By WAM

The UAE government, in cooperation with the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), has become the first signatory to the 'Scale 360' initiative, which aims at moving towards a more circular economy while using less natural resources and reducing pollution to tackle climate change.

This step reaffirms the UAE’s position as a global and an open laboratory for economic and technological innovations in line with UAE Vision 2021 and the Centennial Strategy 2071.

The initiative was signed from the UAE side by Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, and Omar bin Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, and Borge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum.

The signing, which took place during the participation of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa, translates the strategic directions of the UAE government into practical initiatives by creating an enabling a sustainable infrastructure to support the growth of the economic, social and environmental sectors.

Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi said: "The UAE's success in linking development plans with environmental considerations is the result the leadership's endless support in promoting development while maintaining the sustainability of our natural resources which contributed to a global leading model. We seek to promote Scale 360 to existing and future projections in order to ensure the conservation of resources, greater reliance on clean energy, the application of sustainable development standards, as well as create future opportunities for the youth in the region."

Omar Al Olama said: "The UAE’s signing on Scale 360 launched by the World Economic Forum reflects the government's commitment to employ the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s technologies for a better future for communities while joining the global efforts to sustain the environment for future generations."

"Artificial Intelligence is a major contributor to the sustainable development efforts and recycling initiatives. We seek to emphasise the need to adopt artificial intelligence in development strategies," the minister added.

The initiative provides a model for a circular economy, which employs the technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in order to keep resources in use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use, then recover and regenerate products and material at the end of each service life.

The innovative economic concept aims at minimising waste by designing recyclable and renewable goods to ensure their utilisation even after the end of their shelf- life and in order to achieve efficient use of natural resources.

To address these challenges, the Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies are used today to envision a new way of managing our resources. These technologies range from digital datasets linked to physical products using a product passport and Internet of Materials as well as blockchain-based schemes. Scale 360 would offer enormous potential that can reduce waste and recycling resource efficiently as the foundation of future cities and sustainable economy.

A World Economic Forum report indicated that over US$1 trillion a year could be generated by 2025 for the global economy and 100,000 new jobs created within the next five years if companies focused on encouraging the build-up of circular supply chains to increase the rate of recycling, reuse and remanufacture.

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