Gord, Baladna join global climate action at COP27
Baladna Food Industries, the largest dairy producer in Qatar, has joined forces with the Gulf Organisation for Research and Development (Gord) to explore synergies at enhancing Qatar’s food securing through sustainable innovations.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on November 9 at the COP27 taking place in Sharm elSheikh.
Areas of collaboration covered in the recent MoU include work on activities to support sustainable solutions at ensuring food security, capacity building through trainings and educational programmes, and decarbonisation initiatives aimed at achieving carbon mitigation.
The agreement was signed by Gord founding chairman Dr Yousef Alhorr and Wafaa al-Saffar, sustainability director at Baladna.
Speaking at the MoU-signing ceremony, Dr Alhorr said: “As Qatar continues to make major strides towards self-reliance in food security, adopting sustainable farming and ecofriendly agriculture solutions is imperative for the nation’s sustainable development.”
“Our MoU with Baladna aims at pursuing more research to reduce carbon footprint by developing sustainable cooling technologies in agriculture in places like Qatar that have harsh climatic conditions,” he said. “Our collaboration today provides an example for organisations across diverse sectors to explore synergies aimed at catalysing climate action.”
“We are privileged to be invited at COP27 to formalise this collaboration, which we believe will be very crucial in strengthening Qatar’s food security and ensuring its sustainable development,” said al-Saffar. “We are very pleased to work with Gord through the years, pushing our mutual agenda towards a sustainable future.”
Giving details about specific projects of collaboration, she said: “Qatar has a harsh climate, which makes dairy farming challenging. Through our MoU, Baladna and Gord will collaborate on the development and application of Gord’s novel cooling technology for climatising barns.”
At COP27, Baladna is joining the Gord Pavilion as the Eco-Champion of Destination Green Programme – a multi-stakeholder initiative gathering organisations to share their success stories in the field of sustainability by showcasing them at international platforms.
The idea behind Gord’s Destination Green is to widen the impact of the ongoing sustainability efforts by exploring cross-sector synergies and promoting stakeholder engagement beyond their field of business.