Forbes Middle East - October 2023 - English by Forbes Middle East

THE RACE TO A LOW-EMISSION FUTURE 10 GOVERNMENT CLIMATE CHANGE LEADERS

SUSTAINABILITY LEADERS 2023

COP28: FACTS, FIGURES, AND KEY ISSUES WHY 3 ARAB ECONOMIES ARE JOINING BRICS

THANI BIN AHMED AL ZEYOUDI The U.A.E.’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade

AY CONNEC

T H OU R L A T E

ESS NEW S

SIN

AS THE U.A.E. SHOWCASES ITS COMMITMENT TO RENEWABLE ENERGY, ITS MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN TRADE IS ENCOURAGING INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION THROUGH SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS.

OCTOBER 2023 ISSUE 133

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OCTOBER 2023

CONTENTS

THE MIDDLE EAST’S SUSTAINABLE 100

SUSTAINABILITY

LEADERS

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

6 I Sidelines Far To Go By Claudine Coletti LEADERBOARDS

ECONOMY

10 I Why The Top 3 Arab Economies

CONTENTS

Are Joining BRICS

The BRICS alliance comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and together they represent a quarter of the global economy. The U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are now due to become members. Here’s a look at the benefits and potential challenges that lie ahead for them.

By Hagar Omran SUSTAINABILITY

12 I COP28 U.A.E. Facts, Figures,

And Key Issues

With COP27 having been held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022, COP28 is set to take place at Expo City Dubai, in the U.A.E., from November 30 to December 12, 2023. Here’s what you need to know about this year’s climate summit.

By Samar Khouri

36 FRONTRUNNER

22 I FEEDERS The cofounders of Saudi’s RedSea are on a mission to change how food is sourced in harsh climates, building luscious farms in the arid desert to feed over a billion people. By Nermeen Abbas

14 I The Race To A Low-Emission Future: How

MENA Oil And Gas Giants Are Adapting

Oil and gas operations account for nearly 15% of energyrelated greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency. Over $600 billion in investments are required to cut oil and gas emissions in half by 2030. Here are some notable investments and initiatives by oil and gas firms in MENA in their journey to a low-carbon future. By Mariam Moursi

16 I In Numbers: Younger Generations

Drive The Rise Of Resale

SUSTAINABLE 100

36 I No Time To Waste Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of the BEEAH Group, has overseen the holding company’s growth from a small waste management facility to a regional renewable power player. As MENA drives forward its green agenda, his job has only just gotten started. By Layan Abo Shkier NEXT BILLION-DOLLAR STARTUPS

70 I Rise Of The Tractor Bots Monarch CEO Praveen Penmetsa wants to save America’s farms with robots. Can Old MacDonalds learn new tricks?

By AMY FELDMAN

80 I Thoughts On Responsibility

By Rawan Hassan

18 I Middle East Consumers Prioritize ESG

And Sustainability

As the Middle East gears up to host COP28 in the U.A.E., sustainability has become the hot topic of the year. This heightened awareness has alerted consumers to their choices, prompting them to adopt more eco-conscious choices in their purchasing decisions. By Layan Abo Shkier

20 I 10 Government Climate Change Leaders These 10 leaders in government in the Middle East are using their influence to create positive change. By Jason Lasrado

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

COMPLEX PROCEDURES NEED PRECISION OF TECHNOLOGY, AND HUMAN EXPERTISE. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

October 2023

•

4 CONTENTS

Issue 133

COVER STORY

INSIDE •

30 Building Bridges Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the U.A.E.’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade and Minister in Charge of Talent Attraction and Retention, has been a key player as the country embeds its commitment to sustainability. His challenge now: inspiring others to use business as a platform for positive change. By Claudine Coletti

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

SIDELINES

FORBES MIDDLE EAST

Far To Go Sustainability and the race to keep the average rise in global warming to below 1.5 degrees in an effort to control climate change are topics never far from government and corporate agendas as extreme weather events become more common, the disparity between the rich and poor becomes more pronounced, and scientists become more fevered in their warnings about the consequences of not taking them seriously. However, despite the Paris Agreement being adopted in 2015 by 196 parties, as we sit at the halfway point to the UN’s 2030 global goals, only two out of 36 are on track, according to its Global Sustainable Development Report 2023. The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals are made of 36 measurable actions designed to ensure economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection for all member states for the survival and betterment of humanity. In 2023, the only two that have made substantial progress or are on track are “increase access to mobile networks” and “increase internet use.” Another eight are in a state of deterioration, including “achieve food security,” “prevent extinction of species,” “reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” and “reduce unsentenced detainees.” Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that the two on track also happen to be the most commercially viable. Still, the word from governments and corporations across the world is that progress is being made, albeit at a slower pace than hoped for. For our first Sustainable 100 list, we looked across the Middle East to find the big players making the biggest commitments and forward steps toward sustainable business goals. These organizations cover a wide variety of industries, business models, and capital resources, so we divided them into sectors and found the leaders who are making the most measurable progress. This month, we spoke to Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of the BEEAH Group, the largest waste management company in the Middle East and the operators of the region’s first commercial-scale waste-to-energy plant about how it’s tackling one of the toughest challenges facing the GCC today: waste generation. We also spoke to Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the U.A.E.’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade, about how the country is increasing its renewable energy capabilities and investing in stronger trade ties and technology to improve logistical efficiency and unify leaders at a time of increasing international polarization. This issue conveys positivity, but we cannot let that lull us into false security. We all need to do more to protect the planet that we are blessed to call home, and we need the heads of the corporations and communities that we rely on to offer green options, be pillars of fair and sustainable growth, and run their operations using renewably sourced energy. As we prepare to hear what leaders have to say at COP28 at the end of the year, we can only hope that they also listen and act. —Claudine Coletti, Managing Editor

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OCTOBER 2023

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Research

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OCTOBER 2023

LEADERBOARD

Why The Top 3 Arab Economies Are Joining BRICS The BRICS alliance comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and together they represent a quarter of the global economy. The U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are now due to become members. Here’s a look at the benefits and potential challenges that lie ahead for them.

Effective January 2024, the three biggest Arab economies in terms of GDP at current prices—Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and Egypt—will officially join the BRICS bloc, alongside other new members Argentina, Ethiopia, and Iran. BRICS, a group of five emerging economies and developing nations, is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa together represent a fifth of the world’s trade and more than 40% of the world’s population. S&P Global Ratings forecasts that by incorporating new members, BRICS will encompass around 30% of the world’s GDP and represent 45% of the global population. China, BRICS’ top economy, was the biggest market for Saudi exports in the first half of 2023, worth $26.8 billion, followed by Japan, India, South Korea, and the U.S., F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

respectively. China was also the top country for Saudi imports, with over $21 billion recorded in the same period, followed by the U.S., the U.A.E., India, and Germany, respectively. Overall, Saudi’s trade volume declined by 13.1% in the first half of 2023 from the same period of last year, hitting $261.3 billion. China, India, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye were the U.A.E.’s top five trade partners in the first half of 2023. The value of the U.A.E.’s non-oil foreign trade in the same period hit a new record high of $337.6 billion, reflecting a 14.4% growth compared to the same period in 2022. The U.A.E expects non-oil foreign trade to be worth $681.2 billion in 2023 and aims to reach $1.1 trillion by 2031. For Egypt’s embattled economy, joining BRICS can be a window of opportunity. Egypt already enjoys highlevel trade relations with

many of the BRICS countries, including the newly invited members. The U.A.E., China, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia were Egypt’s main trade partners in the first six months of the 2022/23 financial year, with trade volumes of $4.9 billion, $4.1 billion, $4 billion, and $3.6 billion, respectively. Egypt could also benefit from access to funding from the BRICS-established New Development Bank (NDB), which finances infrastructure projects and sustainable development initiatives in emerging markets and other developing countries. Since its establishment in 2014, the NDB has approved more than 96 projects totaling $32.7 billion as of 2022 in support of infrastructure areas. Joining the BRICS bloc could also be an opportunity to boost foreign direct investment (FDI) in the Arab world. The three biggest Arab economies are adopting plans to boost their inflows of net foreign direct investments. Saudi Arabia seeks to hit $100 billion in annual net FDI by 2030. The U.A.E. aims to attract $150 billion of inward FDI to become one of the 10 biggest global investment destinations in 2030. Egypt, which doubled its FDI inflows to $11.4 billion last year, aims to boost this as part of its efforts to address its foreign currency challenges. The U.A.E. attracted $22.7 billion in FDIs last year, while Saudi

Arabia received $7.9 billion in foreign investment inflows, according to UNCTAD. The potential benefits of joining BRICS, such as increased FDI, trade, and finance, are hindered by the different political views of the new members. For example, Ethiopia and Egypt disagree over access to the Nile River. However, BRICS could become more impactful if members are willing to cooperate and use their combined economic clout.

BRICS Impact Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa together represent:

25%

of the global economy

20%

of the world’s trade

40%+

of the world’s population With Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Egypt, Argentina, Ethiopia, and Iran, BRICS will represent:

30%

of the world’s GDP

45%

of the global population Sources: BRICS, S&P Global Ratings

OCTOBER 2023

BY HAGAR OMRAN; IMAGE BY BRICS / SOCIAL MEDIA

Economy

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

Sustainability

COP28 U.A.E. Facts, Figures, And Key Issues With COP27 having been held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022, COP28 is set to take place at Expo City Dubai, in the U.A.E., from November 30 to December 12, 2023. Here’s what you need to know about this year’s climate summit.

Notable past COP achievements • 1995 • The first UN climate talks, COP1, took place in Berlin, where the signatories agreed to meet yearly to discuss climate change and reduce emissions by developed countries to keep global warming under control. The Berlin Mandate also led to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol at COP3 in Japan two years later.

• 2011 • In November 2021, the U.A.E. was announced as the chosen country to host the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP) in 2023, which is the nation’s “Year of Sustainability.” It’s the fourth country in MENA to host a COP after Qatar, Morocco, and Egypt. Coinciding with the U.A.E.’s National Day, COP28 will have the first Global Stocktake since the 2015 Paris Agreement adoption, aiming to take transformative action to align the world’s collective climate action efforts with a comprehensive assessment of progress. According to Sultan bin Ahmed Al Jaber, COP28 President-Designate and Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, the U.A.E. was the first country in MENA to announce a strategic initiative, titled U.A.E. Net Zero 2050, to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and the first Middle Eastern country to sign the Paris Agreement. It will also establish a designated “Health/Relief, Recovery, and Peace” day and spotlight trade’s role in tandem with finance at the UN Climate Conference.

Figures Regarded as a “milestone moment for global climate action,” COP28 will host over 70,000 participants, including world leaders, private sector representatives, and NGOs. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

In the meantime, the U.A.E. has been putting climate change at the forefront of its agendas. The country provides $1.5 billion worth of renewable aid to over 40 countries and has funded $50 billion in clean energy projects in 70 countries over the past years. In November 2022, the U.A.E. and the U.S. launched the Partnership for Accelerating Clean Energy (PACE) to invest $100 billion to deploy 100 new gigawatts of clean energy by 2035.

Key issues To address the climate crisis and put the world on the right track to achieve the Paris Agreement’s pillars, the COP28 Presidency has set out a two-week thematic program to deliver on four key pillars: fast-tracking energy transition and slashing emissions before 2030, focusing on adaptation to protect nature, lives, and livelihoods, mobilizing for an inclusive COP, and transforming climate finance. This includes aiming to double the production of lowcarbon hydrogen and triple renewable energy generation by 2030 and double adaptation finance to $40 billion annually by 2025 for the Global South. The COP28 Presidency has called for global solidarity and a goal of capping the global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels.

COP17 in Durban, South Africa, witnessed the launch of new initiatives and an agreement to adopt a universal greenhouse gas reduction protocol by 2015 by all parties.

• 2014 • For the first time, all countries, not just the developed countries, at COP20 in Lima were invited to make commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the international agreement, referred to as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).

• 2022 • COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh reached a landmark agreement to establish and operationalize a “loss and damage” fund for vulnerable countries affected by climate disasters.

OCTOBER 2023

BY SAMAR KHOURI ; PHOTO BY ZAK BENNETT / AFP

LEADERBOARD

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

Sustainability

The Race To A Low-Emission Future: How MENA Oil And Gas Giants Are Adapting Oil and gas operations account for nearly 15% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency. Over $600 billion in investments are required to cut oil and gas emissions in half by 2030. Here are some notable investments and initiatives by oil and gas firms in MENA in their journey to a low-carbon future. Aramco Country: Saudi Arabia The world’s largest oil company, Aramco, has taken several steps towards achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. In March 2023, Aramco announced an agreement with Linde Engineering to jointly develop a new ammonia cracking technology to create new commercial opportunities within the global lowercarbon energy supply chain. It also signed a letter of intent with Geely and Renault Group for a new powertrain company to focus on loweremission technologies. This comes in line with Aramco’s $1.5 billion Sustainability Fund announced in October 2022 and managed by its venture capital arm, Aramco Ventures. In July 2023, Aramco, in collaboration with TotalEnergies and SABIC, completed the processing of oil derived from plastic waste into ISCC+ certified circular polymers for the first time in MENA.

ADNOC

ADNOC announced the world’s first fully sequestered carbon dioxide injection project.

announced the world’s first fully sequestered carbon dioxide injection project. In July 2023, ADNOC brought forward its net zero ambition by five years to 2045 and committed to zero methane ambition by 2030. In September 2023, ADNOC announced its investment to develop “Habshan,” one of the largest carbon capture, utilization, and storage projects in MENA, processing 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

QatarEnergy

Country: U.A.E.

Country: Qatar

Energy provider ADNOC allocated $15 billion in January 2023 to develop lowcarbon solutions across its diversified value chain over the next five years. These solutions include investments in clean power and hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and electrification. Later the same month, ADNOC

Natural gas supplier QatarEnergy aims to reduce the carbon intensity of its operations in scope 1 and 2 emissions by 35% across LNG facilities and by 25% across upstream facilities by 2035. QatarEnergy aims to achieve near-zero methane emissions from oil and gas operations by 2030. In 2023,

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

the state-owned energy company plans to award its carbon dioxide capture project contract, which is expected to be completed by 2028 and has the potential to capture four million tons of carbon dioxide per year. Driven by Qatar’s National Vision 2030, last year, QatarEnergy’s affiliates announced the construction of the $1 billion Ammonia-7 Project, which is expected to produce 1.2 million tons of blue ammonia per year by 2026.

Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) Country: Kuwait State-owned KPC announced a roadmap to low-emission energy transformation in June 2023, in line with its 2040 strategy plan and with Kuwait’s international obligations to achieve hydrocarbon neutrality

by 2050. KPC subsidiaries include national oil companies like Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Kuwait National Petroleum Company, and Kuwait Oil Tanker Company, among others. In March 2023, KOC signed three soil remediation contracts in South Kuwait to help achieve the Kuwait Environmental Remediation Program’s commitment to sign all remediation contracts before 2024, with a target of 8.34 million cubic meters of soil.

SONATRACH Country: Algeria In early 2023, SONATRACH announced the allocation of $1 billion of the company’s 2023 to 2027 $40 billion investment plan to energy transition projects. In January 2023, SONATRACH signed two strategic memoranda of intention with Eni to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase gas supplies in Algeria, and find suitable technologies to implement it. In July 2023, the company signed an agreement with TotalEnergies to develop renewable energy projects in Algeria. These projects include solarizing oil and gas exploration and production, conducting studies of the potential for renewable, low-carbon hydrogen for the export market, and an R&D project on lowcarbon energies and energy transition. OCTOBER 2023

BY MARIAM MOURSI; IMAGE FROM ADNOC.AE

LEADERBOARD

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

Sustainability

Underpinned by the impact of social media, economic stresses, and a change in purchase intention, the global resale market has been on the rise, led by younger generations. Here are some facts and figures highlighting this surge of conscious consumption. Many of the world’s largest retailers are adopting more circular business models as fashion consumers display a shift toward more conscious consumption, especially among younger generations. According to thredUP’s Resale Report 2023, the global second-hand market grew 28% in 2022 to $177 billion and is expected to double in value to exceed $350 billion by 2027, with the second-hand apparel market growing three times faster on average than the global apparel market overall. By 2024, 10% of the global apparel market is expected to be made up of second-hand apparel. Most of the change is expected to be led by Asia, followed by Europe and North America. The U.S. second-hand market is expected to be worth $70 billion by 2027. The resale market grew five times faster than the broader retail clothing sector in 2022, and it’s expected to grow nine times faster by 2027. In the U.S. alone, 52% of consumers shopped for secondhand apparel in 2022. Economic turbulence in 2023 was expected to affect consumers variably, with disposable income levels playing a big role when it comes to discretionary purchases, increasing the shift towards resale and rental markets, according to the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2023 Survey. This forces more brands to offer resale and rental options globally to capture the attention of more sustainable shoppers who are seeking value for money while being eco-conscious. This is also reflected in the U.S., with 94% of consumers concerned with inflation’s impact on their dayto-day finances and 38% extremely concerned, according to thredUP’s report. Over 37% of consumers spent a higher proportion of their apparel budget on second-hand items last F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Most Popular Luxury Brands According to the RealReal 2023 Luxury Resale Report, here are the five mostsearched-for luxury brands for resale.

• Gucci • In March 2023, Gucci launched two initiatives, Gucci Preloved with Vestiaire Collective and Gucci Continuum, featuring redesigned deadstock materials as part of its ongoing circularity efforts.

• Louis Vuitton • In 2021, LVMH launched Nona Source, the first online resale platform for materials from LVMH Fashion & Leather Goods Maisons.

• CHANEL • In 2022, CHANEL limited the number of items a single client can buy from

its Classic Collection to two Classic Flaps per year to give emphasis on its exclusivity within the resale market, according to Reuters.

• Prada • In December 2021, Prada reported developing in-house and partner-focused second-hand sectors to boost its sustainability efforts. In 2022, the group recycled 95% of the waste from processed textile fibers generated in Italy.

• Hermès • In 2022, Hermès repair workshops restored 202,000 of the luxury brand’s products.

year in the U.S., while 30% of Gen Z chose to go second-hand to afford higher-end brands. Online resale is the fastest-growing sector in the U.S. second-hand market and is expected to be worth $38 billion by 2027, growing twice as fast as the global second-hand market overall, according to thredUP. China is also on the rise, according to BoF-McKinsey & Company. A survey conducted by UBS in 2020 targeting Chinese consumers found that 72% of those surveyed had increased their luxury resale purchases through online platforms. This marked a noteworthy surge compared to the 31% who engaged in such purchases back in 2018. In 2022, the number of second-hand e-commerce users reached around 263 million in China, up from 223 million in 2021, according to Statista. Younger generations are expected to account for nearly two-thirds of incremental second-hand spending in the U.S. by 2027 as their purchasing power increases, led by millennials (33%), followed by Gen Z (28%), then Gen X (26%). Compared to other generations, Gen Z seems to be driving online resale growth, as 58% of the Zoomers who bought secondhand apparel in the last 12 months have made at least one purchase online. In the U.S., two in five items owned by Gen Z are second-hand. Sustainability is at the forefront of Gen Z’s conscious fashion choices, with 47% refusing to buy from nonsustainable apparel brands and retailers, up 11% from 2021. Buying and wearing second-hand instead of new clothing reduces carbon emissions by an average of 25%, according to thredUP, and around 61% of Gen Z and Millennials consider themselves to be eco-conscious or sustainabilityfocused, compared to 51% of consumers overall. OCTOBER 2023

BY RAWAN HASSAN; DANIELE ALOISI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

LEADERBOARD

In Numbers: Younger Generations Drive The Rise Of Resale

PRO M OTI O N Scan this QR code to open the website

Opulence, Redefined Paulin Tomov, the founder and chairman of real estate development company, PMR Property, is adding a new dimension to ultra-luxury living in Dubai.

Paulin Tomov, the founder and chairman of PMR Property

aulin Tomov’s journey in the world of real estate development has been remarkable. Born with an innate sense of design and a passion for creating exceptional living spaces, he embarked on a mission early in his career to elevate the real estate landscape. From the outset, his commitment to excellence and an unwavering vision for crafting residences that transcend conventional luxury set him apart. Today, his company, PMR Property, is synonymous with ultra-luxury living, delivering projects in Dubai that go beyond the expected and redefine opulence. Dubai has long been a playground for the world’s elite, and Tomov understands the demands of the city’s discerning clientele. PMR Property’s projects are a reflection of this understanding, offering residents unparalleled extravagance.

Tomov’s projects also mirror his dedication to perfection and his meticulous attention to detail, both of which are evident in the array of services and facilities his developments offer. Often nestled in the heart of Dubai’s most coveted neighborhoods, PMR Property’s ultra-luxury residential projects boast an extensive lineup of lavish amenities, with private swimming pools, state-ofthe-art gyms, personal cinemas, and expansive garden terraces counting among them. But for the founder-chairman, delivering ultra-luxury is not just about the property and its amenities, it is also about location. One of the key aspects of his strategy is the selection of iconic settings, with PMR Property’s projects positioned along Dubai’s waterfront, offering breathtaking views of the city’s skyline, including landmarks like the iconic Burj Khalifa. These locations not only provide residents with unrivaled scenery but also ensure that they are at the center of Dubai’s vibrant social and cultural scene. To bring his vision to life, Tomov collaborates with world-renowned architectural firms. The result is a harmonious blend of sophisticated design and contemporary architecture, with structures that not only captivate the eye but also set new standards for luxury living in Dubai. Foster + Partners, an internationally acclaimed architectural firm, is one such

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collaborator, and their partnership has yielded iconic projects. Looking ahead, Paulin Tomov envisions each new project as a future global benchmark for refined and exclusive luxury living. His commitment to excellence, coupled with the expertise of his team, will allow PMR Property to establish a reputation as a premier developer in Dubai. In fact, as Dubai continues to evolve and expand, Tomov intends to remain at the forefront of innovation in real estate development. His relentless pursuit of perfection and his ability to anticipate the needs and desires of the world’s most discerning clientele will continue to shape Dubai’s skyline and set new standards for luxury living. In the world of ultra-luxury residential development, Paulin Tomov and PMR Property are determined to stand as embodiments of opulence, sophistication, and visionary design. With every future project, they will create not just residences, but living experiences with the potential to redefine the very essence of luxury.

www.pmrproperty.com

OCTOBER 2023

Sustainability

Middle East Consumers Prioritize ESG And Sustainability As the Middle East gears up to host COP28 in the U.A.E., sustainability has become the hot topic of the year. This heightened awareness has alerted consumers to their choices, prompting them to adopt more eco-conscious choices in their purchasing decisions. Globally, 73% of consumers are willing to adopt a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, according to the latest independent research commissioned by Alibaba Group, titled “The Sustainability Trends Report 2023.” The research, published in July 2023, polled more than 14,000 consumers from 14 markets across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The research found that around 76% of consumers would welcome more information about how to be more sustainable, with the U.A.E. scoring 90%. In the Middle East, consumers are more mindful of factors such as ESG and sustainability compared to their global counterparts, according to PwC’s Global Consumer Insights Survey 2022 – Pulse 4. The survey, published in September 2022, finds that 31% of respondents in the Middle East take environmental factors into consideration when recommending a company or brand to others, compared to 18% globally. At a micro level, 82% of U.A.E. consumers, compared with 76% in Egypt and 74% in Saudi Arabia, are willing to pay a higher price for goods that are made from

In March 2021, Saudi Arabia announced The Saudi Green Initiative and The Middle East Green Initiative.

recycled, sustainable, or ecofriendly materials. Sustainability is influencing both consumer behavior and government recycling policies in the Middle East. Globally, 151 countries have committed and proposed to achieve net-zero targets, including nine MENA countries: the U.A.E., Oman, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan, and Tunisia. The U.A.E., Oman, Lebanon,

Yemen, and Sudan are all aiming to become net-zero by 2050, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain by 2060, while Tunisia and Kuwait aim to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and 2060, respectively, according to Net Zero Tracker as of September 12, 2023. Since setting their targets, these countries have launched several initiatives intended to encourage consumers to embrace a

more sustainable lifestyle. In March 2021, Saudi Arabia announced The Saudi Green Initiative and The Middle East Green Initiative, two road maps that aim to achieve global targets related to climate change. In June 2022, the U.A.E.’s capital, Abu Dhabi, announced the banning of single-use plastic bags, and other emirates started charging shoppers for these bags in July 2022. As more initiatives and policies come into place, the region’s consumers are no longer passive observers but active participants toward a more environmentally responsible future. As they increasingly align their choices with sustainability goals, the Middle East stands poised to not only meet its climate targets but to lead by example. With governments, businesses, and individuals working in harmony, this newfound commitment to sustainable living not only promises a brighter environmental future but also underscores the region’s determination to play a pivotal role in shaping the global conversation on climate change and sustainability for years to come.

