On an eco trip

It is an ambitious scheme to undo environmental damage and work on recycling initiatives and sustainable architecture. Yet Samer Kamal, managing director of Bee'ah, The Sharjah Environment Company, believes it can be done.

When Samer Kamal, managing director of Bee'ah, The Sharjah Environment Company, meets you in the lobby of his office, he thinks nothing of rolling up his sleeves and getting his own coffee. And you are forced to fall back on the cliché – looks can be misleading.

He may not look like the man responsible for the company that is mandated to change the way we live. Or the one behind major projects

Such as creating one of the world's largest recycling facilities or responsible for remediation of waste at one of the world's largest landfill sites in Sharjah.

But he is certainly important. And passionate. Not as in a hot-headed passion but more like a putsuit of a cause that will make a difference to the way a society will live. He brings to his passion a problem-solving approach that is at the heart of Bee'ah.

Kamal is also involved in grassroots activities such as providing recycling bins on the Sharjah Corniche and piloting recycling schemes in the emirate. As an ambition, undoing environmental damage isn't as foolhardy as it appears. You need to begin with baby steps. The giant leap forward will follow.

Bee'ah started under the direction of His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, to address environmental problems and challenges in Sharjah.

Says Kamal, "His Highness recognised that there is a real challenge, and that a partnership with a private company will help meet challenges faster and continue to address a large number of environmental issues. "

I

I found out there was no mechanism for recycling waste when I visited Sharjah. I was visiting my mother then. One day, I was watching her cook and noticed that she was disposing every single recyclable item.

Having lived a good portion of my life in Canada, I am accustomed to the idea that bottles and cans should be segregated before disposal, and sent for recycling.

I have always enjoyed solving mathematical problems since childhood. I also enjoy reading. These two activities are still very close to my heart and influence my work and social life. I also enjoy a challenge, especially an intellectual one.

I am a solutions and strategies freak, and can't go to sleep if I haven't solved what has been troubling me at work or at home.

I feel I am a very ... normal person.

I believe in strengthening my relationship with family and friends.

I share a wonderful relationship with my wife and parents. Most of my friends have been with me for more than 20 years. I believe all relationships are the result of attention and care.

I am thrilled about Adam, my brother's first child. He makes my day!

I look at the world as an international community. This stems from my travels as a child and then as an adult. I holidayed in parts of Europe and North America. It helped me gain a perspective on work and on life. Travel also honed my social skills.

I went from one school system to another – from a British school in Sharjah to a Canadian school. The UK education system is very strong in the lower grades so when I moved to the Canadian syllabus, I was given an instant upgrade from Grade Six to Eight!

I went to university (University of Toronto) when I was 15, three to four years earlier than most teenagers do.
It seemed daunting, but I realised that
I had the opportunity to interact with people who were unlike me. I got degrees in pharmacology and toxicology.

ME

Me and my early years
I first started travelling to the Gulf region with my father, a civil engineer, when I was barely a year old.
Though I was born in Montreal, Canada, I spent my school years between the Middle East (Sharjah, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and Canada. Then I went back to Canada to finish high school and university.

Me and my professional life

Unfortunately, I didn't get to practise what I studied as the Canadian economy back then wasn't as robust. My first job was with Bell Canada, the same company that my father worked for when he finished university.

There I worked in the contract negotiation department, and within a relatively short time, I was promoted to head, and started working in sales and marketing.

After three and a half years with Bell Canada, I joined Fixwith, a dotcom company, as marketing and sales manager. In the summer of 2001, the dotcom crash forced the company to shut down. The vice-president of marketing and myself found ourselves jobless in a declining economy. So we decided to start Tactical Communications, a marketing consultancy, which we still own and operate in Canada.

Me and Bee'ah

I shifted focus from marketing to implementing environmental measures with Bee'ah. In a sense, Bee'ah was a natural extension of what we had been doing for many years, mainly business marketing.

My role has been to guide the strategy and to ensure Bee'ah is working with the best of international as well as local firms to deliver in Sharjah the necessary environmental services and programmes on public awareness, education and marketing. Our aim is to bring together the right people and the right organisations.

Me and recycling

Bee'ah is responsible for public recycling. We placed 50 pedestrian recycling bins along the waterfront near the Sharjah Corniche, a project which turned out to be tremendously successful.

