Greenhouse gas emissions tracking project

Greenhouse gas emissions tracking project

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High Tech Innovations Are Key To A Greener Economy

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In a Forbes Business Development Council article, it is held that High Tech Innovations Are Key To A Greener Economy.  Syed Alam 5 Ways To Ensure A More Sustainable Future.  

Environmentally Responsible and Resource-efficient in the MENA region, was and still is concerned for anything green that were second to that fundamentally frantic development of buildings and all related infrastructure to nevertheless greater and greater awareness of their various environmental impact. 

The image above is Getty

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High Tech Innovations Are Key To A Greener Economy: 5 Ways To Ensure A More Sustainable Future

 

Syed is Accenture’s High Tech global lead, helping clients reinvent their business, optimize supply chain and create new revenue models.

The high-tech industry is central to moving the sustainability agenda forward and enabling a greener planet through the design of more sustainable products using the rise of smart sensors as a way to better manage energy consumption.

At my company Accenture, we have already seen great progress in a wide variety of products, from smart thermostats and solar-powered smart watches to electric vehicles and more power-efficient CPUs in data centers. These products are not only more sustainable and good for the environment, but they are also good for business and future growth.

A recent study from United Nations Global Compact and Accenture shows strategies and business models with sustainability at their core are not only a climate imperative but also the foundation for better security, growth and resilience. This is supported by another recent study’s indication that the supply chain is key to fighting climate change, as supply chains generate up to 60% of global emissions.

While many companies have mastered Scope 1 emissions, most companies lack visibility into the upstream supplier base, called “Scope 3” emissions. For high-tech companies, 86% of upstream Scope 3 emissions sit outside their Tier 1 suppliers.

High-tech companies are deploying strategies to help the industry meet environmental sustainability goals. The Semiconductor Climate Consortium is one excellent example of semiconductor companies coming together to collaborate and align on common approaches and technology innovations to continuously reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In this article, I will outline five strategies high-tech leaders can adopt to ensure a more sustainable future both within their own organizations and across the supply chain.

1. Recycling Products

E-waste, driven in part by consumers upgrading to the latest smartphones and data centers swapping out servers to keep up with the demands of AI, is both damaging to the planet and costing high-tech companies money. According to the United Nations, global e-waste volumes grew 17% between 2014 and 2019, with over 53 million tons of e-waste in 2019.

High-tech companies are in a unique position to help reduce e-waste by designing products for reuse, resale, repair, refurbishment and remanufacturing, which Accenture and the United Nations study shows can boost operating profit by 16%.

Many technology giants already have successful recycling programs in place that encourage partner participation. In 2022, Accenture partner Cisco launched the Environmental Sustainability Specialization (ESS), a program to educate customers, promote product takeback and assist in the move to circular business models.

As many companies have proven, this can constitute a great opportunity to save money and create new revenue streams while reducing carbon footprints by avoiding single-use inputs and designing for refurbishment and longevity.

2. Selecting Cleaner Raw Materials

As the demand for more sustainable materials rises, more companies are starting to use cleaner minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt. Fortunately, materials suppliers have stepped up efforts to deliver eco-friendly solutions to enable companies to make this transition.

Accenture partner Solvay, a supplier of alternative materials, has been developing new solutions to reduce waste materials generated by semiconductor manufacturing. Its products are helping customers recycle polyvinylidene fluoride, a byproduct of chipmaking.

3. Adopting Greener Manufacturing Processes

Many manufacturing companies are making strides in reducing electricity consumption, recycling water and adopting greener manufacturing practices.

Accenture partner Lam Research invested in LED lighting processes and improvements to HVAC equipment such as air compressors. Likewise, companies such as Winbond are using a new low-temperature soldering (LTS) process to reduce the temperatures needed for the assembly of components. These lower temperatures can lead to faster manufacturing throughput while also lowering temperatures to reduce carbon emissions.

Leaders continue to adopt solutions capable of streamlining production processes, using digital tools and deploying more efficient supply chains to save energy and optimize logistics to reduce truck rolls, which can help lower carbon footprints.

Accenture partner Hitachi’s Lumada Manufacturing Insights is a perfect example, as it is helping manufacturers develop data-driven operations, increase supply chain visibility and enable smart factory solutions to improve productivity and lower asset downtime.

4. Designing More Power-Efficient Products

At this year’s CES, we saw many energy-efficient products come to life as companies introduced products focused on managing home energy usage, including battery packs, solar panels and EV chargers. Accenture partner Schneider Electric released the “Home” energy platform to monitor energy usage, manage backup power during an outage and connect to utility programs for savings on electricity bills.