Making Good Choices

• 31% •

• 73% •

• 82% •

of consumers in the Middle East take environmental factors into consideration when recommending a company or brand to others, compared to 18% globally.

of consumers globally are willing to adopt a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.

of consumers in the U.A.E., 76% in Egypt, and 74% in Saudi Arabia are willing to pay a higher price for goods that are made from recycled, sustainable, or eco-friendly materials.

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

BY LAYAN ABO SHKIER; IMAGE FROM GREENINITIATIVES.GOV.SA

LEADERBOARD

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Success Starts from the Top Saudi-based fintech, Hala, has appointed a new CEO as the company prepares to hit profitability and embark on its next chapter of growth. its workforce by including seasoned leaders and key team members across different departments, with the team crossing 350 members. Going further, by nurturing a culture of diversity and inclusion, the cofounder-turned-CEO aims to build on the existing strengths of Hala’s human capital and continue to attract the very best talent.

Maher Loubieh, CEO & Co-founder Of Hala

n a strategic maneuver to secure the title of MENA’s premier fintech firm, Saudi Arabia’s Hala has announced the appointment of co-founder Maher Loubieh as CEO. For its ambitious leaders, the transition shows Hala’s commitment to enhancing its prospects for sustained growth, and with the platform rapidly approaching profitability, the new appointment is set to be pivotal in shaping the company’s future trajectory. Founded in 2018 by Loubieh and Esam Al-Nahdi, Hala – formerly HalalaH – has emerged as a driving force that is supporting entrepreneurs and SMEs across the region and propelling clients toward a digital frontier of payments and financial empowerment. Today, as Hala prepares for new growth, the shuffle at the top sees Loubieh take over from Al-Nahdi as CEO and retain his seat on the company board. For his part, Al-Nahdi has become the board’s chairman and Group Managing Director at Hala. Now,

with solid leadership firmly in place, the company is poised to fortify its position in the kingdom and advance Hala’s ambitious vision to become the future bank of SMEs. Before co-founding Hala, Loubieh accumulated more than 15 years of experience in investment banking and corporate finance advisory. He worked on financial transactions dealing with SMEs in various sectors and co-chaired the Payment Vertical within the MENA Fintech Association. A passion for learning has also led him to lecture at several regional universities and act as a mentor at institutions including the American University of Beirut, ESA Business School, and IM Capital, among others. Looking ahead, as Hala’s CEO, the entrepreneur is laser focused on ensuring that the company grows sustainably while maintaining a robust operating model and strong governance framework. For the chief executive, manpower matters too. In the past two years alone, Hala has expanded

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Alongside building a stellar team, another key priority for Loubieh is to develop Hala into a product-led company, with customer centricity and underserved market segments at its core. And of course, leading a financial institution that deals with customer money poses major responsibilities on the CEO. Rising to the challenge, Hala’s newly appointed chief executive is committed to ensuring that the company has all the right tools, talents, budget, and frameworks in place, as well as infrastructure capable of protecting against cyber security, fraud, and money laundering risks. Esam Al-Nahdi’s and Maher Loubieh’s visionary strategy is centered on providing cutting-edge and tech-fueled financial services that uplift and empower SMEs. From the outset, this vision marked the genesis of Hala, and, today, the evolution of one of MENA’s leading digital financial platform continues.

www.hala.com OCTOBER 2023

Sustainability

10 Government Climate Change Leaders These 10 leaders in government in the Middle East are using their influence to create positive change. Sultan Al Jaber

Country: U.A.E.

Designation: COP28 President-Designate, U.A.E. Special Envoy for Climate Change, and Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology

Al Jaber is the first CEO to serve as a president for the Conference of the Parties (COP). During his time as Masdar’s CEO between 2006 and 2014, he established Masdar City, a low-carbon, low-waste urban development in Abu Dhabi. According to Al Jaber, Masdar has invested in solar and wind energy projects across 40 countries. In 2019, Al Jaber received a lifetime achievement award from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his contributions to energy security, supporting emerging Asian economies, and rethinking traditional energy business models.

Adel Al-Jubeir

Country: Saudi Arabia Designation: Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Climate Envoy Al-Jubeir has been the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs since December 2018 and was appointed as the first Saudi climate envoy following a royal decree in May 2022. Saudi Arabia’s Middle East Green Initiative aims to plant up to 50 billion trees in the Middle East, with $2.5 billion to support the initiative. At the UN General Assembly in September 2023, Al-Jubeir highlighted Saudi Arabia’s goal to double its contributions to reducing emissions by 278 million tons annually by 2030 compared to 2015.

Abdulrahman AlFadley

Country: Saudi Arabia

Designation: Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture AlFadley has been in his current role since January 2015, working with the government to implement Saudi Arabia’s long-term sustainability goals by prioritizing knowledge exchange on global water issues, creating a lucrative investment environment, and emphasizing how transforming food systems in the kingdom has contributed to an increase in agricultural investments. Besides his ministerial position, AlFadley is also chairman of the board of the General Food Security Authority, the Saudi Irrigation Organization, the Agricultural Development Fund, the National Center for Meteorology, the Saudi Wildlife Authority, the Saline Water Conversion Corporation, and the National Water Company. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

BY JASON LASRADO; IMAGE FROM WAM

LEADERBOARD

Razan Al Mubarak

Mohamed Bin Mubarak Bin Daina

Country: U.A.E.

Country: Bahrain

Designation: Managing Director of the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD)

Mariam Almheiri

Faleh Bin Nasser Al Thani

Country: U.A.E.

Designation: Minister of Climate Change and Environment

Yasmine Fouad

Country: Egypt

IMAGES FROM SOURCE

Designation: Minister of Environment Fouad has more than 20 years of experience working in government, UN organizations, NGOs, and universities. She was the Ministerial Coordinator and Envoy for COP27, which was held in Egypt in 2022. In September 2023, Egypt inaugurated the first edition of the Climate and Environmental Investment Forum, providing an overview of Egypt’s investment ecosystem, green economy opportunities, climate resilience, and the 2050 National Climate Strategy. F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi

Country: U.A.E.

Designation: Minister of State for Foreign Trade

Mariam Almheiri

During her previous position as Minister of State for Food Security, Almheiri oversaw food security infrastructure planning and development in line with the U.A.E. Centennial 2071. She inaugurated the first National Dialogue for Food Security in 2023 as a platform to discuss food security in the U.A.E. In September 2023, she virtually joined Climate Future Week, which discussed the importance of COP28 in advancing climate action through collaboration between governments, industries, and communities.

Bin Daina cooperates with international entities on preventive and supportive projects to protect the environment in line with Bahrain’s sustainable development goals and encourages investments in oil and environmental projects, with a focus on Bahrain’s natural habitat, human environment, and the conservation and development of its resources for the future. Bin Daina is also the CEO of Bahrain’s Supreme Council for Environment.

Razan Al Mubarak

Abdullah Al Amri

Country: Oman

Designation: Chairman of the Environment Authority The Environment Authority was established in 2020 to develop plans and programs to protect the environment and preserve its natural resources. It will launch the “Oman Conference for Environmental Sustainability; Decarbonization” conference in February 2024, which aims to promote the adoption of low-carbon technologies, strategies, and policies to achieve decarbonization. The authority has environmental campaigns, including clean sea, sea turtle returns, and Qurum culture.

Al Zeyoudi was appointed to his current role in July 2020, in which he emphasizes the centrality of trade in climate change mitigation and aims to increase supply chains’ efficiency and accelerate the country’s energy transition to clean fuels. Before this role, he was the Minister of Climate Change and Environment from 2016. He also previously worked with the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) on the development of renewable energy technologies and solutions.

Faleh Bin Nasser Al Thani

Country: Qatar

Designation: Minister of Environment and Climate Change Al Thani was appointed Minister of Environment and Climate Change in October 2021, with a mandate to implement Qatar’s national plan for climate change. In July 2023, the ministry signed an agreement with the Mitsubishi Research Institute for a consultancy project for Qatar’s carbon credit plan, with an aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030. In April 2023, it launched the “Environmental Pioneers” initiative, which aims to involve society in facing the challenges of climate change and to preserve Qatar’s environment and biodiversity. OCTOBER 2023

21 LEADERBOARD

Al Mubarak was appointed as the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for the COP28 Presidency in January 2023. She is also the president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the founding Managing Director of the Mohamed Bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. In her role with EAD, she oversaw the founding and execution of the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative, formed and managed protected areas across 15% of Abu Dhabi’s terrestrial and marine territory, and established the first environment-focused court. She has over 20 years of experience in leading environmental protection and species conservation across West Asia and globally.

Designation: Minister of Oil and Environment and Special Envoy for Climate Affairs

WHAT ’ S NEW

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WHO’S NEXT

FEEDERS

The cofounders of Saudi’s RedSea are on a mission to change how food is sourced in harsh climates, building luscious farms in the arid desert to feed over a billion people.

BY NERMEEN ABBAS; IMAGE FROM REDSEA

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F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

IMAGE FROM REDSEA

In 2018, as the earth faced its fourth warmest year since 1880, three old college friends in Saudi embarked on a journey to leverage technology to sustain food production. Their goal was to overcome the challenges presented by rising temperatures and water scarcity in order to stabilize the food supply. “The idea was simple yet ambitious: to use cutting-edge technology to make local, sustainable food production a reality for over a billion people living in desert areas,” says Ryan Lefers, CEO and Cofounder of RedSea, a Makkah-based startup that’s been enabling commercial farming in harsh climates for five years. Having launched in a desert country with no permanent rivers or lakes and very little rainfall, Lefers, Mark Tester, and Derya Baran—who met on campus at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology—are now growing a variety of crops, including snack peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries. The company helps reduce the water usage and carbon footprint of agricultural processes, with combined savings of up to 90%. Today, its patented technologies are used in 12 countries across five continents, from Spain to Saudi Arabia. The demand for sustainable agricultural technologies has reached a critical level, particularly due to the pressing issue of water scarcity in MENA. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 12 of the 17 most water-stressed countries in the world are in MENA. Regional governments, including Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., have started to launch plans to support sustainable agriculture and food security, with sovereign wealth

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

10 Middle Eastern

Sustainable Startups 1

Pure Harvest Smart Farms

Country: U.A.E. Sector: Agri-tech business Established in: 2017 Pure Harvest designs, builds, and operates controlled-environment agriculture growing solutions to sustainably produce fruits and vegetables. The company operates in the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia and is constructing projects in Kuwait and Singapore. In June 2022, it formed an alliance with the Al Dahra Group, increasing the total operating capacity under its management to over 22 hectares. In 2023, it expanded from tomatoes and greens to melons, peppers, and blackberries. It has raised $387 million in funding from investors, including Olayan Group, Shorooq Partners, Abu Dhabi Investment Office, ADQ, Metric Capital Partners, and IMM Investment Corp. 2

RedSea

Country: Saudi Arabia Sector: Agri-tech business Established in: 2018 RedSea enables commercial farming in hot climates. Its patented, proprietary “roof to root” technologies reduce water and energy consumption by up to 90% and are used in 12 countries across five continents, from Spain to Saudi Arabia. It has raised $36.5 million from investors, including KAUST, Savola, and Wa’ed Ventures. It secured an HSBC Green Loan to help fund its new greenhouse facility, CACTUS (Center of Agricultural Climate Technology for Ultimate Sustainability), in the U.A.E.

Ryse Energy

Country: U.A.E. Sector: renewable energy technologies and systems Established in: 2020 Ryse Energy is a manufacturer of small wind turbine technologies and decentralized renewable energy systems, including solar and energy storage. It has installed over 180,000 systems across seven continents. In April 2023, the company raised a $15 million growth funding round led by RWE Energy Transition Investments. It has produced renewable energy to power over 250,000 homes, displaced the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of over 25 million trees, captured carbon for 10 years, and saved over 1.5 million tons of greenhouse gases being produced. 4

Cartlow

Country: U.A.E. Sector: Reverse logistics solution. Established in: 2019 Cartlow operates as a reverse logistics solution. Since its launch, it has managed over two million items, saving more than 36 million kg of carbon emissions and six million kg of waste. The company receives a portion of the profit from each refurbished product sold on its platform and has raised $23 million in funding. It has 1.2 million registered users and operates in the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

OCTOBER 2023

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funds pouring investment into emerging agribusinesses. The U.A.E.-based Pure Harvest is one of these players, having raised $387 million in funding from investors including Olayan Group, Shorooq Partners, Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), ADQ, Metric Capital Partners, and IMM Investment Corp, among others. It designs, builds, and operates controlled-environment agriculture growing solutions to sustainably produce fruits and vegetables. Pure Harvest currently operates in the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia while constructing projects in Kuwait and Singapore and expanding its product portfolio from tomatoes and greens to melons, peppers, and blackberries. RedSea has secured $36.5 million from KAUST, Savola, and Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures, among other investors. Other agri-businesses on the rise across the region include Jordan’s Decapolis, Morocco’s Sand to Green, and Egypt’s Mozare3 and Mahaseel Masr. “The MENA region faces several critical challenges in agribusiness, including extreme heat, water scarcity and salinity, and drought. These environmental challenges can significantly hinder crop growth and productivity”, stresses Lefers. “This presents the ever-growing need for sustainable agriculture solutions that can reduce resource consumption and enhance food security, especially in arid regions like the Arabian Peninsula where 85% of food is imported.” RedSea doesn’t only grow crops; it also sells its patented technology to farmers across the world, including its iyris SecondSky heat-blocking greenhouse roof, which maximizes the power of sunlight for photosynthesis while absorbing harmful near-infrared radiation, reducing peak heat. Its Kairos Thermocline system can operate using low-quality and salty water, while the Coretex intelligent monitoring platform allows growers to improve yields and augment existing monitoring and control systems. The founders are now planning to expand even further, doubling down on the potential in the global controlled environment agriculture market, which is projected to grow from $70.5 billion in 2021 to $270.2 billion by 2032, according to a study by KD Market Insights. Partnerships in the pipeline include a collaboration with the Saudi Downtown Company, a fully-owned subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund. “We are focused on bringing our proprietary technologies to more markets worldwide,” says Lefers.

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Bekia

Country: Egypt Sector: Waste management Established in: 2017 Bekia’s app allows users to exchange their inorganic waste— such as cans, plastics, food, oil, and metal—for cash over a mobile wallet or bank account. It has recycled over 10,000 tons of waste and collected more than 10 million plastic bottles. It has secured investment from Flat6Labs, OFT Wadi, Catalyst Fund, and Core Vision. 6

Decapolis

Country: Jordan Sector: Food safety and quality traceability technology Established in: 2020 Decapolis is a Jordan and U.K.based startup that provides blockchain-driven food safety and quality traceability. It has enabled over 1,000 smallholder farms to access new markets and improve their production techniques. It also partnered with the WFP in various initiatives, including the National School Feeding Program in Jordan, providing 12 million traceable meals to feed 93,000 students. The company is backed by ISSF and Oasis500 and entered into a strategic collaboration with U.S.-based Fresh Del Monte in October 2022, which involves a 39% stake acquisition to use Decapolis’ solutions across all Fresh Del Monte business segments. 7

Kumulus

secured $2 million in equity and non-dilutive funding. 8

TileGreen

Country: Egypt Sector: Waste management Established in: 2021 A cleantech startup in the construction industry, TileGreen has patented technology to make carbon-negative building materials from low-value plastic waste, offering solutions that tackle both the plastic waste problem and the environmental impact of traditional building materials. To date, the company has recycled 10 million single-use plastic waste items, with an aim to save the environment from five billion single-use plastic bags by 2025. 9

Sand to Green

Country: Morocco Sector: Agritech business Established in: 2021 Sand to Green tackles the issue of advancing deserts, land degradation, and food security, helping transform deserts into cultivable lands through agroforestry and solar-powered desalination to create climate-smart regenerative farms. Today, it has 40 hectares of land under restoration, with an additional 650 hectares in the pipeline. The company recently secured $1 million in funding from Norwegian Katapult, Catalyst Fund, and business angels. 10

Mahaseel Masr

Country: Tunisia Sector: Water Technology Startup Established in: 2021

Country: Egypt Sector: Agri e-commerce platform Established in: 2020

Kumulus designs, manufactures, and operates machines that create drinking water using condensation technology. Its flagship product, The Kumulus-1, is an Atmospheric Water Generator that produces an average of 30 liters of mineralized and fresh drinking water per day. The machine houses Kumuluspatented technology, with one machine capable of serving 15-20 people per day or more than 5,500 people annually. Backed by the Techstars Sustainability Paris Accelerator, Flat6Labs, Agoranov, and BPI France, Kumulus has

Mahaseel is an agritech startup that offers a B2B marketplace for fresh produce, connecting farmers with buyers. In 2022, the company secured investment from the Emirates International Investment Company, the strategic investment arm of National Holding. In January 2023, Mahaseel was among 14 public and private sector institutions to sign an MoU to establish the Arab Digital Food Hub. Mahaseel has over 28,000 farms on the platform, with 530,000 feddans of land and over a million tons of crops harvested and sold.

OCTOBER 2023

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The Road To Traceability

uxury men’s fashion label ZEGNA is making waves in the industry with its latest launch, Oasi Cashmere. The collection offers deep, engaging colors in fabrics woven out of a passion for excellence, a love of nature, and a harmony that only responsible development can provide. The result is a trailblazing curation of exquisite apparel that is poised to redefine luxury menswear and pioneer a sustainable future.

excellence that extends beyond fashion to encompass knowledge, relationships, and trust. Indeed, excellence in all its forms is the driving force behind ZEGNA’s ‘Road to Tomorrow,’ and shapes an ethos that connects people, the environment, values, and wellbeing. Continuing the ZEGNA legacy, this same ethos and the passionate pursuit of excellence are now embodied in the Oasi Cashmere collection.

The Oasi Zegna Inspiration At the very heart of ZEGNA’s philosophy lies the stunning Oasi Zegna nature park in northern Italy. The home of the brand’s values, the 100 square-kilometer natural territory surrounds the ZEGNA Wool Mill in the Italian Alps. It is where the brand’s story began, and the inspiration that has shaped more than a century of success.

The Oasi Cashmere Collection: A

The Pursuit of Excellence ZEGNA’s identity is built on a fearless vision, an unwavering quest for innovation, and a dedication to

Journey of Traceability The Oasi Cashmere collection marks a significant milestone on ZEGNA’s ‘Road to Traceability,’ and aims to set a new standard for accountability in fashion. Already, ZEGNA’s cashmere is sourced responsibly from some of the world’s most remote farms before being transformed into stunning pieces using the latest innovations in Italian manufacturing. But now ZEGNA is going even further with a pledge that, by 2024, all cashmere

The expressed inOthis F O Rthoughts BESMIDD L E E A S T.C M advertorial are those of the client.

fiber used in the Oasi Cashmere collection will be fully certified as traceable. The commitment is a testament to the brand’s dedication to sourcing responsibly, all the way from the initial stages of goat farming to the final garment. ZEGNA’s vertically integrated business model allows the brand to maintain control and responsibility throughout the production process, with respect for every step in the chain giving its products a genuine identity. To authenticate this commitment to traceability, each Oasi Cashmere garment comes with a QR code that reveals the entire journey of the collection—from the cashmere farm to the stores, and even to the stunning Oasi Zegna where the collection’s breathtaking campaign was shot. Where Beauty Meets Responsibility Oasi Cashmere is more than just a collection of luxurious clothing; it is a testament to beautiful fabric-making grounded in beautiful values that shine through in every piece. With Oasi Cashmere, ZEGNA continues to lead the world of luxury menswear, demonstrating that fashion can be a force for positive change, without compromising on quality and style. As we eagerly anticipate the future of fashion, ZEGNA’s sense of responsibility and dedication to excellence set remarkable new standards for the industry to follow.

www.zegna.com OCTOBER 2023

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ZEGNA’s Oasi Cashmere collection marks a true evolution in luxury menswear and an uncompromising commitment to sustainable fashion.

