Sharjah, UAE, 18 December 2023: Aligning with the COP28 consensus, the UAE’s Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative and the global 1.5 C ambition, BEEAH has announced its commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2040 within its operations by methodically building on its initiatives and projects that are already working towards this target.
With the conclusion of COP28, the UAE officially became the first nation to deliver a global stocktake report, rallying 200 countries to reach a consensus on key actions for the next decade, including the phasing out of fossil fuels, signalling an unprecedented occurrence of global solidarity towards positive climate action. As a climate supporter at COP28, BEEAH participated in dialogue, exchanged insights and launched landmark new projects to align with these developments. This has enabled BEEAH to progress towards net zero within the organisation while helping fulfil the climate ambitions of its partners and cities of operation.
To date, BEEAH has already made tremendous progress in driving towards net zero. In the emirate of Sharjah alone, BEEAH’s zero-waste strategies have enabled BEEAH to achieve a landmark 90% landfill waste diversion. As a result, BEEAH has reduced Sharjah’s dependence on landfills, and is therefore supporting the reduction of landfill emissions, which account for 60% of greenhouse gasses emitted in UAE’s waste management sector.
“As an organisation headquartered in the UAE, BEEAH has been closely aligned with the national sustainability agenda since our foundation,” said Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of BEEAH. “In less than 15 years since BEEAH’s founding, we have nearly reached our target of zero waste to landfill waste in Sharjah with a 90% waste diversion rate that is steadily increasing to reach 100% – a regional first. Over the next 15 years, we will build on our existing emission reduction strategies, adopt new innovations, diligently track our progress, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2040.”
Driving BEEAH’s pathway to achieve total landfill waste diversion and net-zero emissions is BEEAH’s end-to-end waste management ecosystem, which includes digitally-enabled waste collection with route-optimised fleet operations, an integrated waste management complex that processes and recycles nearly all types of waste, and groundbreaking waste-to-energy innovations.
The Sharjah Waste to Energy plant, a project of the Emirates Waste to Energy joint venture between BEEAH and Masdar, is located adjacent to BEEAH’s Waste Management Complex. It currently produces 30 MW of power, enough for 28,000 homes, and displaces 450,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.
During COP28, BEEAH forged new partnerships to develop two major projects to add to its waste-to-energy ecosystem, including a solar landfill and a waste-to-hydrogen plant. As BEEAH achieves total landfill waste diversion in Sharjah, it will seal off its landfill and repurpose the land for a 120 MW solar farm, a first-of-its-kind development in the region, in collaboration with Masdar and the Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (SEWA). Its commercial scale waste to hydrogen plant, in collaboration with Air Water and Chinook Hydrogen, will be another global first, backed by the breakthrough results from successful trials in Nottingham that demonstrated a commercially viable and carbon-negative process to convert municipal solid waste into fuel cell-grade hydrogen. Both the solar landfill and the waste-to-hydrogen plant will be located adjacent to BEEAH’s waste management complex and the Sharjah Waste to Energy plant, offering possibilities for BEEAH to power its operations from clean energy sources and decarbonise fleet operations with fuel-cell grade green hydrogen.
In addition to end-to-end waste management and clean energy innovations, BEEAH Group’s portfolio includes businesses in digital transformation, environmental education, sustainability consulting, green mobility, real estate and healthcare, which all contribute to its goal of shaping sustainable, smart cities and elevating quality of life. BEEAH Group currently has 13,000 employees working across the UAE, KSA and Egypt. In 2022, the organisation inaugurated the BEEAH Headquarters, an iconic, LEED Platinum-certified building designed by Zaha Hadid. The BEEAH Headquarters sets an example for offices of the future, built on principles of sustainability and digitalisation and offering a blueprint for smart-built infrastructure in future-ready cities. It has an on-site solar plant, greywater recycling plant and digital twin technology with predictive AI to minimise and optimise energy consumption based on occupancy, temperature and time of day.
“Climate solutions are the foundation of our business and we have always led by example within our own operations. We are committed to providing solutions to our partners and cities of operation and contributing to wider sustainability targets locally, regionally and globally. At the same time, we are examining our own operations, so that as we scale and grow, we ensure that we enhance our contributions to positive climate action. This is the purpose of our commitment to achieve net zero by 2040,” Al Huraimel added.
