H.E Ahmad Bin Shafar appointed as Special Advisor to UN Environment on implementing District Cooling worldwide

HE Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of the Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (EMPOWER), has been chosen by the United Nations Environment to become the special advisor on district cooling within its “global district energy in cities” initiative. This distinction comes after the remarkable intervention of H.E Bin Shafar at the second steering committee meeting of the UN Environment’s‘ global district energy in cities initiative’ in Brussels, beside the valuable contribution of Empower as a partner to the initiative with its expertise, trainings and events sponsoring. “It is a matter of great pride and honour that UN Environment has invited me to act as their special advisor in the ‘global district energy in cities initiative’. This reflects the role that Empower and in a wider scale Dubai and the UAE plays in promoting, supporting and implementing energy-efficient and green solutions and projects,” said HE Bin Shafar. “Dubai was selected previously by UN Environment as a "Business Model of District Cooling to Developing Cities”. Empower has also been duly participating, as a prominent UAE company, in several global environmental events like COP21 in Paris, where our leaders’ vision and country’s experience have been exposed to the international community,” he added. Impressed by the ‘Dubai model’ in the District Cooling sector, UN Environment expressed the wish to utilise the expertise of H.E Ahmad Bin Shafar that is innovation and optimisation-oriented. Empower provides indeed pioneer, smart and green techniques and guidelines such as the treated sewage effluent (TSE) and thermal energy storage (TES), centralised operations, and the optimised investment pattern. As special advisor, H.E Bin Shafar will contribute to UN Environment and the Initiative in many ways, such as advising on strategic direction of the initiative; providing counsel to governments, developers, utilities, consumers, and financial institutions on district cooling policy, finance, and business models, through occasional country missions and workshops; providing visibility and high-level advocacy for the initiative and its district cooling objectives and promoting the initiative and mobilizing support from new countries, cities, and other partners. Furthermore, H.E Ahmad Bin Shafar took part at the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) in 2015, where he called on the participants to consider the positive impact of district cooling on the climate and benefit from Empower’s experience in Dubai to implement sustainable cooling systems. To note that the ‘Global District Energy in Cities Initiative’ aims at supporting governments in developing and scaling up district energy systems to reduce CO2 emissions. The initiative brings together cities, academia, technology providers and financial institutions in a joint ambition to share knowledge and the best practices in this field. The initiative has become one of the cornerstones of the UN Secretary General's ‘Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL)’ effort and is recognised as being instrumental to achieving SE4ALL's energy efficiency goal. Empower currently operates more than 1.2 Million RT, providing environmentally responsible district cooling services to large-scale real estate developments such as Jumeirah Group, Business Bay, Jumeirah Beach Residence, Dubai International Financial Centre, Palm Jumeirah, Jumeirah Lake Towers, Ibn Battuta Mall, Discovery Gardens, Dubai Healthcare City, Dubai World trade Centre Residences, Dubai Design District, among others.