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Forward Steps Toward Sustainability Leadership 26

H.E. Masaood Ahmed Al Masaood, Chairman, Al Masaood Group, explains how his company is leading the way in the sustainability stakes while supporting the U.A.E. in its mission to build a green and prosperous future.

is Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s declaration of 2023 as the ‘Year of Sustainability’ reflects the U.A.E.’s decisive action toward safeguarding the planet and cements the nation’s position as a global champion of environmental stewardship. Now, as the U.A.E. gears up to host COP28 in November of this year, the country is poised to further showcase its commitment to clean energy and sustainable practices on the world stage – and Al Masaood, a prominent name on the business landscape, stands firmly behind these visionary endeavors. A legacy of partnership and progress For over five decades, Al Masaood has been a trusted partner in the U.A.E.’s inspiring pursuit of progress. Today, as we embrace the path to a greener tomorrow, our commitment to sustainability has never been stronger. We wholeheartedly support national initiatives such as the Abu Dhabi Environment Vision 2030 and the U.A.E.’s Net Zero by 2050 targets. In this context, Al Masaood’s mission is clear: to proactively contribute to the U.A.E.’s ambitious environmental goals. A comprehensive approach to corporate citizenship At Al Masaood, we recognize that sustainability is not a mere buzzword, but a true commitment that touches every aspect of our operations. As a diversified group of

H.E. Masaood Ahmed Al Masaood, Chairman, Al Masaood Group

companies active in key sectors of the U.A.E. economy, Al Masaood’s strategy revolves around aligning our goals with the government’s sustainability strategies. This alignment aims not only to strengthen the nation’s economy, but also to preserve our natural habitat and serve society better. Transparency and accountability As demonstrated through Al Masaood’s inaugural sustainability report this year, transparency is

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paramount in our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. We understand that all stakeholders, from customers and partners to shareholders and communities, require clear insights into our efforts. To achieve this, we are working on a standardized methodology that will underpin Al Masaood’s upcoming sustainability disclosures, providing a robust framework for evaluating and reporting on the company’s ESG progress.

OCTOBER 2023

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Embracing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Al Masaood’s duty toward sustainability reporting goes hand in hand with its dedication to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the forthcoming reporting cycle, we are taking steps to enhance the disclosure around our sustainability framework, providing detailed information on how the group’s operations contribute to global goals. This level of transparency is crucial as Al Masaood further integrates the SDGs into its annual sustainability reports. Currently, Al Masaood, across its divisions, is contributing to the following UN SDGs: SDG 3 - Good Health and Wellbeing, SDG 4 - Quality Education, SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy, SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities, SDG 13 Climate Action, and SDG 14 - Life Below Water. A beacon of responsibility Al Masaood sets a high standard for social responsibility both externally and internally among employees. Our duty to uphold equal opportunity as an employer remains steadfast and we see the existence of a diverse and inclusive workforce as a source of strength and innovation. Importantly, as part of its corporate culture, Al Masaood promotes strong employee engagement, knowing that engaged employees are more likely to contribute to its sustainability initiatives. Ethics and good corporate governance are at the core of Al Masaood’s operations too. We adhere to the highest standards of integrity in all our business dealings, spanning interactions with partners, customers, and society at large. Crucially, our approach to ethics and corporate governance also

In collaboration with our key partners Nissan, Renault, and INFINITI, Al Masaood continues to drive innovations that alleviate the automotive sector’s toll on nature. extends to the wider community. Through various initiatives, Al Masaood actively engages with and contributes to the wellbeing of the communities in which it operates. In particular, we understand the importance of sport, not just in promoting a healthy and active lifestyle, but as a powerful vehicle for bringing people together and fostering a sense of community. With this in mind, Al Masaood has been a strong supporter of sports and youth events, and we have forged a strong alliance with the Abu Dhabi Sports Council to sponsor major sporting events in the capital, promoting Abu Dhabi as a leading international sports hub. From healthy communities to a healthy planet, Al Masaood’s responsibility toward reducing

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single-use plastic is a small but significant step toward a cleaner environment. Notably, we have embraced a plastic-free work environment, while ensuring our operations and processes are increasingly going paperless. By digitizing workflows, we are able to lower our environmental footprint and enhance efficiency. Al Masaood Automobiles: Driving sustainable mobility The transportation sector plays a significant role in relation to carbon emissions. In collaboration with our key partners Nissan, Renault, and INFINITI, Al Masaood continues to drive innovations that alleviate the automotive sector’s toll on nature. Nissan, our primary automotive partner, has set a long-term vision called Ambition 2030. Through this vision, the company is aiming to become truly sustainable and drive towards a cleaner, safer, and more inclusive world. By placing electrification at the core of Ambition 2030, Nissan intends to accelerate the electrification of its vehicle line-up and rate of technology innovation. Initiatives like The Future is NEUTRAL, Renaulution, and the Indra Model showcase OCTOBER 2023

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our partners’ commitment to sustainable automotive solutions. These initiatives focus on cutting emissions, increasing efficiency, and promoting the circular economy. We believe that luxury and sustainability can go hand in hand, and our automotive partner, INFINITI, is similarly following suit with its climate-focused agenda. With a customer-centric approach and carbon consciousness at its helm, the brand is working on future models that deliver technology through a human-first lens. INFINITI additionally announced that by 2030, the majority of its vehicles sold globally will be electrified. Al Masaood’s pledge to sustainability extends beyond the vehicles themselves; enhanced waste management practices at our automobile facilities aim to divert waste from landfills. Implementing recycling programs and reducing energy consumption also contribute

Al Masaood promotes strong employee engagement, knowing that engaged employees are more likely to contribute to its sustainability initiatives. to diminishing our environmental impact, while the recycling of printing supplies helps us further limit waste generation. Robust water analysis is another priority in our sustainability efforts. We recognize the importance of responsible water usage in Al Masaood’s operations and remain focused on efficient water management practices. In addition, we promote the use of eco-friendly and biodegradable materials across our automotive operations.

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Al Masaood Power Division: Empowering sustainable energy solutions The energy sector is a major driver of carbon emissions, necessitating a transition toward cleaner energy sources. One of our significant achievements last year was the launch of SHAMS+, the first U.A.E.engineered solar charging system, which harnesses the power of the sun to charge electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid marine vessels, limiting the reliance on conventional fossil fuels. This year, Al Masaood took pride in showcasing some of the latest sustainable power solutions, including the mtu Hybrid Propulsion System Solution. A product and solution brand belonging to Rolls-Royce, mtu offers a more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional propulsion systems, reducing emissions and fuel consumption.

OCTOBER 2023

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On top of these initiatives, together with our partner Volvo Penta, we continually showcase their evolving portfolio of eco-friendly gensets – generator and engine combinations that turn fuel into electrical energy. Volvo Penta’s gensets are designed for marine and industrial applications and known for their efficiency and low carbon footprint. Al Masaood’s dedication to environmental protection goes beyond product offerings. We continue to enhance our renewable energy efforts, exploring opportunities to harness clean energy sources like wind and solar power. Through such initiatives, we aim to contribute to a greener energy landscape in the U.A.E. Al Masaood Commercial Vehicles & Equipment: Leading the way in responsible transportation In collaboration with Renault Trucks Middle East and Tadweer, and in line with the U.A.E.’s netzero ambitions and sustainability agenda, we have recently launched the first 100% electric waste truck in the Middle East. The electric waste truck is used by Tadweer, the sole custodian of waste management for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, to collect household waste in an ecofriendly manner. Prior to launching this electric waste truck, we introduced to the Abu Dhabi market the ecofriendly UD Trucks Croner PKE 250hp Euro 5, which are designed to meet stringent emissions standards while delivering reliable performance. The use of these vehicles further emphasizes our commitment to responsible means of transportation.

In another significant move toward sustainability, we became the official distributor of TCM electric counterbalanced forklifts in the U.A.E. These electric forklifts offer a cleaner and quieter alternative to traditional dieselpowered forklifts, contributing to reduced emissions and a healthier work environment. Extending sustainability across the group Sustainability is integrated into Al Masaood’s core values across our various other divisions, including Al Masaood Tyres, Batteries & Accessories (TBA), the Al Masaood Projects and Engineering Services Division (PESD), Al Masaood Bergum, ARB Emirates, and Al Masaood Property Division. For instance, Al Masaood TBA’s long standing partner, Bridgestone, has been actively promoting responsible tire disposal and recycling, curbing the environmental impact of tire waste. For their part, Al Masaood Bergum focuses on sustainable construction and our property division implements sustainable property management, while ARB Emirates and Al Masaood’s other divisions are actively engaged

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in sustainability initiatives that align with our outlook for a greener future. Al Masaood strives to cut back on energy consumption and minimize the ecological footprint through the use of ecofriendly materials and adopting sustainable practices. We also take pride in fostering diversity and equal opportunities in the workforce, underscoring the importance of a diverse talent pool in driving innovation and sustainable development. A transformative journey toward sustainability As we forge ahead on our path to sustainability leadership, Al Masaood remains steadfast in helping advance the U.A.E.’s green agenda and we are honored to be part of this nation’s remarkable journey toward a more sustainable world. Our corporate responsibility pillar is not a mere aspiration; it is a guiding principle that informs every decision we make and each action we take. We invite you to join us on this transformational odyssey. Together, we can help chart a brighter and more sustainable future for the U.A.E. and the world.

www.masaood.com

OCTOBER 2023

• COVER STORY •

THANI BIN AHMED AL ZEYOUDI

BUILDING BRIDGES

Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the U.A.E.’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade and Minister in Charge of Talent Attraction and Retention, has been a key player as the country embeds its commitment to sustainability. His challenge now: inspiring others to use business as a platform for positive change.

BY CLAUDINE COLETTI F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the U.A.E.’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade

PHOTOGRAPH BY MUSTAPHA AZAB FOR FORBES MIDDLE EAST

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OCTOBER 2023

THANI BIN AHMED AL ZEYOUDI

While for many, the U.A.E.—one of the world’s most prolific suppliers of oil and gas—may not spring to mind as a renewables champion, there’s no doubt that, whether you’re a believer or a naysayer, 2023 is the year that the country takes center stage. Having invested over $50 billion into clean energy over the last 15 years and committed to net zero by 2050, and with an intention to invest another $50 billion in the next decade, in November 2021 the U.A.E. was announced as the host of the global climate change conference COP28 in 2023. As it prepares for the headline-hitting event to play out in December, the country is determined to showcase how it’s a world player in sustainability. Few people understand this better than Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, the U.A.E.’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade and Minister in Charge of Talent Attraction and Retention. His career spanned petroleum and renewable energy before he turned his focus to trade three years ago. He was previously the country’s first Minister for Climate Change, and in July, he was awarded a global seat as the chair of the World Trade Organisation’s 13th Ministerial Conference—the highest decision-making body of the WTO—which will take place in Abu Dhabi in February 2024, bringing together trade ministers and senior officials from the organization’s 164 members. Having stated that “trade has a substantial role to play in the climate-change equation,” Al Zeyoudi is now focused on showing how international business and global sustainability goals can align if countries are ready to work together. This is, however, clearly no easy task. Bringing world leaders together in unison at a time when global relations are polarized and economies are stressed is a tough ask, but for Al Zeyoudi, it’s imperative. “Everyone is waiting for each other. The developing nations are waiting for the developed. The developed don’t want to move without the insurance of emerging economies to move on. We have to understand that we cannot accept F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

the current status. We have to move away from the blaming mindset. It’s a problem, and we have to work together. The biggest threat is not taking any action,” he insists. Al Zeyoudi is relatively young and softly-spoken for someone of his position, but his resolve is unwavering, and he is uniquely qualified to handle these tough conversations. He began his career in 2005, working in engineering for the off-shore reservoirs of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) before moving on to help develop renewable energy technologies and solutions at the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) in 2007. While this may seem like a jolting shift in focus, Al Zeyoudi says it was a natural progression. “We’ve always looked at ensuring the long life of the wells and the production of the reservoirs that we manage because, at the end of the day, we want to be sure that we are passing some of the resources to the next generation,” he explains. “But diversity has always been a principle for the last 52 years, and we have to look for new ways of diversifying our economy and the energy mix and ensuring the sustainability of resources.”

“Openness and liberalization are the right way to double economies and ensure growth, and we are showcasing this to the world.” In 2009, Al Zeyoudi was part of the team that successfully campaigned for the U.A.E. to host the headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi and spent a year as its department manager. He maintains it’s one of his proudest achievements, saying, “it sent a strong message to everyone that the U.A.E. is an oil nation, but at the same time, it’s pursuing its green agenda aggressively.” It was an equally important moment for the country. “IRENA’s presence here is an affirmation of the U.A.E.’s commitment to sustainability and to the role Masdar City has played in our country’s sustainability journey. IRENA has been a valuable partner for us, and we, in turn, value the opportunity to support them,” says Ahmed Baghoum, CEO of Masdar City. A year later, Al Zeyoudi became the director of the Directorate of Energy and Climate Change in the U.A.E.’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in 2016, he became the U.A.E.’s first Minister of Climate Change

OCTOBER 2023

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OCTOBER 2023

33 THANI BIN AHMED AL ZEYOUDI

and Environment. “It was a very interesting and exciting Europeans, they found that the carbon tax was another journey,” he reflects. tool to support their industry and encourage the green But while progress continued, change was ahead. trade. For us here, we’re looking at it from totally In 2020, the global pandemic brought the world to different angles,” he elaborates. a halt, and the leadership of the U.A.E. took action, According to the Minister, those angles are at least including holding a cabinet reshuffle to create a more threefold. Firstly, the U.A.E. has been investing in agile government able to focus on economic recovery. In creating a green energy supply, so as the global demand July 2020, Al Zeyoudi was appointed Minister of State for oil decreases and the demand for renewables for Foreign Trade at a time when global supply chains increases, there is a supply on hand to meet those were motionless, tourism was muted, and investors demands. The country is already home to the world’s were, at best, hesitant. Still, the country moved forward. largest single-site solar park—the Mohammed bin “Covid was a chance to reset and strategize for the Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park—which has a planned upcoming 50 years, focusing on sectors that are going production capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030 with an to be critical to the nation and ensuring that there is estimated $13.6 billion in investment. It will save over not only a proper supply chain but also regional and 6.5 million tons of carbon emissions annually when local production and localization for some of those complete. The U.A.E. currently predicts that its clean industries,” Al Zeyoudi recalls. energy production capacity, including clean hydrogen, As well as boosting local industry and talent, the solar, and nuclear, could hit 19.8 GW by 2030, up from last three years have seen Al Zeyoudi working to build 2.4 GW in 2020. important trade bridges founded on international cooperation. In 2021, the U.A.E. announced the initial phase of its “Projects of the 50,” a series of developmental and economic projects designed to bolster the economy over the next 50 years. These included signing Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (CEPAs) with several global players that have the potential to boost the U.A.E.’s GDP by approximately 9.62%, equivalent to an increase of around $41.71 billion, by 2031. So far, the U.A.E. has successfully signed The world’s largest single-site solar park—the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum agreements with six countries. Solar Park—has a planned production capacity of 5,000 MW by 2030 with an estimated $13.6 billion in investment Calling these agreements a “gamechanger,” Al Zeyoudi believes they highlight how putting aside differences for a common Secondly, the U.A.E. is addressing its own greenhouse goal can benefit everyone, saying, “openness and gas emissions, such as by increasing its carbon capture liberalization are the right way to double economies and storage capabilities, locally relying on natural gas, and ensure growth, and we are showcasing this to the and committing to reducing emissions through flaring. world.” The task ahead is to apply this same strategy The U.A.E. reports that the country emitted 21.9 tonnes to the fight against climate change, using trade and of CO2 per person in 2010, down from 32.6 tonnes diplomatic ties to form binding agreements that can in 1990. According to Our World In Data, the U.A.E. offer economic growth and measurable progress toward emitted 21.8 tonnes of CO2 per capita in 2021, down sustainability goals. from 27.1 tonnes in 1990. Al Zeyoudi also points to how For Al Zeyoudi, trade and climate change are it’s reducing its economy’s reliance on revenues from oil already intrinsically linked; what differs is how diverse and gas. “Looking at our economy, we went from $19.5 countries apply them. “Trade is a tool for development, billion in 1975 to $477 billion in 2022. Did we manage and climate change is linked to development. Each to reduce the dependence on oil and gas? Absolutely. nation or each economic group is customizing climate The percentage in 1975 was around 59%; last year it was change and sustainability with trade in the way less than 28%,” he reveals. “Are we there yet? No. Did we that suits them. For example, when we look at the manage to have a huge reduction? It’s more than 50%.”

THANI BIN AHMED AL ZEYOUDI

The third piece of the puzzle lies in innovation Thani Al Zeyoudi is leading for the U.A.E., we are through talent and technology, such as by using witnessing a relentless focus on trade growth, with blockchain, AI, and IoT solutions to simplify customs a blend of trade technology and green trade pillars. platforms and speed up logistics at ports and other As we tread the path towards decisive climate action transportation touchpoints during the movement of and robust economic growth, the U.A.E. is now commodities. Reducing timelines and routes reduces acting not just as a participant but as an emerging the carbon footprint of products on their way to hub for future sustainable trade and technological their final destinations and ultimately reduces costs. innovations,” agrees Yasar Jarrar, Managing Partner According to the Minister of Foreign Trade, the new at The Posterity Institute (U.A.E.) and Professor Of economic corridor between India and Europe could Practice at Hult International Business School. cut four to six days from the travel time of shipments. The minister appears confident and clearly focused Still, when the U.A.E. was revealed as the host of on what comes next, planning to use his presiding COP28 in 2021, and ADNOC’s Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber seat at the WTO’s upcoming ministerial conference was named as its president-designate in early 2023, to debate controversial issues while aiming to take many in the international community expressed actionable decisions that move the needle on making disappointment at having the head of an oil and gas trade more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. giant presiding over a climate change conference, “We have to send a message that the international while others pledged their support. For Al Zeyoudi, it’s organization cares about everyone, not just the a moot point. “Is it a solution to ignore the oil and gas big players. It’s not just about energy; it’s about sector and not ask them to be at the table? No. It is a everything that touches human beings and their common issue, and everyone has to do their part. If oil lives on the earth. Are we going to fulfill what we’re were to disappear today, most industries would die, supposed to do? I really don’t know, but at the end of so we have to be pragmatic and realistic in our the day, we have to be optimistic, and we have approach,” he insists. “Also, does the location to ensure that the ball is rolling,” Al Zeyoudi Stay connected matter when it comes to an international and reiterates firmly. with our latest global matter? No. We don’t care about where “We know the total amount of investment business news. it’s going to be located; we want to ensure that needed into renewables, investment into there are outcomes.” infrastructure, loss, damage, etc. We have to Other experts are also feeling secure in the start, and if we don’t start today, the bill is going direction of travel. “Reflecting on the work Dr. to be higher and higher.”

Green Electric Here’s a look at how much electricity in kilowatts (kWh) the U.S., U.K., China, and the Middle Eastern countries generated per capita using renewable energy sources in 2020 and 2022. Country

2020

2022

Change

Country

2020

2022

Change

• U.S.

2,445 kWh

2,861 kWh

+416 kWh

• Iraq

125 kWh

83 kWh

-42 kWh

• U.K.

1,965 kWh

1,995 kWh

+30 kWh

• Kuwait

11 kWh

50 kWh

+39 kWh

35 kWh

+6 kWh

1,533 kWh

1,901 kWh

+368 kWh

• Oman

29 kWh

• China

• Saudi Arabia

6 kWh

23 kWh

+17 kWh

• Qatar

7 kWh

11 kWh

+4 kWh

• Bahrain

7 kWh

• U.A.E.

592 kWh

738 kWh

+146 kWh

• Egypt

194 kWh

210 kWh

+16 kWh

Source: Our World In Data F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

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OCTOBER 2023

• SUSTAINABLE 100 •

KHALED AL HURAIMEL

NO TIME TO WASTE

Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of the BEEAH Group, has overseen the holding company’s growth from a small waste management facility to a regional renewable power player. As MENA drives forward its green agenda, his job has only just gotten started.

BY LAYAN ABO SHKIER F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of the BEEAH Group

PHOTOGRAPH BY GRAPHITESTUDIO FOR FORBES MIDDLE EAST

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

KHALED AL HURAIMEL

While the oil and gas-rich Middle East is very much still synonymous with the supply of fossil fuels, today some of its biggest markets are also witnessing a green revolution within their sandy terrains. And while the U.A.E. gears up to host the international climate change summit COP28, it is already home to a host of sustainability-focused companies making it their business to lead the change. Leading this transformation is Khaled Al Huraimel, the Group CEO of U.A.E.-based BEEAH Group, the largest waste management company in the Middle East. Under Al Huraimel’s leadership, BEEAH has just marked a major milestone. In May 2023, the group announced that it had achieved over 90% landfill waste diversion in the emirate of Sharjah—the highest percentage to be achieved in MENA so far. However, this has not been a quick or simple journey. “Nothing happens overnight. It took us 14 years to get here,” says Al Huraimel. The last year has proven to be particularly gamechanging for the pioneering company. In May 2022, BEEAH inaugurated the region’s first commercial-scale waste-to-energy plant in Sharjah through the Emirates Waste to Energy Company, a joint venture between BEEAH and Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy firm Masdar. “Whatever we are not able to treat or recycle goes to our waste-to-energy plant, which will help us achieve our target towards zero waste,” says the Group CEO. The plant processed over 100,000 tonnes of waste—equivalent to the annual waste produced by 180,000 people—in its first operational year. It also offset over 150,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions and is currently supplying enough energy to power over 2,000 homes per year. “These facilities use municipal solid waste to produce steam, which in turn powers electric generators. This energy can be harnessed not only to reduce our carbon footprint but also as a means to further critical processes like the desalination of water using advanced techniques like reverse osmosis,” explains Sustainability Consultant Fady ElNaggar. “The economic benefits F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

of reaching net zero are not isolated; they have the potential to revolutionize multiple sectors, creating a more sustainable and prosperous future for us all.” Once it has reached its full operational capacity, the Sharjah plant will displace around 450,000 tonnes of CO2 and divert up to 300,000 tonnes of waste away from landfills annually. The combusted waste will produce 30 megawatts of low-carbon electricity, enough to power 28,000 homes in Sharjah. This journey began in 2007, when the BEEAH Group was initially established as the “Bee’ah” waste management company, meaning environment in Arabic. It officially started operations in 2009, servicing part of Sharjah under the leadership of Al Huraimel and a team of 40 people. The company at that time was established to solve one significant issue: tackle the region’s growing waste problem. “Our region has one of the highest generation of waste per capita,” says Al Huraimel. According to a report published by BCG in September 2022, the daily per capita waste generation in the GCC is 1.2 times higher than in Europe, with a total of 105-130 million tons of waste generated every year. “We had to understand the market, the waste characterization, the population, and residents’ behavior. A lot of research was done very early on, and then we started building the infrastructure to treat and segregate this waste and to extract value from this waste,” adds the CEO.