The industry migration to the cloud has also helped significantly reduce global power consumption. Because the cloud supports many products at a time, it can more efficiently distribute resources among users. Companies like Accenture partner Google have made inroads in making their cloud services power efficient, with claims new data centers are twice as energy efficient as a typical enterprise data center—delivering five times as much computing power for the same amount of electrical power as five years ago.

5. Embedding Sustainability Into Supplier Selection And Management

As companies source new suppliers and optimize existing ones, they should embed sustainability in every step of the supply chain management process. This includes analyzing the supplier base to determine the biggest source of emissions and having data-driven conversations with suppliers to reduce emissions.

Digital tools such as digital twins can be used to map physical material flows to uncover sub-tier suppliers and risks. By proactively working with suppliers on an ongoing basis, high-tech companies can identify bottlenecks within the supply chain and help mitigate disruptive events while improving their own decarbonization performance.

Social Innovations Without Waste

While the industry has made great strides toward global sustainability, there is still much work to be done. With the value of global sustainability assets rising above $220 billion, it is increasingly evident that investing in sustainability is not just morally responsible but financially savvy.

Organizations must reduce massive surges in energy consumption, water usage and CO2 emissions and develop sustainable products and services to help customers in their own sustainability transformations. The transition to sustainability presents a tremendous revenue-generating opportunity for companies that act quickly to develop—and adopt—greener technologies.

 


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From the dunes of Dubai to the soil of the Moon

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to celebrate its independence and setting up, the United Arab Emirates is toying with expediting a vehicle  From the dunes of Dubai to the soil of the Moon.  Why not? Let us read this story from Gulf News of today.

 


UAE@51: From the dunes of Dubai to the soil of the Moon, Rashid Rover all set to make history

All you need to know about the UAE’s lunar mission that will take off on November 30



Rashid Rover’s core scientific mission is to better understand how lunar dust and rocks vary across the moon.Image Credit: Supplied

Dubai: In what is a huge feat ahead of the 51st UAE National Day, Emirati-made Rashid Rover will shoot to the Moon on Wednesday, November 30, at 12.39pm (Gulf Standard Time), carrying with it the pride and dreams of the UAE — and the entire Arab world.

From the desert dunes of the UAE to the soil of the Moon, the lunar rover — named after the late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, builder of modern Dubai — will give mankind and the global scientific community more knowledge about Earth’s closest celestial neighbour.

It will land on Atlas Crater, located at 47.5°N, 44.4°E on the Moon’s southeastern outer edge of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold), and from there capture photos and collect information of the unexplored crater area and the vast basins on Moon’s surface that were formed billions of years ago.

Rashid Rover will study the characteristics of lunar soil, the petrography (composition and properties of lunar rocks) and geology of the Moon. It will also take photos of the moon’s dust movement, surface plasma conditions, and the lunar regolith (blanket of superficial deposits covering solid rocks).Image Credit: Virendra Saklani/Gulf News

The UAE’s moonshot has lofty goals. According to Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC),“Rashid Rover will provide about 10 gigabytes of recorded material, scientific data and new images to the global scientific community to study the Moon.”

In particular, Rashid Rover will study the characteristics of lunar soil, the petrography (composition and properties of lunar rocks) and geology of the Moon. It will also take photos of the moon’s dust movement, surface plasma conditions, and the lunar regolith (blanket of superficial deposits covering solid rocks).

Rashid Rover will help scientists better understand how lunar dust and rocks vary across the Moon. It will also provide fresh data for the development of new technologies that can be used to unravel the origins of the Earth and our solar system.

The success of the first Emirates Lunar Mission (ELM) will make the UAE the first Arab country and among the first countries in the world to land a spacecraft on the Moon, after the United States, former Soviet Union and China.

The success of the first Emirates Lunar Mission (ELM) will make the UAE the first Arab country and among the first countries in the world to land a spacecraft on the Moon, after the United States, former Soviet Union and China.Image Credit: Supplied

MBRSC underlined: “The mission embodies the aspirations of the UAE. Rashid Rover will collect images and information that will allow the UAE to conduct comprehensive and integrated studies on how to build human settlement on the Moon, prepare for future missions to study Mars and provide the scientific community with answers about the solar system and other planets.”

Before lift-off, let us look back at the timeline, technical specifications, instruments, functionalities and other important details of the Emirati-made Rashid Rover.

Two years ahead

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, first announced Rashid Rover in September 2020, and the original goal was to land it on the Moon by 2024.