We have a sorting facility that separates recyclable items. (Around 5,000 recycling bins are being distributed across the city.)
We are setting up a complete recycling facility, which is a substantial challenge given the number of tyres disposed in the UAE – nearly 15 million. These are flammable, difficult to break down, and contain products that cause damage to the environment.

We are also responsible for dealing with landfills. A few existing ones – in operation for a couple of decades – do not address the environmental risks associated with landfills. So we are closing some of them in the east coast and the central regions of Sharjah.

The Bee'ah Commercial Recycling initiative focuses on three basic principles that provide a comprehensive approach to environmental education and recycling adoption in the commercial sector.

These principles are – reduction of waste or source reduction by consuming and throwing away less; reuse items where possible; and recycle materials into valuable resources that would otherwise
become waste.

Myself

How much of your upbringing has shaped your personality?

A lot. My parents are fantastic. My father is a diligent person, technical and scientific in his approach. When I was younger, he once saw me using a calculator and asked, "What are you using it for? You don't need it." So I learnt to operate without one.

My mother is very focused.

For 20 years, she has lived and worked in the UAE. She runs a property development management company. She inspires those who work with her.

She has taught me what I should expect from work, and about moral and ethical issues. She has had a strong influence on me. My wife too has a strong influence in my life.

She's an extremely talented woman, very independent, very opinionated. So I am not allowed to develop too big an ego. She always reminds me of what I was when she met me. She's fantastic.

What keeps you going?

Professionally, it is the challenge of addressing and finding solutions. If I have been able to make a positive change in the way a company does business or the way people perceive a certain issue, it is my pay-off.

We are focused on building a community of environmentally aware citizens. It is a challenge. Of course, I am very happy with our success, but we have the opportunity to make a real difference, and have a long-term impact. This keeps me going.

What are the other areas Bee'ah is working on?
We are also getting companies and businesses to recognise (their) responsibility to the environment.

We are setting up rules and regulations and standard operating procedures. We have our coastal environmental strategy. We have held a series of discussions with a few property developers across the UAE who are interested in unitising an environmental services company to build their environmental strategy. This strategy includes waste reduction, waste planning, water systems, recycling, etc.

Is there a move to implement green building rules like Dubai has?

We plan to implement rules for sustainable architecture like the Leed certification for green building rules that Dubai has just implemented. (Leeds or The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design was developed by the US Green Building Council.)

It is essential when you are planning a building that you use as much recyclable material as possible so that once the lifespan of the building is over, it does not contribute to disposable waste.

We are looking at taking the principles of the Leeds certification and identifying rational regional applications. For example, in this part of the world, you can substantially reduce the amount of energy in the form of airconditioning by having a series of smaller windows that allow the light in without inundating
the room with sunshine through
very large windows.

In the same way, you can also control the amount of heat that enters. Our focus is to integrate such regional energy-saving concepts into the new sustainable architecture.

'I am a solutions and strategies freak,and can't go to sleep if I haven't solved what has been troubling me at work or at home.' – Samer Kamal.

We are trying to introduce basic solutions, and this recycling
programme will have a dramatic effect on the nation's environment.

'We are focused on building a community of environmentally aware citizens.' – Kamal

"Bee'ah is responsible for public recycling," says Samer Kamal, managing director of Bee'ah, The Sharjah Environment Company.

Are Bee'ah's targets realistic?

I am a realist. I know the target we've set for ourselves in environmental terms will be achieved one step at a time. If we try to solve all of them, all of Sharjah's environmental challenges today, we'd be destined to fail.

But if we try to solve one problem at a time, the accumulated solutions would result in the goal we are trying to reach.

While at university I remember studying that one of the biggest advances in the field of health was the introduction of waste collection from people's homes and neighbourhoods.

That helped bring down the rate of infections which are spread by rats and other pests if the surroundings are not kept clean. Introductions of sewage systems was another way (to prevent infections).

Even today, these remain the basic steps in addressing a large challenge. This is the manner in which I address problems.

I don't believe that employing the most sophisticated environmental solutions here today would be the appropriate step. We are trying to introduce basic solutions, and this recycling programme will have a dramatic effect on the nation's environment. That means the challenge is manageable.