“Whatever we are not able to treat or recycle goes to our waste-toenergy plant, which will help us achieve our target towards zero waste.” Taking on the challenge, over the years, BEEAH has built and established several facilities and companies to approach waste from a holistic perspective. It established a material recovery facility and tire recycling facility in 2010, then its medical waste management services company Wekaya in 2011, followed by a metal recycling center in 2012. Its digitization venture EVOTEQ and the Emirates Waste to Energy Company were established in 2017. Sustainable transportation company ION became operational in 2018, and two years later, two facilities were opened focusing on biomass and alternative raw materials. In 2021, BEEAH launched its “re.life” digital ecosystem, offering smart platforms to simplify transactions and transport logistics, and partnered

OCTOBER 2023

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OCTOBER 2023

39 KHALED AL HURAIMEL

with Polygreen to create Evogreen, tackling marine Estate for inter-disciplinary architectural project pollution through advanced waste management management. solutions. “By specifying each of our industries of operation, we In January 2021, through the Emirates Waste to are giving our businesses the room they need to grow Energy Company, BEEAH and Masdar announced within their industries and areas of operation. At the that they would be developing the U.A.E.’s first solar same time, these verticals and businesses also benefit landfill project, which will be constructed on top of from the collective experience of BEEAH Group,” BEEAH’s Al Sa’jah landfill and, when operational, will said Al Huraimel when announcing the new identity. provide up to 120 megawatts of energy. The project The CEO’s collective experience is also impressive. will be delivered across three phases, with the first As well as his role at BEEAH, Al Huraimel is also the phase due for completion in 2023. A few months later, Chairman of Emirates Waste to Energy Company, in May 2021, BEEAH launched a waste-to-hydrogen re.life, the Omada Group, Dar Al Aqar Real Estate, and project in collaboration with U.K.-based Chinook ION Transport. He is a member of the U.A.E. Circular Sciences. The project includes a green hydrogen Economy Council at the World Economic Forum, a generation plant and a hydrogen vehicle fueling board member of several entities, and a cofounder of station capable of fueling 1,000 vehicles a day. several companies. By that time, BEEAH’s services were not only covering Sharjah but the entire U.A.E. and beyond. It expanded to Egypt in January 2020 and was appointed as the waste management partner for Egypt’s new Administrative Capital, one of the largest urban development projects in the world. In October 2020, it also commenced operations in Saudi Arabia to service Al-Madinah Al Munawarrah. In November 2022, BEEAH Tandeef, the group’s waste collection and city cleaning business, served as the official waste management partner for COP27. By 2022, Al Huraimel and his BEEAH Group headquarters, The office was designed by the late architect Zaha Hadid and opened in March 2022. It is fully powered by renewable energy. team realized that the company had become much more than just a waste management company. In January 2022, having started servicing part of a small emirate, A son of a diplomat, Al Huraimel spent his childhood BEEAH officially transformed into an investment growing up in various countries, including Belgium and holding company and rebranded from Bee’ah to Saudi Arabia. He graduated from King Fahad University the BEEAH Group. Today, it employs over 13,000 in Saudi Arabia before starting his career in 1998 in people in 15 companies across eight industry verticals, Dubai with the Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC) including BEEAH Tandeef for waste collection and as a senior manager of international sales. During his city cleaning, BEEAH Recycling for waste processing tenure at ENOC, he witnessed the company’s expansion and material recovery, BEEAH Energy for clean and from a local entity to one with a global footprint, a renewable energy, BEEAH Environment Services journey that parallels BEEAH’s growth story. “When for consulting, research, and innovation, BEEAH I first joined, we were just in one country. After I Digital for future technologies and digital ventures, completed seven years with them and by the time I left, BEEAH Transport for green mobility and autonomous we were in 21 countries,” he remembers. Al Huraimel transportation, BEEAH Education to raise awareness, transitioned into real estate in 2005, as freehold incentivize and recognize sustainable action, BEEAH developments boomed in the U.A.E. He worked on one Healthcare to develop the Jawaher Boston Medical of the largest projects for the newly established Nakheel District in Sharjah with international HarvardGroup at the time as the general manager of Dubai affiliated institutions from Boston, and BEEAH Real Waterfront, handling project and business development.

KHALED AL HURAIMEL

Two years later, he took the role at BEEAH. “Joining powered by renewable energy, and BEEAH claims BEEAH came after [I realized] that sustainability was that it is the first fully AI-integrated building in the a very important industry and an area with very high region, operating using cloud and AI features from interest to the U.A.E.,” he says. Microsoft, Johnson Controls, and BEEAH’s Evoteq. Today, Al Huraimel and BEEAH are significantly These provide digital workspaces, smart backhelping the U.A.E. reach its environmental goals. office integration, smart lobby-visitor management, “There is no doubt that achieving net-zero emissions smart security, and intelligent concierge services. and net-zero waste is a significant challenge for any “I personally strongly believe that to achieve region, and the Middle East is no exception,” says Dr. sustainability goals, you need to utilize today’s Vian Ahmed, Professor in the industrial engineering technology, and this is where the digital component department at the American University of Sharjah. comes in and what sets us apart from others,” says “Developing and adopting advanced technologies Al Huraimel. “We’ve invested a lot in innovation and for clean energy production, carbon capture, waste technology to a level that we started establishing our reduction, and recycling is critical.” own technology companies.” As well as the environmental impact, reaching these Technology has also created a shift in the business goals has economic benefits too. “Transitioning to a netlandscape, according to the CEO. “It used to be seen zero framework is not just an environmental imperative as an expense or a burden. But not anymore. Things but an economic opportunity. The global investment in have changed a lot. The advancement of technology circular economy initiatives, projected to be between has allowed that, as well as awareness,” he adds, $2.6 to $3 trillion, hints at a prosperous economic stressing that sustainability today is becoming a part landscape,” says Faisal Al Shimmari, Executive Vice of a person’s lifestyle and social responsibility, which is President and Head of ESG and Corporate Strategy at making BEEAH’s job easier. Mashreq. “By embracing these changes, countries can BEEAH is now gearing up for an “aggressive” boost well-being standards and elevate public health, geographic expansion, exploring opportunities in other creating a holistic economic benefit.” markets in MENA and eyeing more diversification Al Huraimel believes that innovation is a key into various industries such as healthcare, real estate, driver in achieving sustainability objectives, a and energy. For Al Huraimel, it’s time for him and philosophy that has shaped BEEAH’s approach BEEAH to develop the next generation of leaders Stay to investing in technologies like AI and robotics. to take the group to the next level. “ We have a connected with our latest Its newly-opened headquarters embodies this, committed and motivated team. It took us 14 business news. with the company claiming that it is “the most years to get here, and it will take us another 10 AI-enabled office in the Middle East.” The years to get to the next level,” he reasons. “We office was designed by the late architect Zaha had lots of challenges on the way. It was not easy, Hadid and opened in March 2022. It is fully but we did not give up.”

GCC Renewables Soar The GCC countries have been ramping up their capabilities in renewable energy over the last decade. Here’s a look at how much their renewable capacities have soared in megawatts (MW) as a result. Country

2013

As of 2022

U.A.E.

128 MW

3,058 MW

Qatar

21 MW

824 MW

Oman

1 MW

688 MW

Saudi Arabia

22 MW

443 MW

Kuwait

3 MW

106 MW

Bahrain

1 MW

12 MW

Source: International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

U.A.E. 2050 Energy Goals 12%

Clean coal

38%

Natural gas

Nuclear

44%

Clean energy

Source: U.A.E. National Energy Strategy

OCTOBER 2023

PRO M OTI O N Scan this QR code to open the website

Human Development: A 16-Year Story

s physicians we have a unique profession. One that bridges the cold clinical elements of modern medicine with the emotional realities of providing care in challenging circumstances. The most emotionally draining cases are the ones in which the patient does not have access to the required interventions. This was the driving force behind my story and how HDC came to be. I started my career in 1999 as a consultant child psychiatrist in Riyadh. As is typical with many child psychiatry clinics, over 50% of the patients had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism, or intellectual disabilities. Such conditions usually require significant community or schoolbased interventions for children to achieve their full potential. Unfortunately, in many cases, this was not available. I quickly realized it was my calling to address this gap. I started to mobilize resources through various organizations and charities, and in 2007, the first HDC center was opened as a non-profit rehabilitation facility. The name, Human Development, was chosen to convey a journey of continuous improvement for all and to destigmatize psychiatric conditions. In fact, the idea was so revolutionary at the time that we struggled with the authorities to avoid writing ‘For Disabled Individuals’ on the center’s outdoor signage.

Dr. Omar Almodayfer, Chairman of Human Development Company (HDC)

As demand for our offering continued to grow, we needed to adopt a commercial model to create the greatest impact. However, to this day we allocate a portion of our services and resources to support families with financial challenges. Quality control and the measurement of outcomes counted among our greatest challenges. With no standardized methodologies and processes in place, the sector relied heavily on professionals doing their best, which is nearly impossible to measure. I quickly realized that there was an opportunity for me to leverage my experience as a physician to establish pathways for rehabilitation. This led to the development of REHADOX, a unique enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, which oversees the

The expressed inOthis F O Rthoughts BESMIDD L E E A S T.C M advertorial are those of the client.

rehabilitation process. The system, which is a key element to the scalability of our business, enables rehabilitation standardization, cloud-based management systems, and online staff training. To support students with their progress, we established several joint venture partnerships with various private mainstream schools. Our most successful initiative – and one that I am particularly proud of – is our regulating ADHD schooling program. In 2014, the sector received significant support from the leadership of Saudi Arabia, with the introduction of a fee payment program. This accelerated the momentum of our business, which now has more than 1,900 employees and 42 projects around the kingdom serving 5,500 clients daily. Our success would not have been possible without the support of the progressive leadership of K.S.A. and the U.A.E., who seek to develop an inclusive society for all people. As our journey continues, we are excited to work with our new partner and shareholder, AMANAT Holdings, who will support our geographic and service expansion.

www.hdc.com.sa

OCTOBER 2023

41 ANTHONY NAKACHE

Dr. Omar Almodayfer, consultant child psychiatrist and Chairman of Human Development Company (HDC), shares a journey born out of need and driven by determination to better support vulnerable children.

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Saudi Arabia: Looking for Sustainable Growth

audi Arabia is in the midst of unprecedented growth and transformation, and EFG Hermes has been hard at work, helping investors discover the limitless opportunities that are emerging within the kingdom’s thriving economy. It is in this context that prominent individuals from the business and investment worlds descended on London in September for the EFG Hermes Saudi Forum. Under the theme of ‘Looking for Sustainable Growth’, the two-day event was held in collaboration with the Saudi Exchange and played host to over 50 leading Saudi companies as well as 375 guests from around the world, including representatives from the Saudi Capital Market Authority (CMA) who were the event’s guests of honor. The impactful event was also attended by 200+ institutional investors and fund managers from more than 120 global investment firms, conducting over 2,300 meetings. The first of EFG Hermes’ flagship London conferences since 2019, the forum was dedicated solely to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with highprofile guest speakers including Chairman of the CMA, His Excellency Mohammed A. El-Kuwaiz, and CEO of the Saudi Exchange, Mohammed Al Rumaih. Meanwhile, in attendance from EFG Holding were Group CEO Karim Awad, Co-CEO of EFG Hermes Mohamed Ebeid, and CEO of EFG Hermes in KSA, Saud Altassan. For EFG Hermes, the forum was a hugely important event on the corporate calendar. As the leading investment bank franchise in frontier and emerging markets (FEM), EFG Hermes has long played a role in

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The event represented a remarkable opportunity to foster deeper connections and understanding between Saudi-listed companies and emerging market investors

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Held in collaboration with the Saudi Exchange, the EFG Hermes Saudi Forum in London introduced global investors to compelling Saudi equities and the potential of a kingdom with boundless ambition.

nurturing investment climates in 12 countries across four continents, and the firm’s commitment to supporting growth and prosperity in Saudi Arabia is steadfast. Reflecting EFG Hermes’ dedication to Saudi success, this year’s Saudi Forum in London served as a platform to showcase Saudi Arabia’s investmentfriendly landscape, diverse sectors, and transformative Vision 2030 initiatives. The event represented a remarkable opportunity to foster deeper connections and understanding

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between Saudi-listed companies and emerging market (EM) investors, allowing EFG Hermes to play a part in the kingdom’s economic growth story and capital market development. A key objective of the forum was to raise awareness of Saudi potential among EM investors – and with good reason. Despite being the sixth-largest index in terms of market capitalization in the MSCI Emerging Market Index, Saudi Arabia continues to be underrepresented in the portfolios of EM investors. As such, the conference was a testament to EFG Hermes’ confidence in Saudi Arabia’s growing capital market as well as its commitment to creating fruitful opportunities for emerging market investors. Indeed, the investment opportunities that Saudi Arabia presents are not to be overlooked. The Saudi market is one of the largest and most liquid EM indices, with a market capitalization of over $3 trillion as of September 2023. Unsurprisingly, while

OCTOBER 2023

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invaluable platform for companies to showcase projects and initiatives that create avenues for investment and innovation. Over the course of two days, investors had the chance to explore potential collaborations, forge strategic partnerships, and gain first-hand knowledge of the kingdom’s investment climate.

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Investors had the chance to explore potential collaborations, forge strategic partnerships, and gain first-hand knowledge of the kingdom’s investment climate

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still relatively untapped, the kingdom’s potential has been attracting increased attention – and increased foreign inflows – since its inclusion in major global indices such as the MSCI Emerging Markets Index in 2019 and FTSE Russell’s Emerging Markets Index in 2018.

highlight the kingdom’s potential across sectors such as finance, technology, energy, infrastructure, tourism, and more.

The Saudi market offers exposure to a wide range of sectors that are benefiting from the strides the kingdom has made to diversify its economy and implement reforms in line with Vision 2030. As a result, Saudi Arabia has emerged as a global investment powerhouse, attracting investors from all corners of the world as it continues to buck global economic headwinds, with equities showing attractive valuations and dividend yields compared to regional and global peers.

For the Saudi Exchange, participation in the forum reflected the growing interest of international investors in the KSA market and reiterated its commitment to building a technologically advanced capital market in line with Vision 2030’s Financial Sector Development Program. As the kingdom continues to undergo transformative reforms and enhancements to its regulatory framework, market infrastructure, and product offerings, the stock market remains clearly committed to providing a world-class platform for investors and issuers looking to capitalize on the diverse opportunities in Saudi Arabia.

Against a promising backdrop, the EFG Hermes Saudi forum sought to build on this momentum and to

Fulfilling its objectives on every count, the EFG Hermes Saudi Forum in London served as an

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The EFG Hermes Saudi Forum is part of the firm’s successful track record of hosting high-profile conferences that connect global investors with leading companies in FEM. In fact, the trailblazing financial institution has hosted over 30 conferences across four continents since 2007. This year alone, in addition to the Saudi forum, EFG Hermes has held its hugely successful One-on-One conference in Dubai. Taking place over four days last March, the 17th iteration of the One-on-One conference assembled 179 companies from numerous key sectors across 29 countries. More than 560 institutional investors and fund managers representing 247 international institutions took part, conducting over 12,000 meetings.

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THE LIST

THE MIDDLE EAST’S

SUSTAINABLE 100

he Middle East is investing in a sustainable transformation, with initiatives underway to advance the harnessing of clean energy sources, innovations in waste management, water conservation, green architecture, and cultivating food sovereignty through smart and sustainable agricultural projects. The financial sector is playing a pivotal role in the region’s sustainability drive as banks and financial institutions promote accessibility through navigating sustainable finance, green bonds, and green sukuks. Even oil and gas companies are playing a central role in investing in alternative renewable energy sources. All those strategies are bringing the region closer to its goals of economic diversification in an economy traditionally dependent on fossil fuels. Saudi Arabia is taking up a notable role in reaching global climate targets. It established its Sustainable Development Steering Committee in September 2021 and, in the same year, launched the Saudi Green Initiative to offset emissions and facilitate the country’s energy transition. It introduced the Middle East Green Initiative (MGI) to increase regional cooperation in mitigating climate change impact. In November 2022, Saudi Arabia allocated $2.5 billion to support MGI projects and governance. Meanwhile, the U.A.E. announced 2023 as the “Year of Sustainability,” in which there has been an intensive focus on raising sustainability awareness. In 2022, ADNOC, the TAQA Group, and Mubadala partnered to become shareholders in renewable energy company Masdar to create a worldleading portfolio in clean energy. The U.A.E. today has three of the world’s largest solar plants, including the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, the largest single-site solar park in the world. By 2030, the country aims to increase its renewable energy capacity to 19.8 GW. Our Sustainable 100 includes 44 companies from the U.A.E., 22 from Saudi Arabia, 10 from Qatar, and 12 global companies with 11 regional offices in the U.A.E. Five entries are from Egypt, three are from Kuwait, and two each are from Bahrain and Oman.

Methodology

To provide a comprehensive perspective, we have categorized our list into 11 key sectors. In each sector, different criteria have been assigned various scoring weights in association with their relevance within that category. We considered: • The company size in relation to its positive environmental impact. • Whether the company has a sustainability/ESG report. • Levels of preciseness and transparency in the report. • Sustainability-related initiatives in 2022/23. • Levels of collaborations with other companies and sectors to achieve sustainable goals. • Level of reliance on renewable energy. • Waste management, water waste reduction, and conservation strategies or initiatives in place. • The company’s clear roadmap toward net zero. • For the Banking and Financial Services sector, the amount of sustainable finance facilitated.

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We aim to provide a platform for public and private sector entities to develop sustainable green economic practices collaboratively. Our objective is to inspire and empower countries in the Middle East to take concrete actions toward sustainable economic growth, promoting environmental stewardship, social well-being, and resilience.

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The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) 1

• Group CEO: Hana Al Rostamani Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2016 In March 2023, FAB, the U.A.E.’s largest bank, set financed emissions reduction targets relating to its three highest emitting sectors: oil and gas, power generation, and aviation. By 2030, it aims to reduce emissions by 7% to 15% in oil and gas in scope 1-3 production intensity, 64% reduction in power generation in scope 1 and 2 production carbon intensity, and 15% in aviation. In June 2023, FAB issued a five-year $600 million green bond. FAB committed to facilitating sustainable financing for over $75 billion by 2030. In 2022, the first year of this target, it facilitated $9.1 billion.

QNB Group

• Group CEO: Abdulla Mubarak Al-Khalifa

Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 1964 100% of the energy at QNB Finansbank in Türkiye came from renewable sources in 2022. In the same year, the group reported a decrease of 1.39 tons of CO₂ emissions per employee since 2015, as well as a decline in paper use by 48% since 2017. QNB sponsored COP27. It has established a Sustainable Finance and Product Framework. QNB offers green loans to encourage investing in sustainable vehicles and solar power.

Al Rajhi Bank

• CEO and Managing Director: Waleed Abdullah Al-Mogbel Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1957 In April 2023, Al Rajhi Bank closed its first USD sustainable sukuk of $1 billion

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Talal Ahmed Al Khereiji

for a five-year period. In 2022, the bank concluded a $1.2 billion Shariahcompliant syndication in the Middle East that complies with globally accepted ESG practices. In 2022, it started using solar energy systems in 44 branches and dedicated $800 million to financing renewable energy projects. Tuder Real Estate, the bank’s real estate arm, also launched an energy efficiency program, which included solar panel installation and AC upgrades.

Emirates NBD

• Group CEO: Shayne Nelson

following sustainable methods in business operations, and standing by a timeline compatible with the U.A.E.’s path to climate neutrality by 2050. Emirates NBD also began offering carbon futures contracts trading for corporations to manage their carbon emissions offset. This will allow clients to deal in carbon credits as they reach their sustainability goals.

Saudi National Bank (SNB) 5

• Acting CEO: Talal Ahmed Al Khereiji

Headquarters: U.A.E.

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia

Established In: 1963

Established In: 1953

In July 2023, Emirates NBD signed the U.A.E. Climate-Responsible Companies Pledge initiated by the U.A.E. Ministry of Climate Change and Environment. It is among the seventh cohort of 15 U.A.E. signatories to commit to implementing carbon emission reduction goals,

SNB has established a sustainable finance framework in 2021 in line with Saudi’s Vision 2030. As of January 2023, SNB has allocated three green and sustainability issuances for up to $838 million and financed a 400 MGW wind farm in Saudi Arabia. This farm is expected to displace

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BANKING & FINANCIAL SERVICES COMPANIES

501,983 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year and power 12,646 homes. The majority of SNB’s green impact financing goes towards solar PV renewable energy systems, with its current solar investments seeking to prevent 189,128 tonnes of CO₂ emissions per year.

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) 6

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• Group CEO: Adnan Chilwan Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1975 In February 2023, DIB priced its second sustainable sukuk—a $1 billion 5.5-year senior issue with a profit rate of 4.8% per year. In October 2022, the bank published its Sustainable Finance Framework. It plans to finance projects with environmental benefits in renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean transportation, green buildings, pollution prevention and control, and sustainable water and wastewater management. In September 2022, DIB introduced a Green Auto Finance facility, “EVolve,” for buying electric and hybrid cars.

Saudi Awwal Bank (SAB) 7

• Managing Director and CEO: Tony Cripps

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia

PHOTOGRAPH BY MUSTAPHA AZAB FOR FORBES MIDDLE EAST

Established In: 1978 In January 2022, SAB launched Saudi’s first green deposit to allow retail and corporate clients to safely deposit their money toward green financing initiatives. In 2022, SAB partnered with the National Centre for Vegetation Cover on a 10 billion trees initiative, with the aim to plant a million trees by 2030. The bank planted 50,000 trees last year. In its transition to net zero, SAB’s internal green initiatives have saved 2.6 million plastic water bottles, 221,884 liters of water annually, and 1.7 million kilowatts of energy, and resulted in 374,926 kilos of recycled waste.

Mashreq

• Group CEO: Ahmed Abdelaal Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1967 Mashreq is the oldest local bank based out of the U.A.E. In May 2022, Mashreq co-led a sustainability-linked loan for nogaholding in Bahrain at $2.2 billion. It also financed solutions for projects like the Abu Rawash Wastewater Treatment Plant

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Adnan Chilwan

in Egypt, which will benefit more than eight million people. Mashreq has financed and facilitated sustainable deals worth $15.5 billion as of 2022 and aims to increase its facilitated sustainable finance to $30 billion by 2030.

Alinma Bank

energy systems for 70 branches.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) 10

• Group CEO: Bassel Gamal Headquarters: Qatar

• CEO: Abdullah Ali AlKhalifa

Established In: 1982

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia

QIB is the largest Islamic and private bank in Qatar. In 2022, it invested $66,209 into reducing its environmental impact and adopted E-WOQOD, a dedicated portal that tracks and monitors fuel consumption. QIB has allocated $480.8 million for renewable energy projects and over $1 billion for green buildings. It participated in the Tarsheed Initiative as part of its involvement in water desalination projects and supports water conservation initiatives through partnerships, including the Qatar Electricity and Water Company.