An image to show where Rashid Rover will land on the moon.

In April 2021, MBRSC signed a contract with ispace, inc., a Japanese private lunar robotic exploration company, to transport Rashid Rover to the Moon aboard Hakuto-R M1 (mission 1) lander. Under the terms of the agreement, ispace will also provide wired communication and power during the cruise phase and engage in wireless communication on the lunar surface.

Launch date

Lift-off is on Wednesday, November 30, at 12.39pm (Gulf Standard Time) from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. But the date and time are subject to change, depending on weather and other conditions at launch, according to MBRSC.

Hakuto-R M1, which means ‘white rabbit’ in Japanese (it is said a white rabbit lives on the Moon, according to Japanese folklore), will also carry other payloads, including a transformable lunar robot from Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; a test module for a solid-state battery from NGK Spark Plug Co., Ltd., an artificial intelligence (AI) flight computer from Mission Control Space Services Inc., a multiple 360-degree camera from Canadensys Aerospace, a panel engraved with the names of Hakuto crowdfunding supporters, and a music disc containing the song ‘Sorato’ played by Japanese rock band Sakanaction.

Fuel-saving route

Once launched, the integrated spacecraft Hakuto-R M1 that will carry Rashid Rover and other payload to the Moon will take a low-energy route to the Moon rather than a direct approach. This means the landing on the Moon will take about five months after launch, in April 2023.

Dr Hamad Al Marzooqi, project manager of Emirates Lunar Mission at MBRSC, told Gulf News the rationale for the fuel-saving but long route. He said: “The main factor is the cost of the mission. The cost comes from the volume and mass of the spacecraft. In order to reach to the moon within six days – which is the shortest path – you would need to burn a lot of fuel which means that you need a big tank and a big propulsion system to do that.”

“But it will have a huge impact in cost so, in order to reduce the cost of the mission, ispace (our partner) has selected their approach that they can reach to the lunar surface within five months but it will be less costly because it will burn much less fuel. They will use a smaller tank and propulsion system, therefore the launch cost and the cost of developing the developing system will be lower,” he further explained.

Dimitra Atri, astrophysicist at New York University in Abu Dhabi, added: “In order to keep the prices of payload delivery attractive to customers, private companies reduce their expenses by choosing the lower cost option, which consumes less energy but takes much longer.”

Fully-automated landing

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will take Hakuto-R M1 into the Moon’s orbit, and following its successful separation from the launch vehicle (rocket), Hakuto-R M1 will use the gravitational pull of the Earth and sun to guide it to the moon.

As it gets closer to the lunar surface, the Japanese-made lander will first orbit the moon with an increasingly elliptical trajectory, before angling itself vertically to softly land on the moon and perform a fully-automated landing.

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will take Hakuto-R M1 into the Moon’s orbit.Image Credit: AP

Hakuto-R M1 will then establish a steady telecommunication and power supply on the lunar surface after landing to support customer payload’s surface operations, including that of the UAE’s Rashid Rover.

Landing site

MBRSC confirmed Atlas Crater, located at 47.5°N, 44.4°E on the moon’s southeastern outer edge of Mare Frigoris (“Sea of Cold”), as Rashid Rover’s landing site.

MBRSC explained: “It was chosen to maintain flexibility during operations. Mare Frigoris lies in the far lunar north. The primary landing site was chosen along with multiple contingencies, which may be used depending on variables that occur during transit. The site meets the technical specifications of the lander technology demonstration mission and the scientific exploration objectives for the ELM mission.”

Mohammed Bin Rashid Centre.Image Credit: Supplied

Atlas Crater has a diameter of 88 kilometres, and believer to have been formed between 3.2 to 3.8 billion years ago. It is circular in shape and bounded by an intricately terraced rim wall. The crater is 2km deep and has a complex floor covered in hills and cracks.

Aside from Atlas Crater, alternative landing targets – according to ispace – include Lacus Somniorum, Sinus Iridium and Oceanus Procellarum, among others.

Compact rover

Designed and developed fully by an Emirati team, Rashid Rover is touted as the world’s most compact rover that could land on the Moon. Its height is 70cm, length is 50cm and width is 50cm. Its weight is approximately 10kg with payload, but it can climb over an obstacle up to 10cm tall and descend a 20-degree slope.

Because Rashid Rover has been delivered well ahead of the original 2024 deadline, building it required rapid prototyping. According to Al Marqoozi, engineers at MBRSC “went through five modules until they reached with the one” that will be launched on November 30.

