives of thousands of people in the field. Our vision of sustainability is very close to Sheikh Zayed’s vision, and I feel there is already a good example of our technology lighting places in the UAE and that’s the best example of where we converge.”
Global High Schools category winners: Winner in Africa: Aouda Saadia High School
The Aouda Saadia School is a girls’ school comprising pupils from “modest families of artisans and farmers”. Its plans include solar water heaters, photovoltaic panels and LED light bulbs to reduce the school’s energy use and provide hot showers. Floor lamps will be installed to light the school at night, so that pupils are safe and night classes can be held for illiterate local women. The school also plans to develop teaching modules, educational tools and training workshops for pupils, and provide air conditioning for classrooms.
Winner in Asia: Bahrain Bayan School
Established in 1982, Bahrain Bayan School is a non-profit bilingual school based in Isa Town.
The school intends to use the prize money to develop EcoLab 360, a learning platform to educate pupils and the community on sustainable practices and technology with emphasis on the five Rs – reduce, re-use, recycle, raise awareness and renewable energy.
A grant of $100,000 from the prize will be used to develop an innovative, sustainability education platform – EcoLab 360 – at the primary school cafeteria. That will demonstrate and educate students and the wider community on the benefits of energy conservation and renewable energy.
The project will also focus on water conservation, and greywater and food waste recycling to produce fertiliser, biogas and biodiesel.
It will put Bahrain Bayan pupils at the forefront of innovation, challenging them to introduce solutions into the EcoLab 360 for improvement on sustainability education.
Winner in Americas: Centro Educativo Mbaracayu
Mbaracayu Educational Centre is a technical boarding school for rural and indigenous girls between the ages of 15 and 18.
Located in the Mbaracayu Reserve’s forest in east central Paraguay, the institution offers the last three years of high school. The centre opened in 2009. Pupils pay a symbolic amount to cover the cost of their education and graduate with a technical degree in environmental sciences. The girls help at the tourism lodge and with the sale of produce from the school’s farming centre.
Winner in Europe: Vladimir Nazor School
Vladimir Nazor school in Croatia is 15 kilometres from the Adriatic coast. The school wants to take advantage of the sunny location by installing a solar system to provide electricity and water heating. The school won the prize on its first application.
Vladimir Nazor is about 40 kilometres from the village of Skabrnja, the site of a civilian massacre in November 1991 by Serbian paramilitary forces and Yugoslav army troops.
A mass grave containing the remains of 84 people was found adjacent to the school, which was destroyed and not rebuilt until 1997.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia charged and convicted several Croatian Serb leaders in connection with the crimes in Skabrnja.
The current principal, Marin Pavicic, who was a child at the time, escaped by hiding in his family’s basement.
Winner in Oceania: Motufoua Secondary School Tuvalu
Motufoua Secondary School is the only government school in Tuvalu, a small Polynesian island nation. The school, on the island of Vaitapu, has a 46kW solar PV array and a diesel generator, but does not have a steady supply of fuel.
The school intends to install a bio-digester and a pig farm that will provide organic fertiliser for vegetables. The school also plans to install four 10,000-litre rainwater tanks and a 3kW solar PV system to light the pig farm and run a water pump.
As the UAE continues to cement its position as a modern, progressive Arab state that has taken a leadership role in facilitating sustainable development, there is much to be proud of. No one can deny that we have come a long way in a very short space of time and that our lives have improved immeasurably in just a few generations.
We cannot, however, allow our successes to obscure the fact that we face great challenges if we are to build on our position of strength, in order to ensure a sustainable future for this country. The first step to delivering such a future lies in the adoption of a circular economy, as advocated in the UAE Vision 2021 national agenda. This will support social and economic growth that is in alignment with environmental objectives.
There are a number of key principles that will support the establishment of a circular economy in the UAE. Firstly, waste needs to be diverted away from landfill and reintegrated into the economy by recycling, repurposing or refurbishing.
In a circular economy, businesses, statutory authorities and individuals seek to maximise the inherent usefulness, as well as the value, of the energy that has been invested in a product, before eventually reintegrating it back into the economy. When an item reaches the end of its useful life, through reintegration it can become the input to create new cash flow and enhance natural capital, instead of adding to the insurmountable issue of waste disposal. Eventually all products will be designed and built with reintegration in mind. But until such time as this happens, it is up to us to develop new and creative ways of using the vast array of materials which surround us.
Secondly, a new approach needs to be adopted to the generation of clean energy, which concentrates on both natural renewable sources and innovative new technologies, such as converting waste into energy.
Powering the economy through clean sources of energy is pivotal to the adoption of a model of restoration. Conventional sources of energy follow a linear model, where energy is produced, used and then disposed, without adding further value. However, renewable sources of energy like wind and solar are regenerative by design and negate the need to consume finite resources. In diversifying our energy portfolio, we can also adopt innovative sources of energy that serve multi-fold purposes. While some types of waste might be usefully repaired, recycled or repurposed, non-recyclable waste is usually diverted to landfill, causing the loss of energy and value contained in these materials. Waste-to-energy offers great potential in the treatment of such materials by using them to generate energy, thus ensuring diversion from landfill, in addition to supplying clean energy.
The third principle for the adoption of a circular economy that is sustainable socially, economically and environmentally is to drive public engagement and commitment towards addressing this common cause.
To make a circular economy work requires a holistic approach, which includes a heavy emphasis on education within schools as well as other initiatives which engage and educate the general population. It is vital that every member of society understands what is expected of them, in terms of energy consumption, waste disposal and recycling. This necessitates a long-term approach to education and public engagement that is supported by our Government on a national basis. Our experience suggests that a willingness to adopt more sustainable ways of living already exists within the general population. It is therefore up to us and others in a similar position to harness and nurture that desire to do what is right for the environment and ensure we convert it into positive action.
Finally, a sustainable, circular economy will need transitioning towards sustainable consumption patterns. Globally, rampant consumerism is leading to sky high levels of consumption, in both the developed and developing world. These levels of consumption are, in turn, distorting and destabilising what should be a balanced relationship between how things are made, consumed and disposed of. In the past, excessive consumption was viewed as a driver for economic growth. However, it is increasingly being recognised that this type of growth triggers resource depletion and climate change. In order to ensure effective functioning of the ecosystem and to maximise the yield of our resources, consumption should be regulated to meet needs and not wants.
Industry leaders should envision and embrace a system that creates products with longer consumption life cycles, and the potential for recovery at the end of their useful life. In terms of manufacturing, this offers opportunities for innovation and creativity in product development, as well as sustainable sources for raw materials. A symbiotic relationship between waste management establishments, green energy providers and the wider business community is required to ensure the shift to a circular economy.
It is an irrefutable fact that the challenges that lie ahead are significant. However, under the UAE’s wise leadership, supported by the resilient spirit of our people, the nation has excelled, and will continue to excel, in its attempts to lead positive change in the region. This leadership is exemplified at major gatherings such as Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, which brings together leaders from across government, business and academia, providing a vital platform for sharing knowledge and agreeing shared action.
As a rapidly growing country, the UAE’s adoption of a circular economy will enable us to sustain this growth, while setting an example for many others to follow.
Industry leaders should envision and embrace a system that creates products with longer life cycles
Khaled Al Huraimel is group CEO of Bee’ah. The environmental management company will be participating in the Waste Management Solutions Forum during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week