Established In: 2006 In Q2 2022, Alinma Bank formed a governance and sustainability committee to oversee its ESG framework and progress. In 2022, 98.6% of the bank’s transactions were executed digitally, and the value of ESG project financing was over $853 million. The bank was the mandated lead arranger for the NEOM Green Hydrogen Project. It has several targets in its sustainability framework, including installing solar

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The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

TRAVEL & TOURISM COMPANIES 1

Emirates Group

• Chairman and CEO: Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1985 The Emirates Group includes two independent entities, dnata and the Emirates airline. In June 2022, dnata announced it would dedicate $100 million for eco-efficiency enhancement in line with its goal to reduce its carbon footprint by 50% by 2030. In July 2022, Emirates Flight Catering and Crop One opened Bustanica, a 330,000-square-foot vertical farm in Dubai with a million-kilogram annual capacity of leafy greens with a $40 million investment. In January 2023, Emirates completed a demonstration flight of a Boeing 777-300ER powered with 100% sustainable aviation fuel in one of its engines.

Sandeep Walia

Marriott International 2

• COO—Middle East, Egypt, and Türkiye: Sandeep Walia

Headquarters: Global: U.S. Regional: U.A.E. Established In: 1927 In 2023, Marriott collaborated with Etihad Airways to plant 12,000 mangrove trees to create the Etihad Marriott Mangrove Forest on Jubail Island. Its Middle East hotels use Winnow AI technology to measure and track food waste for their kitchen teams. They managed to save the equivalent of 307,000 meals a year across 20 hotels, reducing total food waste by 120 tonnes. Marriott hotels are participating and aligning with Dubai Can, a citywide sustainability initiative that empowers communities to reduce the use of singleuse plastic bottles.

Etihad Airways

• Group CEO: Antonoaldo Neves Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2003 F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

The U.A.E.’s national carrier’s environmental initiatives include decarbonization, waste management, biodiversity, wildlife, and building ESG. Etihad Airways started its sustainability journey in 2011 by becoming a founding member of the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium and setting out a roadmap for net zero carbon by 2050 in its sustainability report. In 2022, it reduced its single-use plastic consumption by 80%. Its Etihad Greenliner Program operated 40 ecoFlights between 2019 and 2022. In October 2022, it operated its first sustainable aviation fuel flight from Tokyo. In November 2022, the airline signed an MoU with World Energy to decarbonize flights.

Miral Group

• Group CEO: Mohamed Abdalla Al Zaabi

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2011 Abu Dhabi-based Miral creates experiences and destinations. In May 2023, it signed an MoU with the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi to

enhance marine conservation, drive research, and improve marine wildlife rescue efforts through Miral’s Yas SeaWorld Research and Rescue entity. In March 2023, Miral collaborated with Emerge, a joint venture between Masdar and EDF, to inaugurate a seven MWp rooftop solar photovoltaic project at Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi. The rooftop’s surface area of 36,000 square meters has approximately 16,000 solar modules that will produce 40% of the theme park’s annual energy requirement.

Jumeirah Group

• CEO: Katerina Giannouka Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1997

In 2022, Jumeirah Group rolled out onsite water bottling plants and water filtration systems to provide water in glass or reusable bottles for guests. The initiative replaces nine million single-use water bottles per year. The group also launched the Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project in 2004, which helped release over 2,000 rehabilitated turtles back into their natural habitats. As of June 2022, the group’s

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Dubai Turtle Rehabilitation Project had rescued, rehabilitated, and released 2,050 turtles across the U.A.E. In 2022, the group launched an on-site hydroponic farm to supply lettuces and herbs to restaurants using 70% less water for each yield. In January 2023, the group joined the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance.

SAUDIA

THE LIST

• CEO: Ibrahim Koshy Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1945 In May 2023, SAUDIA announced its participation in the second edition of The Sustainable Flight Challenge, organized by the SkyTeam alliance globally. SAUDIA was the first airline globally to implement the Green Points program, which encourages passengers to take fuel efficiency measures.

Qatar Airways Group 7

• Group CEO: Akbar Al Baker Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 1993 Qatar Airways Group aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as a part of the world’s first global airline alliance to achieve a common sustainability goal. In April 2022, the airline launched its voluntary carbon offset program for corporate customers, allowing them to choose to lower their footprint. In October 2022, it signed an off-take agreement with Gevo, a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) producer, to purchase 25 million U.S. gallons of neat SAF over five years, with the initial deliveries to airports in California scheduled for 2028.

Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority (RAKTDA) 8

• CEO: Raki Phillips

Headquarters: U.A.E.

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Established In: 2011 RAKTDA’s sustainability strategy was created in partnership with EarthCheck. Its Green Hotel Rating initiative aims to achieve 100% integrated sustainability in all of Ras Al Khaimah’s hotels. Wynn Al Marjan Island is set to launch in 2027 with a target of 50% renewable energy by 2030 and net zero by 2050. RAKTDA also provides natural conservation for Al Wadi Nature Reserve, home to Arabian oryx

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Ibrahim Koshy and gazelles, and an ecosystem that is home to desert vegetation, flowers, trees, and other animals. It is also conserving four archeological sites that are on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List.

FIVE Holdings

• Chairman and Founder: Kabir Mulchandani

Platinum-certified properties. In 2022, FIVE Jumeirah Village and FIVE Palm Jumeirah achieved the international REC standard for renewable energy.

Rotana

• Chairman: Nasser Al Nowais Headquarters: U.A.E.

Headquarters: U.A.E.

Established In: 1992

Established In: 2011

As part of its global corporate sustainability platform“Rotana Earth,” Rotana has increased recyclables by 8%, reduced waste to landfill by 17%, and reduced electricity consumption by 8% in the last two years. In March 2023, Rotana announced its commitment to action against climate change by reducing energy and water consumption. On June 16, 2023, World Sea Turtle Day, the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi partnered with The National Aquarium to release 81 turtles back into their natural habitat at the Saadiyat Rotana Resort and Villas.

FIVE Holdings has implemented sustainability initiatives through infrastructure technology. The FIVE Jumeirah Village in Dubai features 35,000 square meters of solar panels covering the exterior, which generate 5,781 MWH of power. The building also has 31,640 square meters of green terraces, greywater collection systems, smart utility management processes, solar sunbeds, and kinetic energy tracks. FIVE Jumeirah Village and FIVE Palm Jumeirah are SPIRE smart building-rated and LEED

OCTOBER 2023

The Middle East’s

Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi

SUSTAINABLE 100

ENVIRONMENTAL

SERVICES COMPANIES

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company – Masdar 1

• CEO: Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2006 Masdar works on innovation in clean energy technologies and green hydrogen. It is active in over 40 countries. By the end of 2022, it had invested over $30 billion in projects globally. It has generated 57,000 GWh from clean sources projects in operation and under construction, of which 18,000 GWh is from operational projects acquired or signed in 2022. In July 2023, Masdar completed a $750 million 10-year green bond offering on the London Stock Exchange.

BEEAH Group

• Vice-Chairman and Group CEO: Khaled Al Huraimel

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2007 BEEAH Group has eight verticals: BEEAH Tandeef, BEEAH Environment Services, BEEAH Recycling, BEEAH Transport, BEEAH Energy, BEEAH Digital, BEEAH Healthcare, and BEEAH Education. In its first year of operation, the Sharjah Waste to Energy plant, a joint venture between BEEAH Group and Masdar, had processed over 100,000 tonnes of waste, offsetting 150,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions by May 2023. In January 2023, BEEAH Recycling signed an agreement with the U.A.E. Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure and the American University of Sharjah to launch the U.A.E.’s first EV battery recycling facility.

Oman Environmental Services Holding Company (be’ah) 3

• CEO: Tariq Al-Amri

Headquarters: Oman Established In: 2007 be’ah works in solid waste management.

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Its operations range across handling waste generated by municipal, industrial, and healthcare activities and connecting different service providers in the waste sector. In October 2022, be’ah signed an agreement with OQT for an emission reduction project development in Oman. In May 2023, it signed an MoU with Rihal to use AI in waste inspection.

devices in five years, and a contract with the Saudi Energy Efficiency Center to recycle high-energy consumption air conditioners. In the same year, Tadweeer started building recycling factories with a production capacity of 400,000 tons per year.

5 4

Tadweeer

AMEA Power

• Chairman: Hussain Al Nowais

• Managing Director: Nasser

Headquarters: U.A.E.

Mohammed Al-Dueb

Established In: 2016

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia

In August 2023, Dubai-based renewable energy corporation AMEA Power signed a 25-year power purchase agreement with the Government of Djibouti for a 25 MW solar photovoltaic project with battery storage. This project will enable Djibouti to reach its goal to reduce its CO2 emissions by approximately 40% by 2030. In November 2022, AMEA Power completed a $1.1 billion deal to deliver one GW in renewable energy projects in Egypt, including 500 MW of wind and 500 MW of solar projects. In December 2022, the company won a 120 MW solar photovoltaic project in South Africa. AMEA Power is a majority shareholder in this $120 million project.

Established In: 2015 Tadweeer provides solutions for recycling electronic and electrical equipment in Saudi Arabia. Its clients include Ertiqa, the Saudi Investment Bank, and Dur Hospitality, among others. In 2022, Tadweeer signed a contract with PrimeGate for Communications and IT to recycle replaced copper cables. It also signed an MoU with the Saline Water Conversion Corporation to recycle waste materials from desalination plants, an MoU with the Saudi’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to recycle one million

OCTOBER 2023

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Understanding Cancer: Innovation, Treatment, and the Potential for Cure

AstraZeneca is a global pharmaceutical giant. How important is the Middle East and Africa to the company? The Middle East and Africa (MEA) market is of growing significance to our business globally. Sales in the MEA area exceeded $1 billion in 2022, accounting for 2.5% of total AstraZeneca revenue globally. This is one of the fastest growing oncology markets for AstraZeneca worldwide, with the oncology business more than doubling in the region since 2018. AstraZeneca has a bold ambition to provide cures for cancer in its many forms. How is cancer affecting this part of the world? Cancer incidence is expected to nearly double in the Middle East by 2030 – with cancers of the breast, lung, cervix, colon, and prostate being the most common. In Africa, it is already the fifth leading cause of death, with more than 1.1 million new patients diagnosed in 2020 alone. Every day, our world class scientists are striving to understand cancer to discover, develop, and deliver life-changing treatments and increase the potential for cure. Still, there is more to be done to ensure that everyone can receive the right level of care by improving diagnostic capabilities, raising patient awareness, upskilling

Dave Fredrickson, Executive Vice-President of the Oncology Business Unit at AstraZeneca

healthcare providers, and increasing access to preventative, diagnostic, and therapeutic resources. How is AstraZeneca addressing issues that affect patient access to treatments? In order to tackle the barriers that hit some of the most vulnerable populations in the Middle East and Africa, we are supporting screening to catch disease early, increasing capacity for biomarker testing so that patients can get personalized care, and working with stakeholders to improve equitable access to treatment. For example, through a partnership between AstraZeneca and Qure.ai, seven countries in

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this region are using artificial intelligence to screen and detect lung cancer earlier, putting more patients on the route to assessment and treatment, because early detection improves the chances of long-term survival. Additionally, for all people to benefit from these scientific breakthroughs, health systems must be resilient and sustainable to support patients along the care pathway – from prevention, early detection, and diagnosis to the effective treatment of disease. One example of how AstraZeneca is working to build resilience and capabilities in healthcare systems is through our Cancer Care Africa program. We are working with partners in Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Kenya to build capabilities, including supporting 100 oncology centers and training 10,000 healthcare practitioners. Through these partnerships, we are also working to enhance screening and diagnostics, increase disease awareness and informed decision-making among patients, and expand access to our lifechanging medicines.

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OCTOBER 2023

51 THE LIST

Dave Fredrickson, Executive Vice-President of the Oncology Business Unit at AstraZeneca, explains how the pharmaceutical company is supporting cancer patients in the Middle East and Africa with innovative treatments and impactful programs.

Saudi Investment Recycling Company (SIRC) 6

• Group CEO: Ziyad Mohammad Al-Shiha Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 2017

SIRC was established in 2017 to advance Saudi’s waste management and recycling operations and coordinate related local and international investments. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund (PIF). Among its subsidiaries are Akam, Yadoum, Azyat, and Electa. In July 2023, SIRC and the National Agricultural Development Company (NADEC) signed an agreement to recycle more than 150,000 tons of cow waste annually. In August, it held a meeting with the ALMQR Development Company and BEEAH Group, aiming to establish an independent entity for managing and treating municipal solid waste in Medina.

Sustainable Water Solutions Holding Company (SWS Holding) 7

• Managing Director and CEO: Ahmed Al Shamsi Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2005 In May 2023, SWS Holding announced a partnership with the KEZAD Group to develop and operate a polished water processing plant in KEZAD Musaffah. This aligns with the goals of the U.A.E. Water Security Strategy 2036 to contribute to the country’s circular economy and promote sustainable water solutions. It currently provides irrigation systems to Saadiyat Beach Golf Club, Al Nahdha Farm, Al Wathba Palace, Municipalities, and Qasr Al Emarat. The Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) entered into a definitive agreement to acquire SWS Holding for $463.2 million in June 2023, combining its water desalination services and recycled water network.

Ahmed Al Shamsi across several sectors, including solar, wind, green hydrogen, waste-to-energy, and electric vehicle charging solutions. It is the largest Egyptian contributor to the Benban Solar Park, with a 14% share of an estimated capacity of 1,465 MWp. Infinity has 500 electric vehicle charging points across 12 governorates in Egypt. Infinity Power, a joint venture with Masdar, provides pure-play renewable energy and operates a portfolio across Egypt, South Africa, and Senegal, including 1.3 GW of solar power and onshore wind farms. In March 2023, Infinity Power acquired Lekela Power, including its operational wind power projects, which have a combined installed capacity of over one GW and a 1.8 GW pipeline of greenfield projects.

• Cofounder and CEO: Mohamed Ismail Mansour

• Chairman and CEO: Hisham Sherif

Headquarters: Egypt

Established In: 2014

Established In: 1997

Infinity provides clean energy solutions

ECARU provides solid waste management

Infinity

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

KarmSolar

• Cofounder and CEO: Ahmed Zahran

Headquarters: Egypt Established In: 2011

Egyptian Company for Solid Waste Recycling (ECARU)

services. It comprises a biomass business and a municipal solid waste business, through which it produces various products, such as organic compost for the agricultural sector. As well as Egypt, it has projects in Libya, Ethiopia, and Cyprus. Throughout its projects, it supplies alternative solid fuel, operates treatment and disposal facilities, operates landfills, and handles collection and transportation, among other activities.

KarmSolar comprises Karm Architecture Lab and KarmWater, among others. In 2022, KarmSolar was the first private company in Egypt to obtain a permit to distribute 10 MW of electricity in Marsa Alam from the national grid. In June 2023, KarmWater announced that its desalination plant at Marsa Shagra will incorporate 30% solar power in its operations from the Marsa Alam Solar Grid.

OCTOBER 2023

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Located in Switzerland, The Kusnacht Practice combines medical care and rehabilitation for individuals seeking to overcome psychological and addiction disorders in supportive and luxurious surroundings. helping them make sustainable life changes,” he says. “We identify and treat the underlying cause of disorders, not just symptoms, as we believe that this is the only way to achieve long-term success.” According to the chief executive, the stresses and endless distractions of today’s fast-paced world are creating a clear need for this model of care – a model that offers clients the full VIP treatment from start to finish, with an aftercare program that counts among the best in the world. Eduardo Greghi, CEO and Chairman of the Board at The Kusnacht Practice

ealth and wellbeing are precious and irreplaceable foundations for quality of life and The Kusnacht Practice delivers truly bespoke treatment programs designed to restore the fragile balance between body, mind, and soul. With centers in Geneva and on the banks of Lake Zurich, the cutting-edge practice for mental health and addiction treatment provides therapies for a variety of psychological, eating, and addiction disorders in completely private, discreet, and luxurious surroundings. For Eduardo Greghi, CEO and Chairman of the Board at The Kusnacht Practice, the organization’s mission is clear. “We create a home away from home for our clients and are passionate about

On arrival at The Kusnacht Practice, clients are collected from the airport and driven to their own private villa with views across either Lake Zurich or Geneva. There, they are met by their carefully chosen live-in counsellor and benefit from the services of a private chef, housekeeping professionals, a chauffeur, and luxury concierge. From the outset, treatment is unparalleled in quality and personalization. Depending on their diagnosis, each client receives six to eight tailored one-on-one sessions a day in the privacy of their own villa with an in-house team of doctors – a unique combination of world-class psychiatry, somatic and orthomolecular medicine specialists – who work together to achieve life changing results. The Kusnacht Practice also offers its own unique BIO-R® program, a ground-breaking biomolecular

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rejuvenation cure for body and brain designed to maximize physical and emotional well-being. “BIO-R® is a 21st century solution to 21st century health problems, turning back the clock from the inside out, which can help clients to live life to its fullest, and feel youthful and vibrant for years to come,” says Greghi. According to the CEO, the 360-degree nature of the treatment is both absolute and unrivalled. The services, treatments, and luxurious surroundings offered by The Kusnacht Practice have been drawing clients to Switzerland since its establishment in 2011 – and the appeal is global. “We have clients from all over the world – including the Middle East, who come to us for psychological support as well as physical health issues,” explains Greghi. And with a range of programs from the Leaders Retreat to the Family Programme, there is something for everyone. Whatever a client’s culture or background, The Kusnacht Practice counts as a safe haven offering outstanding care in outstanding surroundings.

www.kusnachtpractice.com OCTOBER 2023

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Medical Excellence Meets 5-Star Hospitality

The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

stc Group

• Group CEO: Olayan Mohammed Alwetaid

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1998 In November 2022, stc and Nokia signed an MoU to collaborate in the areas of climate, society, digitalization, and the future of work to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable practices, which will help stc save 805 MWh energy and bring CO2 emissions down by 570 tons annually. In June 2023, at a voluntary auction, the stc Group acquired carbon credits that are CORSIA-eligible and Verra-registered. The carbon credits include 18 projects. Three-quarters of the carbon credits originate from countries across the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Group CEO: Hatem Dowidar Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1976 In March 2023, e& announced a collaboration with E-Space to use a sustainable and affordable satellitebased system in the digital and IoT ecosystem. In the same month, IBM and e& announced that e& will leverage IBM sustainability software to help advance the company’s ESG strategy. In June 2023, e& announced that it is on track to meet its 2030 net-zero target through the implementation of climate action projects in its U.A.E. operations. The company uses energy-efficient radio equipment with AI features, which has helped reduce energy consumption by 52%.

Zain Group

• Vice Chairman and Group CEO: Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi Headquarters: Kuwait Established In: 1983 Zain Group’s 2022 sustainability report highlighted ESG initiatives across

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Olayan Mohammed Alwetaid Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan, and South Sudan. As of 2022, it installed 57 energy-efficient solutions to reduce emissions across its operations. In Iraq, its climate awareness campaigns reached 6.3 million people and collaborated with Nakhleh Company to support the Ekfel Palm project. In Saudi Arabia, it planted 12,000 trees under the Um Shagoog reforestation initiative in partnership with Green Horizon and installed electric vehicle chargers that support over 10 business towers.

Ooredoo Group

• Managing Director and Group CEO: Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 1987 Ooredoo Group’s ESG report collects data from its nine markets across Qatar, Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Palestine, and Tunisia. In 2022, it registered an 8.7% decrease in total GHG emissions in Asiacell, Iraq. It also dedicated over $46 million to community investments. In Qatar, it switched GSM sites powered by diesel generators to the Kahramaa electricity supply and recycled 83% of non-hazardous waste generated in 2022. In Tunisia, it installed anti-solar

reflective films in its headquarters and technical building.

Microsoft

• Corporate Vice President &

President—Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa: Samer Abu-Ltaif Headquarters: Global: U.S. Regional: U.A.E. Established In: 1975 Microsoft’s regional operations cover Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In the 2023 financial year, Microsoft launched “Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability,” which incorporates and unifies data intelligence for organizations. In the same year, it also launched the Emissions Impact Dashboard and the Microsoft Planetary Computer, which helps monitor and manage ecosystems. Other launches include “FarmBeats for Students,” which explores how big data, AI, and machine learning apply to realworld sustainability. In November 2022, Microsoft partnered with Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to establish a Government Centre of Excellence for Emissions Accounting and Reporting.

OCTOBER 2023

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THE LIST

TECHNOLOGY & TELECOM COMPANIES

Mastercard

• President of the Middle East and

North Africa Division: Khalid Elgibali Headquarters: Global: U.S. Regional: U.A.E. Established In: 1966

THE LIST

Mastercard’s Priceless Planet Coalition aims to restore 100 million trees by 2025. In 2022, the company announced its plans to actively restore mangrove rainforests over two years in collaboration with Emirates Nature-WWF. From January 2028, all Mastercard plastic payment cards will be made using sustainable materials and approved through a certification program. Approved cards will receive a Card EcoCertification mark. This aligns with the company’s goal to reach net zero by 2040.

Visa

• Leila: Senior Vice President and

Group Country Manager—North Africa, Levant and Pakistan Saeeda: Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager—GCC: Leila Serhan; Saeeda Jaffar Headquarters: Global: U.S. Regional: U.A.E. Established In: 1958

PHOTOGRAPH BY MUSTAPHA AZAB FOR FORBES MIDDLE EAST

Globally, Visa has recorded an 89% reduction in scopes 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions since 2018, and it aims to reach net-zero emissions by 2040. In April 2023, Visa launched its eco benefits solution in the U.A.E. in collaboration with Berlin-based Fintech ecolytiq and its sustainability-as-a-service solution. The program will enable cardholders to understand the impact of their spending on the environment and allow them to add sustainability-focused solutions. In May 2023, the Visa Foundation granted $250,000 to Emirates Nature-WWF to support environmental conservation in the U.A.E. and implement science-based projects that support local nature.

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du) 8

• CEO: Fahad Al Hassawi Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2005

As of 2022, more than 170 du sites ran on hybrid generators, an increase of 41% compared to 2021, and 78 sites ran

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Khalid Elgibali

on solar panels, an increase of 30% since 2021. The company is planning to install a further 100 hybrid generators in 2023. du’s retail store bags are now made of 100% biodegradable paper. In 2022, the company replaced all mercury vapor lamps in its warehouses with LED lamps, saving 419,555 kWh of energy, and recycled a total of 55.78 tonnes of items generated.

Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat) 9

• Group CEO: Ali Al Hashemi Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2007

Yahsat was established in 2007 and listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange in July 2021. In 2022, it invested in eSAT Global Inc. to offer low-cost, low-power IoT products for applications in smart agriculture, digital maritime, and environmental monitoring, among others. In the same year, the company increased its recycled e-waste more than eight times. In 2022, Yahsat signed its support for the U.A.E. Climate Responsible Companies Pledge, a strategic initiative

overseen by the U.A.E. Ministry of Climate Change and Environment. The initiative aims to drive the engagement of the private sector in advancing national decarbonization efforts.