Advanced cameras

The four-wheeled Rashid Rover has 3D cameras, advanced motion system, sensors, and communication system that are powered by solar panels. There are four cameras that move vertically and horizontally, including two main cameras, which are Caspex (camera for space exploration) that can withstand vibrations during launch and landing

MBRSC has partnered with French space agency CNES (National Centre for Space Studies) for the two Caspex that will be used analyse the properties of lunar soil, dust, radioactivity, electrical activities, as well as the rocks on the moon surface. One Caspex is installed on top of the rover’s mast to provide panoramic visibility of its surroundings while the rear-mounted CASPEX camera will deliver images of the lunar soil with high spatial resolution.

“Rashid Rover’s drive tracks will be analysed to determine wheel sinkage and to investigate the detailed wheel-soil interaction. Such data will be important to design the mobility systems of future rovers,” MBRSC noted.

Mission period

Rashid Rover will study the Moon’s surroundings for one lunar day, which is equivalent to 14 days on Earth. But there is a chance Rashid Rover’s mission can be extended to another lunar day. Al Marzooqi earlier explained: “After the first lunar day the rover will go into a hibernation or mode sleep during the (lunar) night (which is also equivalent to 14 Earth nights) until the sun rises again and the temperature on the rover surface starts to rise again. And by that time, the team will try to “wake up” Rashid Rover to see if its systems were able to survive the low temperatures and ready for the second lunar day.

The Moon’s environment, however, is very harsh. The temperature drops to as low as negative 173 degrees Celsius, from as high as 127 degrees Celsius, when sunlight hits the Moon’s surface. But Rashid Rover is equipped with the latest technologies that can resist the lunar surface temperature.

To the Moon and back

Rashid Rover will not return to Earth. It’s a one-way flight and there is no transport that will bring back Rashid Rover and Hakuto-R. What Rashid Rover will bring back to Earth are multiple images – around 10 gigabytes of recorded material and scientific data. The ELM team at MBRSC will use these to test new technologies in material science, robotics, mobility, navigation and communications. The findings will also help in the design of future missions to survive and function in harsh space environment.

Rashid Rover is just the first of the UAE’s multiple missions to the Moon. A couple of months ago, in September, MBRSC signed an agreement with China National Space Administration (CNSA) to kickstart joint space projects and future lunar exploration, including sending the next UAE rover aboard Chang’e 7, a robotic Chinese lunar exploration mission expected to be launched in 2026 to target the Moon’s south pole.

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3rd MENA Innovation and Technology Transfer Summit

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The participants in the one-day summit will include R&D institutions, technology transfer experts, global investors, government and private sector representatives, entrepreneurs and academics and other stakeholders, presenting an immersive experience of knowledge sharing, business showcasing and networking in an intimate setting.

The summit comes at a time when the world is witnessing the fourth industrial revolution characterized by the penetration of emerging technology in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, biotechnology, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, and autonomous vehicles.

Hussain Al Mahmoudi, CEO of the Sharjah Research, Technology and Innovation Park, said: “The MITT Summit 2022 assumes huge significance as the Middle East has become the world’s fastest growing market in business and technology transfer. As proven globally, the knowledge and technology transfer model has been responsible for rapid advancements in every field. By bringing together global experts and highlighting the role of academic institutions in R&D, the MITT Summit serves as a perfect platform for ramping up technology transfer trends in the region.”

The summit will discuss patterns of technology transfer in the Middle East and North Africa region, existing opportunities as well as challenges, and tips on how to achieve set goals and use knowledge sharing to boost the region’s economic growth and long-term stability.

Technology transfer has been the main driver of global economic growth over the last 40 years. Companies are increasingly relying on open innovation to develop intellectual property (IP) more quickly and economically, to stay ahead of competition. Universities, research organisations, and SMEs play a crucial role in supplying intellectual property, and supporting research that will build the innovations of tomorrow.

Many countries around the world have passed their own national legislations and policies to spur innovation. The UAE issued its own National Innovation Strategy in 2014, which seeks to make the country the region’s top innovation hub by developing the right regulatory framework, infrastructure, and ensuring availability of investment.

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Connectivity, not oil, will drive the Middle East’s future

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Connectivity, not oil, will drive the Middle East’s future

 

The above-featured image is A general view of Tanger-Med container port in Ksar Sghir near the coastal city of Tangier, Morocco. (Reuters)
The region’s start-ups attracted nearly $1 billion in the first quarter of this year, a doubling of last year’s tally.
Thursday 14/07/2022

On the very day that US President Joe Biden lands in Saudi Arabia Friday, nearly 200,000 containers will be making their way to ports from Tangier to Dubai, hundreds of thousands of airline passengers will transit through the region’s airports, millions of dollars in remittances will be flowing from the region to the developing world and countless American companies will be selling their wares to a growing Arab middle class.

