GULF STATES
With the Gulf region a key focus of the upcoming COP28 global climate summit in Dubai, universities in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait are playing a more proactive role in promoting sustainability within their campuses and beyond.
All three countries are facing tough environmental challenges intensified by climate change, such as extreme heat. Fortunately, the higher education sectors in these wealthy Arab countries are seeking solutions, for instance in food and water security.
Qatar University is one example. Through its Center for Sustainable Development, the university is engaging 23,000 students in initiatives to minimise food waste, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as convert food and other waste into biofuels.
The university’s solar-powered agriculture greenhouse model, currently under field tests in the Qatari capital Doha, is one promising innovation boosting food security.
The prototype was built in 2018 to solve shortcomings of conventional greenhouses in Qatar’s arid environment, such as the amounts of solar radiation and heat entering during the summer season. It is expected to serve as a blueprint to inform the development of Qatar’s first agricultural greenhouse standards.
Impactful research
At the same time, Qatar University’s Agricultural Research Station is working on a project to reduce food waste by converting it into natural fertiliser, which could have major significance in a country where food waste accounts for about 60% of urban solid waste.
Additionally, a research team from Qatar University has pioneered a sustainable method of repurposing date palm leaf waste into nanomaterial, graphene quantum dots.
This product has transformative potential for TVs, laptops and mobile screens as it can lead to richer displays while using less power. There are more than 62 million date palm trees in the Middle East and North Africa.
Qatar University also offers consultancy to organisations and decision-makers in sustainable planning and development.
In Bahrain, two institutions have innovated sustainable transportation alternatives.
Bahrain Polytechnic, which hosts about 3,500 students, saw its third-year mechanical engineering students design and build an electric solar-powered golf cart in July this year. Equipped with solar panels on its roof, the four-seater can reach a speed of up to 30 kilometres per hour.
Meanwhile, mechatronics students at the University of Technology Bahrain, a private institution that has 2,500 students, designed a solar-powered vehicle that operates at three different speeds – 20, 30 and 45 kilometres per hour – depending on the terrain. The car took three months to design and was revealed this summer.
A greener life on campus
The profile of these innovations is being boosted by the United Arab Emirates hosting the 28th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 30 November to 12 December, galvanising momentum towards sustainability among the region’s higher education institutions.
Dr Raha Hakimdavar, senior advisor to the dean of Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q), said conclusions from a conference on ‘Sustaining the Oasis: Envisioning the future of water security in the Gulf’ held at the university in November would be shared with “the COP28 presidency team in support of water-related efforts”.
GU-Q is based at Qatar’s Education City, which hosts branches of some prestigious United States universities, including Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar.
Established in 2005 in partnership with the state-led non-profit the Qatar Foundation, GU-Q has raised awareness of sustainability matters through initiatives such as Meatless Mondays, elevator-free days, and no-parking trials – the latter rewarding employees with coffeeshop vouchers for using alternatives modes of transport.
During Qatar Sustainability Week, which ran from 4 to 11 November, GU-Q partnered with Porsche to introduce two electric vehicle charging points in its car park.
Education City, a flagship of the Qatar Foundation, houses eight universities and a significant group of LEED-certified student housing facilities.
The Qatar Foundation announced plans last year to build a ‘Green Island’ as the country’s first recycling hub, within Education City, in partnership with local conglomerate Seashore Group. Spanning more than 8,000 square metres and partially powered by solar panels, the new hub will comprise six recycling streams, for paper, plastic, aluminium cans, e-waste, batteries and organic waste.
Many universities in the region have recycle and reuse programmes in place, but the plastic recycling initiative of Bahrain-based Ahlia University stands out for benefitting both the environment and society.
Ahlia University is the first private university to be licensed in Bahrain and hosts 2,500 students at its campus in the capital Manama.
Earlier this year, it signed an agreement with the Bahrain Association for Parents and Friends of the Disabled to donate plastics for recycling, the revenue from which would be used to support mobility solutions. Through its campaign ‘Do not bin it, donate it’, the university has so far managed to donate about 1,620 kilograms of plastics, which funded two custom wheelchairs.
Notable efforts are also being made to promote environmental conservation.
For example, in December 2022 the annual Afforestation Day of Bahrain’s Gulf University saw academic staff and students plant 900 trees in this arid country.
Over the past two years, the university has revamped 50 computers for internal use or donation, installed lighting sensors in its main building, and converted itself into a ‘non-print’ campus. In the coming months, it plans to launch a carpooling mobile app for the university.
Meanwhile in Kuwait, another small and wealthy Gulf Cooperation Council state facing significant environmental challenges, at Canadian College Kuwait – an IT and business focused tertiary institution – a student-led team has developed a mobile application that helps clean up the environment by reporting locations that require cleaning.
The more contributions made, whether by reporting or cleaning the areas, the more points a user receives, which can be redeemed for a reward. Ultimately, this would encourage users to develop more sustainable habits. Named PURE, the app won Best Innovative Idea in a 2023 competition hosted by INJAZ Kuwait, a non-governmental organisation that empowers local youth.
Sustainability in curricula
In the classroom, sustainability education is being increasingly embedded in university curricula across the Gulf region. For instance, Qatar University has offered bachelor and masters degree programmes in environmental science since 2012 and has added a sustainability course to its core university curriculum.
Similarly, the University of Bahrain has offered a masters degree programme in environment and sustainable development since 2002, which was re-developed in 2017 and offered jointly by the institution and the Prince’s Foundation in the United Kingdom.
The University of Bahrain also offers a PhD programme in environmental and sustainable development in partnership with the United Nations University, United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environmental Programme.
Meanwhile, Gulf University in Bahrain has embedded sustainability into 56 of its programme courses for 2022-23, while Ahlia University in Bahrain has aligned its academic curricula with several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
“During the final project and dissertations, students explore different research topics that support green environments in different specialisations; for instance, process re-engineering to be green and fully transformed to paper free,” Dr Esra Saleh Al Dhaen, associate professor and executive director for strategy, quality and sustainability at Ahlia University, told University World News.
“As an outcome of this research, a number of student-led research papers tackling green energy and sustainable environment were published in Q1 2023 scientific journals,” she said.
Gulf universities are making great strides towards sustainability. While the current efforts are mostly led by the larger institutions, their work may influence other universities and colleges, creating a positive domino effect on the wider community.