Building Towards Net Zero - Sustainable Construction

BUILDING TOWARDS NET ZER O

Crucial Decade To Pick Pace On Energy Transition

Net Carbon Vision aims to help organisations bring a tectonic shift to achieving their carbon neutrality goals

Suneeti Ahuja-Kohli

The competing demands between climate action and the continued need for energy are complex. Add to this the collective bid to achieve carbon neutrality in a couple of decades — 2050 in the case of the UAE — makes the task of business transformation a little daunting. However, several consulting companies such as Net Carbon Vision (NCV) are rising to the occasion and helping firms, big and small, new and existing, pick pace and set the ball rolling to achieve climate-related targets.

A subsidiary of Global Commodity Venture (GCV), Net Carbon Vision envisions building sustainable solutions and products for global companies.

“NCV has been created and launched to create innovative products and consultancy services in the area of sustainability and decarbonisation, helping industries benchmark, set, and achieve their net zero targets using AI and IoT technologies covering all scopes towards emission monitoring and analysis,” says Mohamed Shah Nowfal, Founder, Net Carbon Vision; Managing Director, Global Commodity Ventures Group. The firm is currently focussed on big industrial sectors like resources industries, such as cement, metal, mining, power generation, oil and gas, and major sources of emission and performs optimisation.

“We focus on building digital twin solutions for performance and asset monitoring to carbon

capture storage equipment which will be installed in the existing plants as well in the new green field projects. We are in discussion with a few OEMs to capture CO2 from industrial gases. As a part of the low carbon fuels initiative, we are in the early stages of discussion with H2 (Green / Blue) generation OEMs and bringing their process technology expertise to the UAE and other parts of the MENA region and building digital twin solutions,” adds Nowfal. Spending by companies on environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainability consulting is set to more than double over the next five years to a record $16 billion, states a new report by research firm Verdantix. “We understand this domain very well. Our core business is in coal shipping, logistics and coal trading, which enables us to understand the fossil fuel properties. We are well exposed to coal calorific value and its emissions, and we also handle metal slags for cement industries which is one of the alternative fuels for low carbon emission,” notes Nowfal. Cement plants are among the major contributors to emissions globally. However, NCV has been

Designing A Greener Tomorrow

in the early stage of planning to help its clients in Africa reduce the environmental impact by Afforestation carbon removal methods.

Talking about the impediments to achieving climate targets, Nowfal highlights a few aspects.

“Lack of awareness by companies on the extent of environmental impact caused by their businesses, for one, is the biggest challenge. Companies are oblivious to the fact that the time to act is now.

The poor vision results in lack of dedicated investments in near and long term sustainability initiatives.”

The absence of a coherent policy on climate targets is another roadblock. “This is one of the major showstoppers for the majority of the corporates operating in various geographies. Different countries have different policies, which adds to the indecisiveness and delay in achieving targets.”

“A lot of companies fail to adopt technologically powered solutions. They lack digital maturity and suffer from poor IT, OT and ET sub-ecosystems, lack of data strategy, lack of cloud adoption and of drive to democratise and ensure responsible usage of AI, Analytics and Data at large for sustainability initiatives.”

The marketplace, at this point, lacks superior solutions and services, he notes. “We need solutions that can steer organisations towards sustainability as per the overall national/worldwide plan and commitments. And lastly, even though renewable and green energy solutions are becoming popular in various geographies, the initial investment required is still not significantly low to attract companies to pursue this path.”

NCV aims to help organisations centralise and take action to bring about a tectonic shift in this space.

American University of Sharjah is developing green construction leaders to create more sustainable homes for the future, achieving net zero energy consumption

As the UAE construction industry becomes increasingly committed to achieving sustainability targets, faculty at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) are preparing students for the future of work in this progressively green industry. Courses offered by the College of Engineering, such as Design of Sustainable Concrete, show students how to reduce, recycle and reuse construction materials by employing better design and new technologies. An expert in this field, Dr. Adil Tamimi has introduced students to the concept of 3D concrete printing as a viable, sustainably robust construction material. The class Energy Systems shows students how fuel cells can be used in residential applications to create more sustainable homes for the future. The college has also been approved to offer its first general education requirement course that is open to all undergraduate students at AUS, Sustainable Development, exploring the environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects of sustainable development and covering its applications in the built environment. In the College of Architecture, Art and Design, students can take the course Design of Net Zero Buildings, where they are shown how to manipulate the design to achieve net zero energy consumption. At the doctoral level, the PhD in Engineering Systems Management hosts a

sustainable construction project management track that prepares leaders for both industry and academia in sustainable development for the built environment.

Students are also actively engaged in AUS-led research promoting sustainable construction outcomes. Dr. Jamal A. Abdalla and Dr. Rami A. Hawileh, Professors of Civil Engineering, and their students have been employing sustainable materials such as lightweight aggregates, recycled aggregates, and crumb rubber as complete and/or partial replacements of normal aggregates. They also utilized industry by-product binders, such as ground granulated blast-furnace Slag and fly ash, as partial replacements for cement (which is not as environmentally friendly).

Camilo Cerro, Associate Professor of Architecture and Interior Design, believes underpinning learning with an awareness of sustainability will help create a generation of students able to meet the challenges of a changing planet. “Our goal is to help students become agents of change.

Our teaching methodology revolves around the idea of learning by making. By making, we stimulate students’ problem-solving capacity, which is the most important tool in adapting to the changes the climate crisis will require,” he said.

Dr. Ahmed Mokhtar, Professor of Architecture, said of the importance of instilling students with a green mindset: “As building designers, we have a moral obligation to humanity to minimize the impact of buildings on climate change. Equipping our students with this outlook will not only make them more employable, but it also helps them become better global citizens.”

AUS is taking a forward-thinking approach to education, preparing its students to lead the way in sustainable construction and enabling them to meet the challenges of a changing planet by instilling a green mindset in students. This will contribute to a more sustainable future for the UAE and the world. For more, see aus.edu/research-and-graduatestudies.

Sustainability

Digital Solutions

Provider for Carbon Life Cycle Management

Carbon Capture Process

Carbon Emission Classification & Reduction (Scope-1, Scope-2 Scope-3)

Carbon Trading - Carbon Credit, Offset, Audit, New Projects.

Carbon Assets - Digital Twin solution for Performance optimization & Predictive Analytics.

The AUS Engineering and Sciences Building has been awarded a 2 Pearl rating by Estidama, a sustainable development initiative of the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council. This green building rating system uses a scale of 1 to 5 Pearl, based on four criteria: environment, economic social and cultural.

Mohamed Shah Nowfal Founder, Net Carbon Vision; Chairman, GCV Group