Quotes Mohammed Nayeem Quraishi, CEO – Bee’ah while discussing the much anticipated sustainable headquarters during an exclusive interview with EQ Magazine.
Bee’ah started in 2007 under a public private partnership (PPP) established with Sharjah municipality and the government of Sharjah. It is a sustainability company that was formed keeping in mind the future of critical industries including waste management, environment company, renewable energy, technology, sustainability, transportation, education and training. Bee’ah evolved from being a waste collection company that started with 60 employees to becoming a huge sustainability company with 10,000 workers.
The company is working to support the green environmental ambition of the UAE government, promoting a circular economy, meeting zero waste targets while introducing and implementing the same values within our organisation. Bee’ah also focuses on digitization and is currently developing the region’s first waste energy project. The said facility will have the capacity to recycle 300,000 tonnes of waste per year, with 400,000-450,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emission annually. The new headquarter supports artificial intelligence (AI) and provides the experience of optimising efficient performing operations.
Transforming Sharjah Into First Zero Waste City
Commenting on the thought process that went into the idea of Sharjah’s first waste to energy plant, Quraishi said, “On the sustainability path, we identified that waste has to be treated and it is imperative to transform them into zero waste landfills. We don’t want more landfills and unrecycled waste from the landfills. So, we partnered with Masdar in 2017 and established Sharjah Waste Energy Company to create a waste to energy plant. This facility will process 37.4 tonnes of waste per hour, generating almost 30 MW of energy. It will be able to supply to 28000 homes.”
Accolades Over the Years
In 2015, Bee’ah received the prestigious ‘IBX award for Sustainability’. In 2017, inaugurated the ‘Sustainability Business of the Year’ award. In 2018, the company was awarded the ‘Gulf Sustainability CSR’ award. In June 2019, Bee’ah got another award for environmental management in the middle east region. The waste to energy project has garnered many awards. With innovative self-financing, the organisation has won many awards for its financing model as well.
Venturing Into eMobility
The company has signed an agreement with the company- ION and is running autonomous vehicles in Masdar city. Bee’ah is testing the same in other cities as well and autonomous trials are conducted at various places. The purpose of Bee’ah to introduce and work on e-mobility is to make citizen’s lives easy.
Goals & Ambitions
As the first integrated environmental management company in the middle east region, Bee’ah aims to reduce carbon footprint, carbon dioxide emissions and at the same time improve the standard of living.
Along with working on the mobility issue, Bee’ah is working on government distinction and trying to reduce the carbon footprint by introducing the waste to hydrogen facilities. “Our vision for the future will be mostly hydrogen operated vehicles. Hydrogen mobility is the future, where hydrocarbons are used for mobility. This will help reduce carbon footprint,” said the CEO.
Energy Storage & Hydrogen
Speaking on the future of storage with the emergence of hydrogen, Quraishi pointed out that Bee’ah headquarter has a storage project on pilot basis. The storage facility is supplied by Tesla. The organisation is trying to test it for night usage and operation of the headquarters facilities.
As the company empties waste landfills, it is planning to launch solar plants on the landfill and energy so generated will be stored in solar batteries. He said, “We are looking at opportunities in the generation of hydrogen from waste, which is not hydrogen from electrolysis or anything. Since we are into sustainability, we collect a lot of waste to generate hydrogen. We have signed an agreement with a company from the UK and we are about to launch that project very soon. We will deal with plastic and wood waste… (a byproduct of) construction is used for generating electricity.”
Bee’ah will be generating cumulative energy from waste to hydrogen and solar to energy. This will result in a hybrid energy supply at Sharjah grid.
Role of Sharjah Government
Bee’ah started in Sharjah and the rulers were fully supportive of their aims and the culture. Later it developed into what it is today with their two pillars of sustainability and digitisation. “The government of Sharjah as well as the leaders of Bee’ah are the pioneers in developing these ideas,” accredited Quraishi.
The government of Sharjah has been very supportive. Projects need to be heavily funded and require a lot of cash and investment, and raising these investments need support from the government. However, looking at the future, the CEO would want to educate the people about waste management because “We do not want to grow our waste as it is a big problem for us to collect and operate it out. We encourage people to follow the sustainability path,” believes Quraishi.
Current Operations
The company is currently operating in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Saudi Arabia is claimed to be easy to operate in because of its laws and regulations which will reflect the requirements of Bee’ah listing. He said, “We are operating it in the city of Madina, we are collecting the waste and processing it. Then we have a few plants to establish the energy plant. There is a lot of scope for energy growth as there is a lot of waste, so we will start an energy plant there too. We are also operating in Egypt, working on capital development (there). They have constructed the plant and we have now started our operations and then we are collecting the waste of the things. There also power plants will go from waste to energy plants.”
Call of Duty
Speaking on the expectations from the policymakers, Quraishi mentioned that to educate people and spread awareness, government support is crucial. In Sharjah, most of the school curriculums include information about waste collection, treatment and management. Children in Sharjah are educated and Bee’ah wishes to spread similar awareness in other countries as well.
Social Responsibility
“We are the innovation leaders in green hydrogen, we want to establish fueling stations and provide hydrogen to vehicles, mobilities and other things. We have a school, Bee’ah school of environment. It encourages eco-friendly behaviour of children… We are doing it in Sharjah, with 250000 students in 600 schools, 6000 teachers we have trained. We have a door to door campaign. We have also introduced three stream bins: blue, green, and black. There are smart bins with wifi hotspots… (that) communicate with our control centre, and then timely communicate with the people to collect it, following which we dispose of the waste,” claimed Quraishi.
In addition to that Bee’ah is trying to collect the waste through the roadside bins. These too have wifi provision where the company can use the WiFi, communicate and collect. Bee’ah is also providing free WiFi and trying to improve the lives of pupils. It is also working to develop hydrogen from waste. This will help people as hydrogen mobility produces zero pollution.
Promising Premises
Bee’ah aims to evolve and develop their artificial intelligence technologies. Setting an example with its headquarter, the company paved a way for evolution of AI. He proudly stated, “It is a totally different world… It is like the building itself communicates with your requirements. So, it will receive your information and work according to your needs. It is a totally paperless office. Nothing is required to be done, you can communicate directly with the project, what you want including requesting research. You do not require an office boy to bring tea for you. It will come, you don’t have to send a request for that. So, the routine work is AI-enabled, as far as possible.”
The project is constructed and is under the fine tuning stage. It is anticipated that the “most sustainable building in the world” as claimed by the CEO will be ready by the end of this year or at least early next year.
Future of Smart City
Talking about smart city and smart building solutions, he mentioned, “We are producing it, we would like to work on smart cities with WiFi bins… At the same time we would like to encourage and educate people how to dispose of the waste. We are trying to achieve that with medical waste, by collecting it and not disposing it in the normal bins. Today, at Sharjah, all the waste is collected separately. We don’t mix normal waste and then dispose of it and we insulate it. Similarly, in the future, we will have smart cities developed and then we will try to digitalise our waste management completely.”
Market Outlook for ME
“As the population is growing, demand for energy is growing. We will have a demand of 3000-4000 MW and then it is going to go up. In the same way for the UAE, our demand is going up, we have to start planning the future energy sources, and future energy listing. To do that we are trying to reduce that energy through various ways. We are doing it with solar energy, we are talking about nuclear energy, we are talking about the reduction of conventional energy, which is dependent on the hydrocarbon sector, which is really for reducing pollution. In the future there will be a lot of solar energy plants as well as nuclear energy plants in the UAE,” he concluded.
