Release
Abu Dhabi, 18 May, 2015 : The Ecocity World Summit (ECWS) 2015, scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi from 11 to 13 October 2015, has now made its preliminary programme available, outlining a wide-range of activities and an impressive array of speakers who will share their industry knowledge and experience. ECWS, which will be hosted in the Middle East for the very first time, will tackle the issues around building ecocities in challenging environments. The event aims to facilitate a multi-disciplinary exchange around the issues of sustainable cities, through targeted workshops, side events and a dedicated majlis.
H.E. RazanKhalifa Al Mubarak, Secretary General, Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD), commented: “The Ecocity World Summit is a community-oriented platform that will inspire the next generation of ideas for future ecocities, and in order to achieve this, it is imperative that we are addressing the right issues, and that we are doing so collaboratively with the greatest minds in the field.”
Alongside representatives from ECWS’ partners – the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Masdar – key speakers on a local level include Managing Director of Expo 2020 Higher Committee and Minister of State for the UAE, H.E. Reem Al Hashmi, as well as H.E. Fahad Saeed Raqabani, Director General of Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development. Upon confirming his commitment, H.E. Fahad Saeed Raqabani commented: “Our mission in the Abu Dhabi Council for Economic Development is to promote sustainable and diversified economic growth by improving Abu Dhabi’s infrastructure and business environment, and enhancing human capital. No doubt, ecocities are an important part and component of such economic growth. I look forward to sharing my thoughts on the significant progress that has been made towards achieving this mission at the 11th edition of the Ecocity World Summit in Abu Dhabi this October.”
ECWS will also welcome renowned regional and international innovators and thinkers from the field as speakers, including Dr. Nadia Makram Ebeid, Executive Director of the Center for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE) and Egypt’s former Minister of Environment – the first female minister to hold this position in the Arab World; Dr. Dieter Salomon, Mayor of the City of Freiburg – which is also known as “Green City Freiburg;” Vicente Guallart, Chief Architect of the city of Barcelona; Ronan Dantec, Senator of Loire Valley in France; Jennie Moore, Director of Sustainable Development and Environmental Stewardship at British Colombia Institute of Technology, School of Construction and the Environment;Philipp Rode, Executive Director of LSE Cities and Senior Research Fellow at the London School of Economics; Jeff Kenworthy, Professor at Curtin University, Australia, specialising in planning and sustainability in relation to public transport and urban form; and Salim Rouhana, World Bank Group, Urban Development and Resilience Specialist.
H.E. RazanKhalifa Al Mubarak added: “We look forward to welcoming these leading visionary local, regional and international experts to share their knowledge and expertise on key environmental issues, bringing the UAE and the world one step closer to building leading ecologically healthy cities.”
The Summit’s programme includes workshops, case study presentations, roundtable discussions, debates, and academic panels that will cover various topics including: Visionary Cities: Imagining Tomorrow’s Cities Today, Ecocitizenship and the Green Economy, Water Budgeting: A Challenge for the Century, “Eco”nomics of Ecocities, Getting to One Planet Living, The City We Need and Social Systems of Healthy Cities, Resilience on the Ground: Learning from the Citizen; in addition to other key environmental sustainability topics. Field trips and excursions including the recently opened Mangrove National Park and Al Wathba Wetland Nature Reserve are also part of the diverse Summit agenda.
As part of ECWS’s main programme, Ecocity Builders will co-sponsor some special workshops during the three-day event including the Sustainable Urban Indicators and Frameworks Symposium, whichwill define and measure ecocity indicators, and attempt to create a unified framework that creates a collaborative way forward. Also hosted by Ecocity Builders, the City Form and Resource Flows Workshop will explore the formulas and assumptions to evaluate resource flows for water, energy, transportation, and materials, aiming to create a framework that will set a global standard for future work.
ECWS 2015, the longest running international conference series on sustainable cities, will gather over 1,500 registrants from 100 countries, as well as roughly 70 leading local and international speakers. In addition to the main programme, ECWS hosts Innovation and Academic Tracks through which more than 100 submissions from 31 countries have been received to present at the Summit. ECWS 2015 is open to the public for registration.
For those interested in attending the Summit, early bird registration is possible until 30 June. To register, or learn more about getting involved at ECWS 2015, please visit: https://www.ecocityworldsummit.com/register
To learn more about ECWS 2015’s speakers, please visit: https://www.ecocityworldsummit.com/speakers