Ericsson

• President of Ericsson Middle East and Africa: Fadi Pharaon

Headquarters: Global: Sweden Regional: U.A.E. Established In: 1876 In October 2022, Ericsson partnered with e& to use the latest Ericsson Radio System portfolio, which resulted in a 52% reduction in energy consumption. In February 2023, the company partnered with stc to dispose of stc’s obsolete equipment as part of the Ericsson Product Take-Back Program. In May 2023, Ericsson extended its partnership with TAWAL, through which it manages assets across 16,000 sites in Saudi Arabia, with a focus on energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction through infrastructure upgrades and automation solutions. In June 2023, it signed an MoU with Zain Group to explore initiatives aimed at accelerating the transition to net zero.

OCTOBER 2023

The Middle East’s

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban

SUSTAINABLE 100

SABIC

• CEO: Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1976 In 2022, SABIC collaborated with Covestro to develop a new heat-resistant coating resin technology for BOPE films. In January 2023, SABIC’s sites in the Netherlands began taking supplies of renewable wind energy from the SwifterwinT wind farm, providing 90% of the company’s annual power demand in the country and reducing indirect CO2 emissions by over 300,000 metric tons.

Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) 2

• CEO: Robert Wilt

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1997 Ma’aden aims to achieve carbon neutrality across the organization by 2050. In 2022, Ma’aden reduced its energyindirect emissions by 14%. In June 2022, it signed an MoU with GlassPoint to develop a solar process heat plant to generate steam for its aluminum business. Ma’aden Solar 1 will provide Ma’aden’s bauxite refinery with 1,500 MW of energy and contribute to its goal of reducing 600,000 tons of its annual carbon emission.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) 3

• CEO: Abdulnasser Bin Kalban Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1975 EGA operates aluminum smelters in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. In August 2023, EGA’s alumina refinery in Al Taweelah, Abu Dhabi, was certified by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative for having some of the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in the industry. Currently, all EGA’s operational assets are certified to the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative’s

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Performance Standard. The company also re-uses bauxite residue as manufactured soil and is advancing further potential for fabricating novel construction materials. EGA is also manufacturing “CelestiAL,” its commercially produced aluminum using solar power. Since the start of 2023, it has supplied BMW Group—its largest client— with CelestiAL-R, solar metal blended with recycled content.

Emirates Steel Arkan (ESA) 4

• Group CEO: Saeed Al Remeithi Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1998 Emirates Steel Arkan Group is a public joint stock company and the largest steel and building materials manufacturer in the U.A.E. In 2022, it invested $921,000

in R&D and introduced ES600, which is constructed to reduce energy consumption and lower carbon emissions. The group planted 11,489 trees, out of which 1,100 trees in 2022, and achieved 115 tonnes of CO2 offset. The group aims to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) 5

• CEO: Ali Al Baqali

Headquarters: Bahrain Established In: 1968 Alba produced over 1.6 million metric tonnes of aluminum in 2022. In April 2022, Alba released its ESG roadmap with the aim to reach net zero emissions by 2060. It has plans to create a five-seven MGW solar farm project. Its Spent Pot Lining Treatment Plant treats 35,000 tonnes annually with

OCTOBER 2023

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THE LIST

MANUFACTURING & INDUSTRIALS COMPANIES

zero waste. In 2022, it recycled 81,025 metric tonnes of solid waste. In March 2023, Alba secured a sustainable financing loan of $4.3 million from the Bank of Bahrain & Kuwait (BBK) to establish its six MGW solar farm project.

Petromin Corporation 6

57 THE LIST

• Group CEO: Kalyana Sivagnanam Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1968 Petromin Corporation operates 235 petrol stations that offer eco-steam vehicle wash services, contributing to a 90% reduction in water consumption compared to conventional car washing. Its subsidiary, Electromin, is building a charging network for electric vehicles (EVs) across Saudi Arabia. In November 2022, Electromin partnered with Siemens to supply EV chargers in Saudi Arabia. In April 2023, Electromin and Saudi’s Ministry of Transport and Logistics Services inaugurated an autonomous shuttle operation at ROSHN Riyadh Business Front. Its other subsidiary, Petrolube, is reducing carbon emissions through logistics efficiency, which has resulted in 22% trip efficiency since 2018.

• Managing Director—Middle

East and Africa & Global VicePresident 3M Healthcare Business Group Commercial Operations: László Svinger Headquarters: Global: U.S. Regional: U.A.E.

PHOTOGRAPH BY MUSTAPHA AZAB FOR FORBES MIDDLE EAST

Established In: 1902 Globally, 3M has reduced its carbon emissions by 37.8% since 2019 and achieved 50% renewable energy across its global operations as of December 2022. 3M has been working with the UNFCCC on the UN SDGs as part of a three-year agreement signed in 2021.

National Industrialization Company (Tasnee) 8

• CEO: Mutlaq Al-Morished

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1985 Tasnee aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060. It is currently evaluating the installation of solar

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Tariq Chauhan

systems at its R&D facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, covering 20% of its annual electric consumption.

BMW Group Middle East 9

network across federal roads and destinations. In February 2023, BMW Group launched its hydrogen iX5 pilot fleet.

• Managing Director: Hamid

EFS Facilities Services Group

Haqparwar

• Group CEO: Tariq Chauhan

Headquarters: U.A.E.

Established In: 1994

Established In: 2006

BMW Group Middle East has supported the creation of a green hydrogen value chain in the region with MoUs with stakeholders across Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Qatar, and Jordan. In the U.A.E., BMW has signed an agreement with the Ministry of Energy & Infrastructure to expand the electric vehicle charging

EFS implements emerging technologies to deliver sustainable and smart buildings and relies on IoT and AI for achieving efficient management. EFS Greens offers landscaping and horticultural solutions. EFS Greens also focuses on environmental preservation and proper waste management.

OCTOBER 2023

The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

NEOM

• CEO: Nadhmi Al-Nasr Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 2019 In May 2023, NEOM’s energy and water company ENOWA and the Saudi Electricity Company signed an agreement with Hitachi Energy to supply ENOWA with three high-voltage direct current transmission systems. NEOM Green Hydrogen Company, a joint venture between NEOM, ACWA Power, and Air Products, to build a mega-plant in NEOM that will produce about 600 tonnes of carbon-free hydrogen per day from 2026 with an investment value of $8.4 billion.

NMDC Group

• Group CEO: Yasser Zaghloul Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1976 In 2022, NMDC planted 1,500 native trees using Waterbox technology as a part of a campaign conducted at Safaniya, Saudi Aramco. It also reported a 15% reduction in non-hazardous waste generated and a 45.68% reduction in hazardous waste compared to 2021. NDMC’s environmental projects include the Eastern Mangroves in Abu Dhabi, where the company dredged channels and created additional irrigation. A million cubic tons of water was dredged, reclaimed, and reused.

SEE Holding

• Chairman and CEO: Faris Saeed

Yasser Zaghloul three new sustainable cities in Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, and Muscat. Its first projected 2040 net-zero city, a $1 billion project in Muscat—The Sustainable City, Yiti—will span a million square meters and is a partnership with OMRAN Group.

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2020

SEE Holding’s portfolio includes The Sustainable City, Diamond Developers, Tadweer, and City Solar, among others. Its subsidiaries create “live-work-thrive” communities that aim to improve quality of life while minimizing emissions, with a focus on social, environmental, and economic sustainability. The 2030 net zero building—the SEE Institute—is among its developments. It is also working on

• Group CEO: Talal Al Dhiyebi

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Aldar Properties

Chartered for over $136 million. The company launched its net zero plan with 2030 and 2050 targets in January 2023. It has also implemented several enhancements across its communities, including installing occupancy sensors to control lighting, irrigation for water efficiency, water-saving faucets and fixtures, and optimizing car parking ventilation controls.

Red Sea Global

Headquarters: U.A.E.

Established In: 2005

• Group CEO : John Pagano

In 2022, Aldar Properties finalized a responsible investment framework, invested in Fifth Wall’s Climate Technology Fund, and signed a sustainability-linked loan with Standard

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 2018 Red Sea Global’s portfolio includes two main destinations: The Red Sea and

OCTOBER 2023

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THE LIST

REAL ESTATE & CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES

PRO M OTI O N Scan this QR code to open the website

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A Slice of Paradise

Occupying a prime shorefront location with panoramic vistas across the Arabian Gulf, Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort offers luxury, tranquility, and a welcome escape from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

n a city of towering skyscrapers, lies a serene oasis. An urban retreat that fuses the vibrant culture of the U.A.E. with the intricate beauty of Thai-inspired architecture, Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort is nestled within the iconic fronds of Palm Jumeirah, creating an idyllic contrast to the city’s metropolitan rush. The beachfront resort offers guests a moment to pause and live suspended in intimate and luxurious tranquility. For those seeking a destination that serves as a crossroads of innovation, culture, and relaxation, it promises a journey unlike any other, marked by the splendor of the Middle East and the grace of the ‘Land of Smiles’. An expression of the very essence of Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort is the Maldivianinspired One Bedroom Over Water Villa. A truly unique setting, the villa

offers an authentic connection with the environment, with 106 square meters of internal personal space and almost 20 meters of outdoor space where guests can lounge on a private deck and gaze at a horizon where the ocean meets the sky. Adding to the experience, the water villas also feature a unique glass viewing panel set in the floor, offering a glimpse into the aquatic world beneath the surface. For those who prefer terra firma, the resort’s One Bedroom Beach Pool Villas offer a special connection with the shoreline of the Arabian Gulf. Each villa invites guests to savor the luxury of a private pool coupled with uninterrupted access to the ocean. Covering a comfortable 85 square meters indoors and with more than 35 meters of outdoor space, Anantara’s collection of beach

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pool villas offer intimacy, private dining, and the opportunity to explore the wonders of nature or simply relax poolside. Anantara The Palm Dubai Resort is not just a destination; it takes people on a unique journey that blends breathtaking natural beauty with unparalleled luxury and innovative design. Whether surrounded by the azure hues of the sky and the sea in an Over Water Villa or nestled in the intimate setting of a Beach Pool Villa, guests are promised an unforgettable stay marked by world-class hospitality.

www.anantara.com

OCTOBER 2023

Emaar Properties

• Founder and Managing Director: Mohamed Alabbar

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1997 Emaar Properties uses variable frequency drives for air handling units in its buildings, reducing peak energy demand and saving power when not required. In 2022, it achieved 55% energy savings from lighting consumption through LED replacements and an energy saving of 64% at the Dubai Fountain. The company’s energy management initiatives aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fossil fuel usage, and operational costs while enhancing equipment efficiency. In 2022, Reel Cinemas at Dubai Mall replaced the plastic cutlery used at the food outlets in cinemas with wooden cutlery, cutting down 100% of single-use plastic cutlery.

ROSHN Group

• Group CEO: David Grover

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 2020 The ROSHN Group is wholly owned by Saudi’s Public Investment Fund. In September 2023, ROSHN became a member of the United Nations Global Compact, which aligns its operations with areas of human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption, in line with Saudi’s Vision 2030 goals.

DAMAC Group

• Founder and Chairman: Hussain Sajwani

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1982

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Hussain Sajwani

In May 2023, DAMAC joined the Emirates Green Building Council a year after becoming a member of the U.S. Green Building Council. In the same month, it joined the United Nations Global Compact initiative—one of the steps it’s taken to increase its focus on ESG matters.

materials in all of its properties. It also uses 100% recycled water for irrigation.

Qatari Diar

• CEO: Abdullah bin Hamad AlAttiyah

El Gouna

• CEO: Mohamed Amer Headquarters: Egypt Established In: 1989 El Gouna is a fully integrated town on the coast of the Red Sea in Egypt. In 2014, it received a UN-sponsored Global Green Award. It has a solar power plant with a capacity of 7MWP as of 2022, a full solid waste management system, a local wastewater treatment plant, an on-site organic farm, and “phase change” temperature regulation

Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 2005 Qatari Diar formed a joint venture in 2007 with VINCI Construction Grands Projets, called QDVC, to construct large-scale sustainable real estate and infrastructure projects. In 2020, QDVC enrolled in the VINCI Environmental Ambition 2030 to actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In February 2022, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) approved VINCI’s proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% for Scopes I and II and 20% for Scope III by 2030.

OCTOBER 2023

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Amaala. Both aim to achieve a 30% net conservation benefit by 2040 through the protection and enhancement of key habitats crucial to biodiversity. Both will also run with 100% renewable energy, all of which will be generated by solar power and one of the largest battery storage facilities in the world to guarantee supply at night-time. In July 2023, Red Sea Global opened its first mangrove nursery to support the delivery of RSG’s aim to plant 50 million mangrove trees by 2030. In August 2023, it partnered with Zain KSA to launch the world’s first zero-carbon 5G network at the Six Senses Southern Dunes resort at The Red Sea.

PRO M OTI O N Scan this QR code to open the website

Food Fit For A Kingdom

Wafa AlHokair, Chairwoman of Majd Food

he Saudi Arabian economy is booming, and with diversification front and center of the nation’s ambitions, the time has come for an array of sectors to shine – with the food and beverage (F&B) industry a case in point. The Saudi foodservice market was valued at $27.8 billion in 2021, according to Mordor Intelligence, and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 7.71% from 2022-2027. For Wafa AlHokair, Chairwoman of Majd Food, these are exciting times, both for her business, and for her home country. “I am committed to leading our company to be at the forefront of the F&B sector’s continuous growth in KSA and contribute to Vision 2030 – we share the

same vision in creating a thriving community in the kingdom,” says the chairwoman. There is every reason to believe that AlHokair’s commitment will come good. In the space of a few short years, the entrepreneur has built a formidable F&B business through a mix of franchise agreements, acquisitions, and the creation of homegrown brands – all of which occupy prime locations across Saudi Arabia and beyond. Award-winning restaurant, Hakkasan; Michelin star eatery, Bruno; and luxury ice-cream parlour, Flamant; count among the more-than-20 brands within the Majd Food portfolio. “It’s incredible to reflect on how far Majd Food has come,” says the business leader who founded the company in 2019. “We’ve established ourselves as leaders in the F&B and hospitality industries…delivering top-tier food and beverage experiences via our successful restaurant venues, events, and catering services.” Part of diversified holding company, Majd Alaamal, Majd Food is on a mission to bring exceptional dining to Saudi Arabia, offering a range of international cuisine that, according to AlHokair, was once only accessible during trips overseas. And as the company grows, the chairwoman has expansion on her mind, with new openings planned in Al Ula,

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Amaala, NEOM, and the ChampsÉlysées in Diriyah. Less touristic locations including Riyadh’s King Abdullah Financial District are also on the radar. As she continues to build on her success, Majd Food’s founder attributes much of her business savvy to her father, Dr. Abdul Majeed Al Hokair, and Saudi hospitality giant, the AlHokair Group. At the start of her career, she gained work experience at Food and Entertainment Co, part of the Al Hokair Group, which ignited her passion for the F&B industry. From there, her father’s guidance and unwavering support empowered the entrepreneur to establish Majd Food and assume the challenging role of CEO. It was then in 2022 that AlHokair took on the position of chairwoman. Looking ahead, Wafa AlHokair is clear about her vision for the future. According to the entrepreneur, the prime objective is to provide top-notch dining experiences that enhance quality of life and create attractive job opportunities within the F&B sector as Saudi Arabia continues its Vision 2030 campaign.

www.majdfood.com OCTOBER 2023

61 THE LIST

Wafa AlHokair, Chairwoman of Majd Food, is bringing exceptional dining to Saudi Arabia and pursuing a vision that aligns with the kingdom’s 2030 ambitions.

The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS COMPANIES 1

DP World

• Group Chairman and CEO: Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1972 In 2022, DP World generated 19% of its electricity through renewable energy and reclaimed 59% of its total generated waste. DP World published its first internal sustainability newsletter in June 2022 and initiated a weekly sustainability bulletin to keep employees informed. Its decarbonization initiative resulted in a 5% reduction in emissions between 2019 and 2022. In 2022, it also launched a priority program across six pillars, including low-carbon vessels and renewable energy procurement. Ocean health initiatives include investments in blue carbon initiatives, undertaking habitat restoration projects, and participating in research projects that address marine environmental challenges.

AD Ports Group

Henadi Al-Saleh

• Managing Director and Group

CEO: Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2006 The AD Ports Group has aligned its operations with the “U.A.E. Net Zero 2050” national initiative. Its strategy focuses on reducing direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from its operations. In 2022, the AD Ports Group achieved a 20% reduction in carbon emissions by using locally sourced biofuel (recycled cooking oil) in feeder vessels. The group also achieved an 18% decrease in electricity consumption intensity for container terminals and a 13% decrease in fuel consumption intensity per TEU compared to 2021.

Agility

worldwide and has invested $181.2 million in companies with a primary sustainability focus as of December 2022. The group has a portfolio of humanitarian logistics support globally. In 2022, the logistics emergency team developed a platform to allow humanitarian responders to speed emergency aid to a destination. Metal Recycling Company (MRC), a majority owned by Agility, provides waste management services and recycles over 60,000 metric tons of scrap metal and 4,500 metric tons of plastics on average annually.

Asyad Group

• Group CEO: Abdulrahman Al Hatmi Headquarters: Oman

• Chairperson: Henadi Al-Saleh

Established In: 2016

Headquarters: Kuwait

The Asyad Group is working to achieve some SDGs through its subsidiaries. Its subsidiary, Asyad Shipping, aims to reduce 40% of CO₂ emissions by 2030

Established In: 1979 Agility provides supply chain services

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

and 70% by 2050, in line with the net zero target of Oman Vision 2040. In September 2022, Asyad signed an MoU with the Oman Hydrogen Centre at the German University of Technology in Oman to conduct research on the role of Omani ports in supporting the country’s green hydrogen economy.

Nakilat

• CEO: Abdullah Al-Sulaiti Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 2004 Shipping and maritime transportation company Nakilat enables Qatar’s Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) supply chain. In January 2022, the company partnered with ABS to receive a sustain notation for its fleet of 69 LNG carriers and four very large, liquefied petroleum gas carriers. This aligns Nakilat with the UN SDGs, making sustainability certification and reporting easier.

OCTOBER 2023

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Etihad Rail

• Chairman: Theyab bin

Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2009 Etihad Rail contributes to the U.A.E.’s Net Zero by 2050 goals. The U.A.E. National Rail Network will reduce carbon emissions in the road transport sector by 21% by 2050, with each train trip replacing up to 300 trucks off the road. Etihad Rail monitors exhaust emissions based on standards set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, Etihad Rail has partnered with Emirates Nature-WWF, Fujairah Municipality, the Fujairah Environment Authority, and Fujairah Adventures Center to form the Al Bithnah Conservation Project.

THE LIST

A.P. Moller-Maersk

• Senior Vice President, Regional Managing Director – IMEA: Richard Morgan

Headquarters: Global: Denmark Regional: U.A.E. Established In: 1904 Since 2022, Maersk has partnered with Freestyle Divers LLC for a marine conservation initiative, successfully planting coral to revitalize Fujairah's coastal ecosystem. By the end of 2023, APM Terminals Bahrain, a subsidiary of A.P. Moller-Maersk, will transform the Khalifa Bin Salman Port into the region’s first fully solar-powered seaport. In 2024, Maersk and Mawani will open its Integrated Logistics Park at Jeddah Islamic Port. Rooftop solar panels will power the facility, and the cold store will use ammonia-enabled energy for refrigeration and fully-electrified forklift operations. The park will also feature a cutting-edge system for recycling water and waste.

DHL Express MENA 8

• CEO: Nour Suliman

Headquarters: Bahrain

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Established In: 1976 In 2023, DHL Express MENA launched GoGreen Plus in the U.A.E. to help customers reduce the carbon emissions related to their shipments through the use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). In 2022, the company completed solar panel installations in their facilities

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Nour Suliman

in Jordan, Iraq, and the U.A.E. and introduced nine new electric vehicles to their fleet around the region.

and created 30 plantation beds.

Qatar Navigation (Milaha) 10

GWC

• Group CEO : Ranjeev Menon Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 2004 GWC installed solar-powered streetlights at Logistics Village Qatar and around its warehouses in the industrial area in 2022. It also adapted its warehouses to include skylights to prevent the use of artificial lighting during the day. In addition, over 2.2 million kilograms of waste was recycled, compared to 1.63 million in 2021. During the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, GWC participated in Qatar Sustainability Week, where it repurposed wooden pallets for a community garden

• President and CEO: Mohammed Abdulla Swidan

Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 1957 In June 2022, Milaha partnered with the Qatar Research, Development, and Innovation Council and Ooredoo to launch the second set of innovation calls for the Qatar Open Innovation program in an effort to develop its business operations and enhance its service offering in line with the Qatari government’s goals to provide secure and sustainable supply chains and build a diverse, knowledge-based economy. OCTOBER 2023

The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

FOOD & AGRICULTURE COMPANIES 1

Almarai

• CEO: Abdullah Nasser Al Bader Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1977 In 2022, Almarai increased its solar energy usage by 46% compared to 2020. It also reported a 7% decline in its total stationary energy usage and a 3% decline in fuel usage by its sales, distribution, and logistics vehicles compared to 2021. Almarai created its ISO roadmap last year to meet ISO 50001 requirements and monitor the company’s energy progress goals. Almarai aims to reduce its waste by 9,000 metric tons by 2025. In 2022, the company reduced its waste by 713 metric tons of plastic and 74 annualized metric tons of paper weight.

Silal

• CEO: Salmeen Obaid Alameri Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2020 Silal, part of ADQ, was established in 2020 to stimulate the manufactured and agri-food sectors. In June 2023, the company partnered with Desolenator, a Netherlands-based solar thermal desalination company, to launch a pilot project to turn saline water into pure water for irrigation and provide a sustainable cooling option for greenhouses. The project, supported by a $27.2 million R&D fund by ADQ, aims to cause zero environmental harm and contribute to the decarbonization of food production in desert climates by lowering the carbon footprint of the desalination process.

Alan Smith

has a better ecological balance than glass and single-use aluminum cans. In May 2022, the group approved a $24.5 million greenfield investment in Saudi Arabia to construct a manufacturing facility for Nabil Foods, Agthia’s protein brand.

Agthia Group

• CEO: Alan Smith

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2004 In February 2023, Abu Dhabi-based food and beverage company Agthia Group launched a new 100% rPET bottle for Al Ain Water. rPET supports recycling, saves energy, diverts plastics from landfills, generates 75% fewer CO2 emissions, and

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Savola Group

• Group CEO: Waleed Khalid Fatani

Nestlé Middle East

• Chairman and CEO—MENA: Yasser Abdul Malak

packaging is designed to be recycled.

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1997 Nestlé Middle East has achieved a 52% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and a 35% decrease in energy consumption across 24 of its food, beverage, and water manufacturing sites in MENA since 2010. In 2022, Nestlé’s Al Maha Factory in the U.A.E. worked entirely on 100% renewable energy. 25% of Nestlé’s MENA sites are powered by renewable energy, and 94% of its

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1979 The Savola Group’s Negaderha project is designed to reduce food waste through partnerships with the United Nations Environment Program, the Waste Resources Action Program, the Saudi Grains Organization, and Eta’am (the Saudi Food Bank). The group installed highly efficient LED lights in 108 Panda outlets in 2022, along with lighting timers in 163. Waste was reduced across Panda stores by 61% and CO₂ emissions by 78% in the same year. Savola has also been transitioning to sustainable refrigerants like R448a from R-22, which is planned to be completely phased out by 2030.