Oil and gas, once the main draws for the West, will almost be an afterthought. In other words, it will be just another day of business in the Middle East and North Africa.

For too long, the United States’ regional policy has focused almost entirely on the triumvirate of security, geopolitics, and oil. It is time for the US and the broader Western world to widen its vision and see the MENA region for what it is, and not a caricature of what it was in the 1970s.

When the American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan coined the term “Middle East” in the early 20th century, he was looking for a way to describe the lands between India and Europe. The moniker stuck. That term, however, is confining, burdened with the baggage of conflict, redolent of colonialism. Worst of all, like Biden’s oft-repeated autocracy-democracy binary,  it is simply not useful.

But while the term itself is dated, the countries that the term encompasses do have much in common, including strategic commercial geography. They are more Middle World than Middle East and the real dividing line for future success will be connectivity to the wider world, not religious sect or geopolitical alliances or form of government.

Consider the region’s air connectivity. Most of the Gulf Arab states and Iran have cities that are a four-hour flight to one-third of the world and an eight-hour flight to two-thirds of the planet.

To capitalise on this enviable air geography, Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and also Istanbul, have created air hubs, with considerable success. In 2014, Dubai International Airport surpassed London Heathrow as the busiest international airport in the world.                       It is a similar story with supply chain and trade connectivity. Several North African states have enviable Mediterranean coasts and easy air and trade access to Europe. Morocco and Tunisia have become key parts of automotive and aerospace supply chains in Europe and Egypt’s Suez Canal sees some 30 percent of the world’s container trade pass through its waters annually.

The author and journalist Kim Ghattas, in her excellent book, “The Black Wave,” reminds us of how consequential 1979 was in shaping the region. That year witnessed the Iranian revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, events that empowered both Sunni and Shia Islamist radicals for a generation and cowed Saudi rulers into a policy of soft-pedalling and co-optation of its own extremists.

Those days are now over in Saudi Arabia, witness the social transformation of the kingdom in recent years. But if we go back to 1979, there was another less-heralded event that is also worth remembering: the opening of Jebel Ali port in Dubai, today one of the busiest ports in the world. With stacked containers as far as the eye can see, Jebel Ali is both a symbol of globalisation and an example of local leadership in action. The port and associated free zones leveraged a never-depleting resource, Dubai’s geography, to build a major trade and shipping hub.

Saudi Arabia’s investments in the infrastructure of connectivity, airports, rail, seaports, are also supporting regional and global recoveries. A recent World Bank report listed King Abdullah Port in Jeddah as the most efficient container terminal in the world.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is pumping billions into its own aviation sector, aiming to more than triple the number of passengers that fly through its airports by 2030. Before the pandemic, the global travel and tourism industry accounted for one in ten global jobs and more than ten percent of global GDP. Today, the region’s airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines and Saudia, are leading the global recovery in this sector, too.

More broadly, GCC countries are contributing to economic connectivity through remittances and aid. Remittances far outpace foreign aid and direct investment and are the largest source of foreign currency earnings in low and middle-income countries. Over the past decade, hundreds of billions of dollars have flowed from Gulf Arab states to the developing world, most notably South Asia. Those remittances are a vital part of the development story.

Finally, a rising tech entrepreneurial class has become a top source of economic pride. Biden would do well to step beyond the palaces and meet people like Fadi Ghandour, the Jordanian business leader who founded the FedEx of the region, Aramex and who today serves as an angel investor for the women and men creating and building new start-ups from Amman to Abu Dhabi. The region’s start-ups attracted nearly $1 billion in the first quarter of this year, a doubling of last year’s tally.

While this rising connectivity offers hope, there remain spectacular failures.

Exhibit A is Lebanon, a country of talented people held hostage by craven politicians, currently experiencing one of the worst economic meltdowns of the modern era. It is a similar story in Iran. The region’s non-oil states, meanwhile, are facing stubbornly high unemployment, rising energy prices, supply chain disruptions and a global slowdown.

But these challenges should not obscure a broader opportunity. The MENA region is blessed with a resource that never depletes: strategic geography. The countries and cities that leverage their geographies will be well-suited to compete into the 21st century. Those that fail will remain regional laggards, part of the old “Middle East,” rather than the emerging Middle World. That is the story Biden should be watching and supporting.