In the face of increasing ecological, political, social, and the ever more growing health and wellbeing challenges including climate change, biodiversity loss, sea level, ozone depletion, political unrest, global pandemics, and chronic disease, to name a few. The MENA Region is one of the most vulnerable to the impacts of Climate Change including rising temperatures and water scarcity!
Unfortunately, water shortage in many of the countries in the MENA regions is becoming an increasing concern. Faced with growing populations and changing lifestyles, water consumption rates have increased well beyond available resources. This is mitigated by a costly desalination process, one that also leads to a higher carbon footprint, negatively impacting climate change.
Additionally, many of the countries in the MENA region are at the top of the list of the largest per capita ecological footprints. With countries having concerningly high levels of CO2 emissions. Therefore, integrating energy efficiency, and utilizing regenerative design principles in designing our buildings and cities has become a critical need for the MENA region.
That being said, there has been a great deal of inspiring momentum occurring in the region with Sustainability slowly becoming a top priority, this Sustainability Week is a great example of that! Additionally, countries like Qatar, UAE, and Lebanon have come up with their own green building rating systems to incorporate socio-economic, environmental, and cultural aspects into designing buildings and cities.
If efforts such as these continue to flourish across the region there is a chance we could significantly help in tackling growing environmental problems while benefiting from long-term financial returns. Regenerative design, systems, and technologies can serve as catalysts for strategically shaping urbanization, ensuring energy and food security, combating climate change, and creating new economic opportunities.
There is a pressing need now more than ever to (re)consider our role as humans, and more specifically, designers in sculpting new normals, and (re)generate the MENA Region and beyond!
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