OCTOBER 2023

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THE LIST

The Coca-Cola Company 6

• Vice President and General

Manager—Middle East: Andrew Buckingham Headquarters: Global: U.S. Regional: U.A.E.

65 THE LIST

Established In: 1886 Between September and December 2022, Coca-Cola debuted locally produced 100% rPET bottles at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. In November and December 2022, Coca-Cola contracted Averda to oversee the waste collection at its Fan Festival in Riyadh. It collected 100% of all packaging waste, which was segregated and recycled in Saudi Arabia. In 2022, Coca-Cola partnered with RECAPP to collect and recycle hundreds of tons of PET packaging in the U.A.E.

PepsiCo

• CEO—Africa, Middle East, and South Asia: Eugene Willemsen Headquarters: Global: U.S. Regional: U.A.E. Established In: 1965 In February 2023, PepsiCo signed an MoU with the National Transportation Solutions Company to jointly launch the first electric commercial truck pilot program in Saudi Arabia. In its Riyadh snacks factory, PepsiCo replenished 100% of the water consumed in the production process and put it back into the local watershed in 2022. This accounted for 65% of the entire country’s water usage in the snacks industry. In September 2022, PepsiCo partnered with Prince Sultan University to educate students on sustainability, enabling students to explore in detail the issue of plastic waste and the benefits of the circular economy.

Juhayna Food Industries 8

• Vice Chairman and CEO: Seif Thabet

Headquarters: Egypt

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Established In: 1983 Juhayna Food Industries participated in E-Tadweer in 2021, an e-waste initiative launched by Egypt’s Ministry of Environment and the Waste Management Regulation Authority. Over 290 kilograms of damaged electronics were collected from Juhayna headquarters, as well

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Eugene Willemsen

as the company’s subsidiaries Tiba, Al-Enmaa, and Al-Masreya, with the help of Green Waste. This saved 321 kilograms of CO₂ equivalents. Juhayna’s Rayeb plastic caps were replaced with plant-based ones made of sugarcane under Bonsucro standards. In addition, it launched a pilot project to recycle fruit byproducts during the manufacturing process.

cooling and recirculation of water at its Jeddah Milk Factory, which aims to save up to 48 million liters of water annually. Its newly implemented compactor at the Jeddah Factory resulted in a 90% recycling rate for packaging waste.

Saudia Dairy and Foodstuff Company (SADAFCO)

• Managing Director: Kenneth

• CEO: Patrick Stillhart

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1976 In 2022, SADAFCO formed an energy steering committee and a water steering committee. It signed a MoU with Engie to generate about 6.7 MWp from solar power across several locations. It also implemented a solution that involves the

Barakat Group of Companies 10

Dcosta

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1976 Barakat Group of Companies partners with local farms to reduce its carbon footprint. Among its initiatives are the 100-Mile Initiative, which reduces the farmer-consumer distance, upcycling food waste into animal feed, and using highly biodegradable plastic for its bottles. In 2022, the group recycled 23% of its wastewater and repurposed 30.4 million kg of organic waste.

OCTOBER 2023

The Middle East’s

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer

SUSTAINABLE 100

ENERGY & UTILITIES COMPANIES 1

TAQA Group

• Group CEO and Managing

Director: Jasim Husain Thabet Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2005 In April 2023, TAQA launched a new Green Finance Framework for the issuance of green bonds, sukuks, loans, and other debt instruments. Proceeds from these will finance eligible green projects, including clean transportation and terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity. Also in April, it invested $30.8 million with Xlinks First Limited to lay the world’s longest highvoltage direct current subsea cables between the U.K. and Morocco, which will provide the U.K. with 3.6 GW of renewable energy-sourced electricity—nearly 8% of its current requirements. In May 2023, ADNOC and TAQA announced a $2.4 billion investment project to provide a sustainable water supply for ADNOC’s onshore operations.

ACWA Power

• CEO: Marco Arcelli

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 2008 In May 2023, ACWA Power signed two agreements to expedite Uzbekistan’s target to decarbonize 35% of its energy sector by 2030. Also in May, NEOM Green Hydrogen Company, a joint venture by ACWA power, Air Products, and NEOM, signed a financial deal with 23 local, regional, and international banks and investment firms to produce the world’s largest green hydrogen production facility with a total investment of $8.4 billion. ACWA Power signed an MoU with Huawei Digital Power in June 2023 to establish a joint innovation program to promote the growth of local industries and advance decarbonization in Saudi Arabia.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) 3

• CEO and Managing Director: F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1992 DEWA’s 2022 Sustainability Report states that it has committed $1.9 billion for investments in smart grid initiatives, which it began in 2014 and will continue up to 2035. As of 2022, it had installed more than 350 EV green charging stations, with over 630 charging points in Dubai. DEWA has noted a 14% share of clean energy capacity in its energy mix and a 9.22 million ton carbon emission reduction. In July 2022, it also added 700 MW of energy production capacity, totaling 14,117 MW, with 1,627 MW from renewable energy.

Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) 4

• CEO: Khaled AlGnoon

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 2000 SEC is working to reduce carbon emissions and enable a targeted energy mix in Saudi Arabia to generate 50% of electricity from renewable energy

sources and 50% from natural gas by 2030. In April 2023, the SEC announced the completion of a dual-tranche series of green and conventional sukuks, with a total of $2 billion under its international sukuk program. The 10-year green sukuk raised $1.2 billion.

Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) 5

• CEO: Othman Al Ali Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2018

EWEC is the sole procurer of water and power in Abu Dhabi and is part of ADQ. It coordinates, plans, and purchases supply water and electricity by partnering with plants across the U.A.E. In February 2023, it met 80% of its power demand using renewable and clean energy from its solar and nuclear plants, equivalent to 6.2 gigawatts. In May 2023, EWEC partnered with Zero Two to announce the largest single purchase of clean energy certificates to date, covering 7.3 million MGW hours of clean energy.

OCTOBER 2023

PHOTOGRAPH BY MUSTAPHA AZAB FOR FORBES MIDDLE EAST

THE LIST

The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

OIL & GAS COMPANIES 1

Aramco

THE LIST

• President and CEO: Amin H. Nasser Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1933 Aramco launched an environmental master plan in 2001. In November 2022, Aramco signed an MoU with Indonesia’s PT Pertamina to collaborate in the exploration of the hydrogen and ammonia value chain, which will help Aramco achieve net-zero scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions across its wholly-owned operated assets by 2050. In October 2022, Aramco announced the launch of a $1.5 billion venture capital Sustainability Fund to invest in the technology required to move to a net-zero emissions future. In the same year, it signed an MoU with PIF to participate in a MENA regional Voluntary Carbon Market to be launched in Saudi Arabia in 2023.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) 2

• Group CEO and Managing

Director: Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1971 ADNOC aims to reduce its greenhouse gas intensity by 25% by 2030. In 2023, ADNOC has allocated an initial $15 billion over the next five years to advance lower-carbon solutions to achieve net zero by 2045. In May 2023, the company announced a low-carbon LNG growth project in Al Ruwais Industrial City in Abu Dhabi. In August 2023, ADNOC signed an agreement with the U.S.-based Occidental to accelerate net zero goals and evaluate carbon management projects in the U.A.E. and the U.S.

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QatarEnergy

Saif Humaid Al Falasi

gas. The company plans to increase its production of LNG to 126 million tons per year by 2027 to reduce energy sources such as oil and coal and to curb emissions from its operations through flare reduction, methane emissions reduction, and energy efficiency. It will create low-carbon energy by growing renewable energy capacity, such as through solar projects, up to four GWs by 2030. QatarEnergy wants to compensate for residual emissions by widely deploying carbon capture and sequestration technology at its facilities, up to nine MTPAs, by 2030.

Crescent Petroleum • CEO: Majid Jafar

Headquarters: U.A.E.

& CEO: Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi

Established In: 1971

Headquarters: Qatar

Crescent Petroleum’s natural gas accounted for close to 80% of its total production in the 2021/22 financial year, saving more than 42 million

QatarEnergy produces liquefied natural

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

ENOC Group

• Group CEO: Saif Humaid Al Falasi

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1993

• Deputy Chairman and President Established In: 1974

tonnes of CO2 emissions. The company also reduced gas flaring by nearly 28%, to just 0.31% of production. Between 2021 and 2022, the company contributed more than $2.3 million in social contributions to local communities.

In February 2023, the ENOC Group partnered with DEWA to construct a hydrogen fueling station. The group operates electric vehicle charging networks in Dubai. From 2017 to 2022, the group reduced its expenditure on plastic bottles and paper by 86%, and it has prevented 14 tons of plastic waste from entering landfills since 2020. As of May 2023, ENOC retail service stations were generating 7,500 megawatts per hour of solar energy.

OCTOBER 2023

The Middle East’s

SUSTAINABLE 100

INVESTMENT COMPANIES 68

Mubadala Investment Company (Mubadala) • Managing Director and Group

CEO: Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2002 In 2022, Mubadala, in partnership with Global Infrastructure Partners, acquired a 100% stake in Skyborn Renewables, one of the largest private offshore wind developers in the world. The investment included a 50% interest in Bluepoint Wind, a 1.6 gigawatt offshore wind project in the U.S. In the same year, Mubadala acquired a stake in AirCarbon Exchange, a fully regulated carbon trading exchange based in Abu Dhabi. Project Decarb is Mubadala’s portfolio engagement effort to aid in the U.A.E.’s net zero commitment, implementing Decarbonisation Pathway Programs for transitioning companies.

Public Investment Fund (PIF) 2

• Governor: Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan

Headquarters: Saudi Arabia Established In: 1971 PIF has a global and local investment portfolio with a focus on sustainable investments. In February 2023, PIF completed its acquisition of a 30% stake in the Saudi Tabreed District Cooling Company to reduce power consumption and operational cost savings. It also completed its second green bond issuance, raising $5.5 billion to finance or refinance PIF’s green investments, and it signed a joint venture agreement with U.S.-based AeroFarms to establish indoor vertical farms in Saudi Arabia and MENA, which uses 95% less water than field farming.

ADQ

• Managing Director and CEO: Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2018 F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi In March 2023, ADQ—in partnership with the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi and Archireef—installed artificial 3D-printed terracotta-based reef tiles off the coast of Abu Dhabi. This project was carried out to aid in coral restoration. In the same month, ADQ began the operational phase of its AgTech Park ecosystem through a vertical farming program with its affiliate ZERO. The pilot phase is set to conclude in 2023, after which a 40,000-square-meter commercial phase of the vertical farm will launch in Al Ain. In August 2023, ADQ and Safe Haven Solutions announced the construction of a greenhouse at AgTech Park in KEZAD.

Ascend Elements, a manufacturer of sustainable, engineered battery materials for electric vehicles. This investment follows other similar investments, including in Xpeng to manufacture electric vehicles, in Fluence to accelerate the growth of largescale battery-based energy storage, and in Enel Green Power to build and operate renewable plants in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Qatar Investment Authority (QIA)

Dubai Holding was created by the U.A.E. government in 2004 to manage largescale projects in the emirate. In July 2023, Dubai Holding, in partnership with DUBAL Holding, ITOCHU, Hitachi Zosen Inova, Tech Group, and BESIX Group, launched the first phase of the Waste to Energy Centre in Warsan, the largest energyfrom-waste facility in the world, which currently generates about 80 MWh of renewable energy and will increase to 220 MWh once its two phases are completed.

• CEO: Mansoor Ebrahim AlMahmoud

Headquarters: Qatar Established In: 2005 In September 2023, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund QIA invested in U.S.-based

Dubai Holding

• Group CEO: Amit Kaushal Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2004

OCTOBER 2023

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THE LIST

International Holding Company (IHC) 6

• CEO and Managing Director: Syed Basar Shueb

Headquarters: U.A.E.

Established In: 1998

THE LIST

IHC aims to develop non-oil sectors in the U.A.E. It invests in agriculture, capital, energy, F&B, healthcare, and other industries. In April 2022, IHC announced a $2 billion investment agreement with Indian multinational Adani Group’s green portfolio. In September 2022, IHC’s subsidiary “Rebound” launched Rebound Plastic Exchange, a global B2B digital trading platform for recycled plastic. IHC’s subsidiary IHC Utilities, has been working on R&D in Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS).

Dubai Investments 7

• Vice Chairman and CEO: Khalid Bin Kalban

Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 1995 U.A.E.-based investment company Dubai Investments holds stakes in diverse industries, including real estate, construction, healthcare, industrial, and education. In 2022, the company achieved a 32% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (an estimated decrease of 212,768 tonnes of CO2). In May 2023, Dubai Investments Park, a community wholly owned by Dubai Investments, completed its LED lights retrofit project, in which more than 1,355 sodium streetlights were replaced with LED streetlights, saving 700,000 kWh of energy per year.

Investcorp

• Executive Chairman: Mohammed Alardhi

Headquarters: Bahrain

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Established In: 1982 In June 2022, Investcorp signed the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Finance Declaration, and in September 2022, it launched mandatory ESG training throughout the company. The company also initiated an upgrade project to its largest office by occupied square footage in Bahrain, which accounted for most of its total emissions. The project consists of installing Automatic Power Factor Control panels and is expected to reduce

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Dana Naser Al Sabah

carbon emissions of the power system in Bahrain by 400 tons of CO2 per year. In September 2023, Investcorp announced that it would be an Associate Pathway Partner for COP28 in Dubai.

Kuwait Projects Company (Holding) – KIPCO 9

• Group CEO: Dana Naser Al Sabah Headquarters: Kuwait Established In: 1975 KIPCO has a diverse portfolio of investments covering different industries. In 2022, the company reported a reduction in the volume of fuel consumption by its owned cars, and the intensity per employee by 34.9%, and in total greenhouse gas emissions by 35.8% compared to 2021. KIPCO also reduced its scope two emissions through

electricity consumption by 25%, leading to a reduction in total emissions of 25.9%. The company saved 720 kg of paper in the process.

Yas Holding

• Group CEO: Low Ping Headquarters: U.A.E. Established In: 2005

Yas Holding’s portfolio spans six sectors. Elite Agro Holding, its food and agriculture arm, invests in farming technologies integrated with local community-based knowledge and practices. It aims to contribute to food security for the U.A.E. through sustainable farming. In September 2023, Elite Agro Holding announced its alignment with the U.N. SDGs by adopting hydroponic planting. It also introduced its retractable roof-net houses that save 90% of electricity and water.

OCTOBER 2023

NEXT BILLION-DOLLAR STARTUPS

By AMY FELDMAN

N E X T B I L L I O N - D O L L A R S TA RT U P S

Photograph by CHRIS CRISMAN for Forbes

Rise Of The Tractor Bots Monarch CEO Praveen Penmetsa wants to save America’s farms with robots. Can Old MacDonalds learn new tricks? Monarch Tractor cofounder and CEO Praveen Penmetsa

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

OCTOBER 2023

F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

with a laugh. “We need to change so that farmers don’t feel like there’s no future in farming.” The potential buyer, Bartley Walker of Pacific Ag Rentals, whose Salinas, California-based firm rents equipment to farmers, listens intently. He’s concerned about how farmers will be able to keep the tractors charged in the fields but is impressed with the self-driving features. “We understand this is the future,” he says. On any given day, Penmetsa, 45, who spent nearly two decades working on electric and self-driving cars before pivoting to agriculture, is fighting to convince farmers, investors and lawmakers that making the switch to electric, self-driving tractors is both important and viable. Diesel tractors are a major source of pollution in agriculture, and farmers have long struggled to hire enough workers. Monarch’s machines promise to solve both problems. Launching an agricultural equipment company is tough. It is capital-intensive, and cash-strapped farmers tend to be a conservative lot resistant to change. But Livermore-based Monarch, which has raised $116 million in equity from investors and reached a valuation of $271 million at its most recent equity funding in November 2021, seems to have hit a tipping point. Last year, it booked $22 million in revenue, up from $5 million in 2021. This year Penmetsa expects revenue to increase threeto fivefold. That would bring it above $66 million, and possibly over $100 million, as the number of its tractors in the field goes from more than 100 to 1,000. As it expands, Penmetsa expects that more of its revenue will come from software subscriptions (up to $8,376 per tractor per year) that give farmers real-time alerts about sick plants and safety risks, plus gathering and crunching a ton of data to improve crop yields. Those numbers helped Monarch make the cut for this year’s Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list, our annual showcase of the 25 companies we think are most likely to reach a $1 billion valuation. Penmetsa believes he can sell tens of thousands of tractors and reach revenue “in the hundreds of millions of dollars” within three years, enabling Monarch to go public then. To keep up with demand, last August Monarch inked a deal with Foxconn, the Taiwanese company famous for manufacturing most of the world’s iPhones, to make the SUV-sized beasts. It’s also licensing its tech, most notably to CNH Industrial, the London-based outfit behind the Case IH and New Holland brands, which is the second-largest tractor maker globally. Of course, Monarch, which was founded in 2018 by Penmetsa, Zachary Omohundro, Mark Schwager and Carlo Mondavi, isn’t alone in developing agricultural robots. John Deere, the agricultural equipment giant with $60 billion in revenue, announced last winter that it was working on an autonomous tractor geared toward large farms that require large machinery. Other startups are working on electric tractors (Solectrac) and autonomous electric tractors (Amos), as well as autonomous strawberry pickers (Agrobot) and collaborative robots that work side-by-side with human farmhands (Burro). But many of these efforts are at the early stages, and there is plenty of work to spread around. “Agriculture is the least automated of any major industrial

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71 N E X T B I L L I O N - D O L L A R S TA RT U P S

n a sunny early summer afternoon at Wente Vineyards in Livermore, California, Monarch Tractor cofounder and CEO Praveen Penmetsa is deep into his robottractor spiel. He reels off the benefits of his $89,000 vehicle: It’s all-electric. It’s self-driving. It can mow. It can weed. Even though it costs about 80% more than a similar diesel-powered machine, it will ultimately save farmers money, increase their farms’ efficiency and make their operations less reliant on outside labor and fuel. “If there’s one thing that farmers like more than guns, it’s being self-sufficient,” he says

PENMETSA WAS BORN in Guntur, India, but grew up some 170 miles away in Hyderabad, a tech center with a population today of 11 million. He was a city kid, but his grandparents were the last in a long line of rice farmers. “We would go back every summer to my grandparents’ place,” he says. “One of the first times I held a steering wheel, it was a tractor steering wheel.” As a kid, he was fascinated by fast cars. (He still is. Many years back, he bought an old BMW clunker for $800 and fixed it up into a race car.) After earning a master’s in mechanical engineering at the University of Cincinnati in 2002, he got a job at MillenWorks, a Huntington Beach, California-based cutting-edge car company founded by legendary New Zealand race car driver Rod Millen. “I knew enough about business to know that race car companies are not solid endeavors, so I wanted to find a company that was doing race cars and other things,” Penmetsa says. At MillenWorks, he helped develop an experimental robot for Darpa, the Defense Department’s research arm, and designed a battery pack for an early electric car that Mitsubishi debuted at the 2004 Detroit auto show. When Millen sold the company to Textron in 2010, Penmetsa decided to start his own firm, Motivo. Joining him there was a fellow MillenWorks alumnus, Omohundro, now 43, who holds a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon. At Motivo, they worked on electric vehicles, including demonstrating how a Toyota Prius could be repurposed into an emergency power generator. In 2012, Penmetsa went back to visit family in India and found himself frustrated by regular power outages. “I was like, ‘I wish I had my Toyota Prius here so I could get my power back,’” he says. The idea, something of a joke at the time, got him thinking about how electricity could be brought to rural areas. When Omohundro came across a USAID grant to power agriculture in developing nations in 2013, he and Penmetsa took the challenge. At Motivo, they built their first electric tractor, a small, largely solar-powered machine called Harvest. They ultimately built three tractors, testing two of them in Penmetsa’s maternal grandparents’ village of Maharajpei. As they talked with farmers in India and then in the United States, they heard the same refrain: There’s no future in farming. “There’s a global shortage of labor in farming, they’re F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

struggling with profit margins and there’s increasing pressure on them for sustainability,” Penmetsa says. Back in the U.S., they built experimental farm robots, including a potato transplanter and a lettuce weeder. But they were so expensive ($500,000-plus) that they could never be more than fancy demonstration projects. More commercially promising: tech for self-driving vehicles. While doing work for DriveAI (acquired by Apple in 2019) and Faraday Future, they began dreaming of an autonomous electric tractor at a price farmers could afford. “The cost offset for diesel fuel isn’t quite compelling enough, but if you have the diesel offset and the labor offset, that makes it compelling for the farmer, and then you have a viable business,” says Omohundro, now Monarch’s chief technology officer. Soon, the duo teamed up with Schwager, 39, who previously led Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada and had experience scaling up large manufacturing projects. With Mondavi, 43—the grandson of Robert Mondavi, who now runs his own vineyards in California and Italy—as the fourth cofounder and chief farming officer, they formed Monarch in December 2018. They named it for the migratory monarch butterfly, threatened with extinction due to chemical use on farms.

Penmetsa believes he can sell tens of thousands of tractors and reach revenue “in the hundreds of millions of dollars” within three years. Leaning on Mondavi, they targeted vineyards, with their tight rows of vines, high labor costs and customers willing to pay extra for a “green” product. Mondavi’s hope: By precision farming with Monarch’s robotractor, growers can use fewer chemicals without a decrease in yield or profitability. “We have changed the script that to do good by the planet costs more,” Mondavi says. “The economics piece is where we open the door.” BUILDING AN autonomous electric tractor is difficult, and doing so at a price farmers can afford is even harder. In the early days, Monarch’s engineers pitched a tent at Wente’s vineyards to develop and test the machine. Monarch made only two, at a cost of a half-million dollars each. In 2021, it introduced a second version that cost $250,000 and began testing with vineyards and dairy farmers. To keep things simple, they focused first on automating one of the most basic farm tasks: mowing. Tom Chi, one of the founders of Google X and an early investor in Monarch through At One Ventures, recalls a launch event. “I was poking my head into conversations, and farmers were like, ‘Mowing is going to be a game-changer,’ ” he says. “My autonomy brain was like, ‘Mowing is so easy.’ I was so eager for the things to come that I was discounting mowing, and they were like, ‘We’ve only got so much farm labor, and when they’re out there mowing it’s a waste of money.’” OCTOBER 2023

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N E X T B I L L I O N - D O L L A R S TA RT U P S

market,” says Alastair Hayfield, a robotics researcher at Interact Analysis, a market intelligence firm based in the U.K. “This is a long transition.” Penmetsa’s tractors target vineyards and fruit-andvegetable farms, which require smaller machines than the giant ones used by those who raise corn or soybeans. Its existing tractors are equivalent to a 40-horsepower machine, while the ones CNH will produce under license will be roughly equivalent to 75 horsepower. “Every meeting I have ends with ‘How are you going to take on John Deere?’ I see that as a testament to our success,” Penmetsa says. “They are asking us how we can take on Goliath. That is hugely empowering for us.”

