ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 43

Creating Strategies for Visioning
It’s important to know what people should value the most, what the role of place in sustainability is, and what people’s responsibilities are towards the place (Newman & Jennings 2008). To
achieve sustainability, people should relate vision to human needs of today without affecting
on the future generation’s needs; as sustainability is a global concern, every city should setup a
framework and act locally with a global aspiration for sustainability. To develop vision’s strategies
Dubai should set goals to enrich the ecological, social, and economical values by the incorporation with decision makers.
It is important to mention that H.H Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Vice-President
and Prime Minister of UAE, and Ruler of Dubai insists on dedicating the government to satisfy
human’s demands (Expo2021 2013) by engaging people to ensure that the new policies meet the
needs of people, this process will bring Dubai people together and give them the opportunity to
dream and imagine the future of Dubai to build a better sustainable world. Amen (1997) explained
how people can accept the consequences when they are given the freedom and not forced to
change, the community participation is the key to grow the vision of the city in different sectors (business, education, health care, and environment); this can be achieved by hosting public
events and encouraging children visioning in schools.
To achieve the right strategies for visioning, each strategy should give an answer to these questions to obtain sustainability:
a. Calculate the ecological footprint of Dubai to know where we are now and evaluate the impact of the recent CO2 emissions on the environment.
The ecological footprint of UAE in 2008 which indicates that people of Dubai consume food,
energy, goods, and services more than the planet can handle naturally to regenerate; WWF
(2015) also indicates that Dubai people need 4.5 planets to cover their demands.
b. Set goals according to the ecological footprint result. Figure 10 shows that household contributes with 57% of the UAE footprint; this finding is the key to develop goals that should be
obtained on the long and short run to live in a good place that is blessed with a healthy environment.

Figure 9: UAE Footprint by Demand (GFN 2015)
c. Enriching community engagement with government and private sectors as it was mentioned
in the literature review, Factor 4 Project can be obtained to encourage the citizens to setup
sustainable solutions to reduce negative impact of the ecological footprint up to 50%.

Developing environmental practices from social aspects: a case study of Dubai

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