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NEXT BILLION-DOLLAR STARTUPS 2023

Time to polish the crystal ball. There are more than 50,000 venture-backed startups in the U.S., and only the tiniest fraction of them will ever reach a billion-dollar valuation. For the ninth year in a row, Forbes has teamed with TrueBridge Capital Partners to search for the 25 most likely to pass that mark. Our track record is superb: Of the list’s 200 alumni, 120 have become unicorns, including DoorDash, Benchling, Duolingo and Rippling; another 27 were acquired, while three went public for less than $1 billion. Only five imploded or shut down, although at least 21 of our alumni that previously surpassed $1 billion are now worth less than that. Given banking troubles, layoffs, skittish investors and compressed valuations, it has been a tough year to pick winners. But from more than 200 nominations, we think these 25, presented in alphabetical order, have the best chance of becoming stars. • • • Edited by Amy Feldman Reporters: Isabel Bekele, Jeremy Bogaisky, Elisabeth Brier, Bob Ivry, Katie Jennings, Maggie McGrath and Lauren Orsini

Apprentice Founders: Alexandra Buttke, Gary Pignata, Angelo Stracquatanio (CEO) Equity Raised: $207 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $25 million Lead investors: Alkeon Capital, Iconiq, Insight Partners, Pritzker Group, Silverton Partners Manufacturing drugs is tough enough without a firm grip on the process. That’s what Apprentice’s software was designed to provide. Stracquatanio, 37, and his cofounders launched the Jersey City, New Jersey-based company in 2014, and it took off during the pandemic as the importance of speeding up vaccine making became clear. Customers include pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb, genome engineering firm Synthego and companies Stracquatanio can’t name due to privacy concerns. “We work so hard for the patient,” he says, “but the patient will never know us.”

Bobbie Founders: Sarah Hardy, Laura Modi (CEO) Equity Raised: $142 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $84 million Lead investors: Park West Asset Management, PowerPlant Partners, VMG Partners

Last year’s nationwide shortage of powdered baby formula gave newcomer Bobbie, founded in 2018 by moms Modi, 38, and Hardy, 43, a chance to nibble a little market share away from dominant multinationals Abbott Nutrition, Reckitt Benckiser and Nestlé. Bobbie (named for how Modi’s daughter pronounced the word bottle) took a novel approach, opting to supply formula only to existing customers. The strategy strengthened brand loyalty, and the company expects $165 million in revenue in 2023.

Capchase Founders: Luis Basagoiti, Miguel Fernandez (CEO), Przemek Gotfryd, Ignacio Moreno Equity Raised: $110 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $30 million Lead investors: 01 Advisors, Bling Capital, SciFiVC, QED For software startups that for whatever reason are looking for alternatives to venture funding, Capchase is here. Fernandez, 32, an immigrant from Spain, says the New York-based company has funneled more than $2 billion to over 4,000 businesses. That includes over $100 million in financing to female- and minority-owned startups over the past two years. OCTOBER 2023

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Domenick Buck, director of support services at Coastal Vineyards, a vineyard management company, first saw the tractor during a demonstration in early 2021. “It actually worked; it drove,” he says with a laugh. As the price of diesel rose rapidly, and with California state subsidies for electric tractors offsetting as much as 75% of the cost, he signed on as an early customer. Today, the company operates 18 Monarch tractors for itself and its clients. “There are a lot of people who can’t afford to continue operating in California,” he says. “We’re looking for ways to stay ahead.” Those California incentives, for which Monarch lobbied, are a key to making the machine affordable. Penmetsa ultimately hopes to make a cheaper version that could sell for less than $15,000 in Asia and Africa. To do so, he’s setting up a partnership with a tractor manufacturer in India and is focused on renting versus purchasing. At the same time, the company’s licensing deal with CNH (which is also an investor in Monarch) will allow its technology to power somewhat larger utility tractors. Those should hit the fields late this year or early next. “Monarch is at the edge of product development,” says Michele Lombardi, CNH’s senior vice president of corporate development and venture capital. “I would expect that in ten to 15 years, you would find fruit pickers, harvesting equipment and tilling equipment running around autonomously.” One big problem: charging. Monarch’s machines need to run for many hours in fields far from any electrical outlets or even roads. One potential solution is solar charging, but for now most robots require access to a charging station that could cost thousands of dollars to install. Another potential roadblock: California regulations don’t yet allow tractors to be fully autonomous—they still require a human operator to tag along. Monarch has petitioned for full autonomy, and the state has agreed to reconsider after it collects more safety data. Longer-term, though, the rise of the robots is inevitable, given the industry’s persistent labor shortages. Back in the early days, Penmetsa recalls, investors called them masochists. “They have a lot of myths that really hurt us, like ‘farmers will not adopt technology,’” he says. “Farmers are very savvy, and they will adopt new technologies if there is an ROI for them.”

Hermeus cofounder and CEO AJ Piplica

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New York to Paris in 90 minutes. What a beautiful world that would be. Hermeus aims to make it real. The Atlantabased startup wants to build a hypersonic airliner capable of carrying 20 passengers at five times the speed of sound, or 3,800 miles per hour. By comparison, the Concorde was a shambling galoot that traveled less than half that fast. Is the Hermeus plan hyperambitious? Sure. But the company gets to hone the technology partly on the Pentagon’s dime, with a $30 million investment from the Air Force. First, it’ll develop a smaller hypersonic drone called Quarterhouse, slated to take wing next year. A larger second drone, Darkhorse, is expected to follow in 2026. Both will be powered from takeoff by an off-the-shelf fighter jet engine expected to propel the aircraft to near Mach 3, fast enough to ignite a ramjet, which has no moving parts and depends on forward motion to compress the air needed to burn fuel efficiently. The technology has been in development for decades and is considered relatively mature. Says AJ Piplica, 35: “This is an engineering challenge, not a science challenge.” Progress, however, also moves like a shambling galoot. Don’t expect commercial flights until the mid-2030s at the earliest.

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Hermeus

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The Under 30 Summit serves as a platform to showcase the exceptional talents featured in

the 2023 Forbes Middle East 30 Under 30 list. Attendees can expect thought-provoking discussions, where these budding visionaries engage with industry experts and share their insights on innovation, entrepreneurship, and the future of business.

NOVEMBER 23rd , 24th, 25th & 26th

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For general inquiries: event@forbesmiddleeast.com For sponsorship opportunities: advertising@forbesmiddleeast.com OCTOBER 2023

Chapter Founders: Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz (CEO), Corey Metzman, Vivek Ramaswamy Equity Raised: $61 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $15 million

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Lead investors: Addition, Maverick Ventures, Narya, Susa Ventures Seniors facing the maddening morass of Medicare plans have a wingman in Chapter, founded in 2020 and run by Palantir veteran Blumenfeld-Gantz, 33. Chapter takes an approach reminiscent of a matchmaker— it searches its own giant database of all available health-coverage options and comes up with the best fit for each customer. Even better, Chapter-employed cupids don’t work on commission. They receive the same compensation regardless of which plan gets the thumbs-up.

Cleo Founder: Barney Hussey-Yeo (CEO) Equity Raised: $137 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $31 million Lead investors: Balderton Capital, EQT Ventures, LocalGlobe, Sofina Cleo employs a staff of ten comedians to help sprinkle spoonfuls of sugar on the sometimes bitter medicine of personal financial planning. Five million Americans, median age 25, use the chatbot to help track their spending, build credit, plan savings— and uncover whatever humor might be hiding in the sobering truth of their studentloan debt.

GlossGenius Founders: Karim Butt, Danielle CohenShohet (CEO) Equity Raised: $70 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $40 million Lead investors: Bessemer Venture Partners, L Catterton, Imaginary Ventures When it comes to the job of trimming the mind-numbing tasks that bedevil momand-pop hair salons, makeup artists and spas, Cohen-Shohet nailed it. GlossGenius, started in 2015, handles scheduling, accounting and making sure there’s always enough inventory of essentials like shampoo. It’s automation to dye for.

Harvey Founders: Gabriel Pereyra (CEO), Winston Weinberg Equity Raised: $26 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $0

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Lead investors: OpenAI Startup Fund, Sequoia Harvey’s business model, minus the legalese: Let AI do what humans find boring AF. In Harvey’s case, that would be legal scutwork, like regulatory filings, and first drafts handled by junior attorneys. It was only last summer that former securities attorney Weinberg teamed up with Pereyra, a DeepMind and Meta alum, to launch Harvey, and already it boasts five major customers, including accounting giant PwC and global law firm Allen & Overy. The deals totaled more than $5 million in annual recurring revenue at mid-2023.

Hermeus Founders: Glenn Case, AJ Piplica (CEO), Skyler Shuford, Mike Smayda Equity Raised: $119 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $10 million Lead investors: Sam Altman, Canaan Partners, Khosla Ventures

Hex Technologies Founders: Caitlin Colgrove, Barry McCardel (CEO), Glen Takahashi Equity Raised: $96 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $6 million Lead investors: Amplify Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint, Sequoia Hex takes data, such as that about consumer behavior, does an abracadabra and turns it into interactive charts, tables and maps that can be shared without screenshots. The company, led by McCardel, a 34-year-old Palantir and PwC alum, operates on a freemium model, reeling in new customers by offering free services and charging enterprise users, including SeatGeek and Brex, $75 per member per month.

Hightouch Founders: Josh Curl, Kashish Gupta (coCEO), Tejas Manohar (co-CEO) Equity Raised: $92 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $10 million Lead investors: Afore Capital, Amplify Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, Iconiq, YCombinator When big brands moved their sales online during the Covid-19 lockdowns, they realized they had piles of consumer data without a way to squeeze any juicy marketing insights out of them. That’s where Hightouch comes in. Founded by Forbes Under 30 alumni Curl, Gupta and Manohar, Hightouch syncs the consumer info generated by clients

such as Warner Music, PetSmart and Cars. com to tools from Salesforce and Facebook Ads. That benefits customers in two ways: It speeds their marketing operations and targets their pitches more precisely.

Jellyfish Founders: Phil Braden, David Gourley, Andrew Lau (CEO) Equity Raised: $117 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $13 million Lead investors: Accel, Insight Partners, Tiger Global Management, Wing Partners

Kandji Founders: Mark Daughters, Adam Pettit (CEO), Wesley Pettit Equity Raised: $188 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $19 million Lead investors: Addition, Felicis, First Round Capital, Greycroft, Tiger Global Management Reports that Apple products have taken over the corporate world are only slightly exaggerated. Adam Pettit, 34, and his cofounders figured they’d hop on the bandwagon and make it easier for companies to secure and manage their fleets of iMacs, MacBooks and iPhones. Kandji’s signature product, used by customers that include software firm Sisense and games publisher Tilting Point, makes the process simple by doing everything in the cloud.

Labelbox Founders: Daniel Rasmuson, Brian Rieger, Manu Sharma (CEO) Equity Raised: $189 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $20 million Lead investors: Andreessen Horowitz, B Capital Group, First Round Capital, Gradient Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, SoftBank Anyone who has ever said, “You gotta see this meme!” and then spent an awkward amount of time trying to find it can relate: The right bits of data—especially the huge amounts essential to developing artificial intelligence—are worth nothing if you don’t know where they are. Standardizing and labeling data and eliminating bottlenecks are what Labelbox is all about. Sharma, a 32-year-old immigrant from India, launched the business in 2018. Today, customers including OpenAI, Procter & Gamble and Google rely on Labelbox’s data management software to help build AI applications.

OCTOBER 2023

Founders: Kyle Hency, Steve Kemper, Corbett Morgan, Chris Pinchot, Jonathan Poma (CEO), Brandon Schmidt, Dustin Tevis, Dave Wardell Equity Raised: $110 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $22 million Lead investors: CRV, FirstMark Capital We all know the type of shopper who buys the same piece of clothing in two sizes and three different colors and returns all but one. Retailers hate that. But with 16.5% of online purchases making the round trip zto the seller, merchants are forced to deal with the hassle and expense. Poma, 38, launched

Columbus, Ohio–based Loop Returns in 2017 to help small businesses that have Shopify storefronts. Its software not only manages returns but nudges customers toward options such as exchanges or store credit, which can transform a pain in the neck into dollars in the pocket. After signing with Loop, sweatpants retailer Aviator Nation lowered its refund rate by 11% and made an average $10.51 “upsell” on each return.

Lula Founders: Matthew Vega-Sanz (CEO), Michael Vega-Sanz Equity Raised: $40 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $20 million

Lead investors: Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures The Vega-Sanz twins, 27, grew up on a small farm in southeastern Florida and launched their first startup, a car-rental app for college students, in their Babson College dorm room. After Covid-19 travel restrictions put an end to that, they pivo-ted to Lula, which sells auto insurance on a per-use basis, deploying custom technology to assess risk. Its target market includes car-sharing hosts on vehicle-renting sites such as Turo and Getaround. Last year’s $20 million in revenue came less than three years after the brothers found themselves $2,000 in the hole—a turnaround Matthew Vega-Sanz describes as “crazy.”

Jellyfish Jellyfish CEO Andrew Lau, 46, and cofounders David Gourley, 49, and Phil Braden, 51, met more than two decades ago at Endeca, an e-commerce search engine acquired by Oracle in 2011 for more than $1 billion. In 2017, while they were brainstorming startup ideas over coffee, Lau recalls Braden asking, “Which of us is going to do the engineering thing this time?” The answer from all three: not me. The lighthearted moment became the basis of their startup. They knew engineering was hard and made harder by business-side colleagues who chronically misunderstood the process. With Boston-based Jellyfish, the trio hope to build for engineers what Salesforce created for salespeople, using data to answer questions like which projects are taking the most time, how many work hours are spent fixing bugs and the location of bottlenecks in code reviews. Clients include Priceline, PagerDuty and Indeed. “Engineering is a very strategic, expensive department, and there’s very little insight into what’s happening,” Lau says.

Jellyfish cofounder and CEO Andrew Lau

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Loop Returns

Medallion Founder: Derek Lo (CEO) Equity Raised: $85 million

Pendulum Therapeutics

Estimated 2022 revenue: $13 million Lead investors: GV, Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital

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Lo, 28, created Medallion in March 2020 to automate the dullest of health care administrative gruntwork, such as verifying medical licenses and enrolling doctors in insurance networks. Medallion now has more than 300 customers, inclu-ding Oak Street Health and VillageMD, but with 6,000plus hospitals across the United States, the potential market is vast. “We really are at just the tip of the iceberg,” Lo says.

Merge Founders: Gil Feig (CEO), Shensi Ding Equity Raised: $75 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $8 million Lead investors: Accel, Addition, NEA Before founding Merge in 2020, Feig and Ding, 30-year-old best friends, interviewed more than 100 companies about their challenges around application programming interface integrations. They offered a solution: a unified API that can connect hundreds of different tools in one hub. Some of those early interviewees were skeptical, Feig says, but today the company’s corporate customers include Calendly and Gong.

In 2007, Colleen Cutcliffe’s daughter was born prematurely and spent the first month of her life in the intensive care unit taking antibiotics. As she grew, she experienced metabolic issues and food sensitivities, and Cutcliffe, a biochemistry and molecular biology Ph.D., discovered that many babies given antibiotics are more susceptible to chronic lifelong problems that include asthma, ADHD, diabetes and celiac disease. That’s because antibiotics can lay waste to the “good” bacteria living in our gut. The experience inspired Cutcliffe, 46, to start Pendulum Therapeutics in 2012. Eight years later, the San Francisco based startup published a clinical study showing the success of its flagship glucose-control probiotic in managing Type 2 diabetes. Since then, Pendulum has rolled out additional products to promote gut health. Launching a microbiome startup wasn’t easy. Cutcliffe recalls “getting rejected up and down Silicon Valley” before the Mayo Clinic wrote the company a $300,000 convertible note in 2014. Today, in addition to its VC backers, Pendulum has signed Oscarwinning actress Halle Berry, who has diabetes, as an angel investor and chief communications officer.

Monarch Tractor Founders: Carlo Mondavi, Zachary Omohundro, Praveen Penmetsa (CEO), Mark Schwager

Pendulum Therapeutics cofounder and CEO Colleen Cutcliffe

Equity Raised: $116 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $22 million Lead investors: Astanor Ventures, Musashi Seimitsu Industry Monarch makes autonomous electric tractors designed to lower the cost of farming, while also making it more sustainable. Cofounders Penmetsa, Schwager and Omohundro previously worked on autonomous vehicles and other engineering problems, while Mondavi, the company’s chief farming officer, is a fourthgeneration winemaker.

Pendulum Therapeutics Founders: Jim Bullard, Colleen Cutcliffe (CEO), John Eid Equity Raised: $116 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $11 million Lead investors: Meritech Capital, Sequoia Capital, True Ventures F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Quince

Sardine

Founders: Sid Gupta (CEO), Sourabh Mahajan, Zunu Mittal

Founders: Aditya Goel, Soups Ranjan (CEO), Zahid Shaikh

Equity Raised: $141 million

Equity Raised: $75 million

Estimated 2022 revenue: $140 million

Estimated 2022 revenue: $10 million

Lead investors: 8VC, Basis Set Ventures, Founders Fund, Insight Partners, Wellington Management

Lead investors: Andreessen Horowitz, XYZ

No stores? No warehouses? No problem. Because Quince sells directly from manufacturers, it can offer discounts such as cashmere sweaters for $50 and washable silk dresses for $60. Gupta, 43, cut his teeth in private equity, then bought and ran a high-end chain of candy stores called Lolli & Pops.

Sardine has nothing to do with the fish and everything to do with the fishy. Its software sniffs out financial fraudsters, 90% of whom have already passed the banking industry’s “Know Your Customer” compliance process, according to Ranjan, 43, whose previous stops were heading off financial crime at neobank Revolut and stewarding data at cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Sardine focuses on payment flow

OCTOBER 2023

Silo Technologies Founders: Ashton Braun (CEO), Antonio Bustamante Equity Raised: $72 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $10 million

In the olden days—say, five years ago—farmers who had big lots of cucumbers or strawberries to sell would email or text potential buyers, then sit around and wait for a response. That’s fine if you’re selling hypersonic aircraft or B2B software, but it’s the road to ruin when your products can quickly start to smell. Braun, 33, trained Silo’s software with data from truckloads of those texts and emails, then automated the buying process. Silo has recently added more tools for growers, including banking, aided by the hiring of Amazon’s former head of lending.

Vannevar Labs Founders: Brett Granberg (CEO), Nini Moorhead Equity Raised: $91 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $11 million Lead investors: Costanoa Ventures, Felicis Ventures, General Catalyst, Point72 Ventures We’re on a need-to-know basis when it comes to Vannevar Labs’ flagship software, Decrypt, which the Pentagon uses to help spies identify threats from America’s enemies. The Air Force, for example, relies on it to analyze technical documents about Russia’s antiaircraft systems. Granberg, 32, who previously invested in startups for the VC arm of the CIA, and Moorhead, 34, a former counterterrorism intelligence officer, make frequent visits to U.S. military bases to consult on software upgrades. “We have the tools to defer the next conflict,” Granberg says.

Verifiable and transaction monitoring, and most of its early customers were in crypto, including FTX, the Sam Bankman-Fried fiasco. Ranjan notes that his startup now works mostly with, shall we say, more traditional fintechs. “If you can solve for fraud in crypto,” he says, “you can solve for it anywhere.”

CHRIS CRISMAN FOR FORBES

SentiLink Founders: Max Blumenfeld, Naftali Harris (CEO) Equity Raised: $84 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $25 million Lead investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Craft Ventures

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In their relentless campaign to stay ahead of the cops, criminals have come up with something called synthetic identity fraud: They take a single piece of personal data and build an entire financial profile from it. Harris and Blumenfeld, both 31, were working as data scientists at buy-now, pay-later app Affirm when they stumbled across a dozen cases of this crafty form of wrecking people’s lives as far back as 2016. The duo started San Franciscobased SentiLink the next year, using machine learning, informed by human insights, to prevent theft for banks, lenders and others. It has since expanded beyond synthetic identity fraud to other kinds of fraud, including old-fashioned identity theft.

Founders: Nick Macario (CEO), Viv Rajkumar Equity Raised: $47 million Estimated 2022 revenue: $6 million Lead investors: Jack and Sam Altman, Craft Ventures Verifying the credentials of medical professionals is work still mostly performed by human beings, employed by hospitals and health networks, who enter data by hand. Macario, a 39-year-old serial entrepreneur, cofounded Verifiable in 2020 on the idea that machines can perform this essential but tedious task faster and more accurately than people can. He may have a point. Some customers have seen turnaround times drop by more than 70%, according to Macario. The Austin, Texas–based company’s clients now include some 400,000 health care providers.

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Lead investors: Andreessen Horowitz, Haystack, Initialized Capital, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Tribe Capital

• THOUGHTS ON •

Responsibility “You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for his own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.” —Marie Curie

“Successful people have a responsibility to make the world a better place and not just take from it.” —Carrie Underwood “I believe that every single one of us, celebrity or not, has a responsibility to get involved in trying to make a difference in the world. Our generation faces many challenges, some of which were passed on to us by the past generations, but it’s up to us to find solutions today so that we don’t keep passing our problems on.” —Shakira

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.” —Abraham Lincoln “What is a fear of living? It’s being pre-eminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.” —Maya Angelou “A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.” —Bob Dylan “Climate change knows no borders. It will not stop before the Pacific islands, and the whole of the international community here has to shoulder a responsibility to bring about sustainable development.” — Angela Merkel F O R B E S M I D D L E E A S T.C O M

Angela Merkel

“Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.” —Tony Robbins

“Women will only have true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.” —Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“We have so much room for improvement. Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory... of how we are taking responsibility.” —Nancy Pelosi

“The end of the world is on people’s minds. We have the power to destroy or save ourselves, but the question is, what do you do with that responsibility?” —Nicolas Cage

“The price of greatness is responsibility.” —Winston Churchill “With awareness come responsibility and choice.” Amanda Lindhout

“We are not put here on earth to play around. There is work to be done. There are responsibilities to be met. Humanity needs the abilities of every man and woman.” Alden Palmer

“The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.” Denis Waitley

FINAL THOUGHT “Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely like exercising authority usually lose it.”

—Malcolm Forbes

OCTOBER 2023

IMAGE BY MARKUS SCHREIBER / POOL / AFP

THOUGHTS

Welcome To The World Of Luxurious Craftsmanship

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