Black & Veatch, a global leader in critical infrastructure solutions, shares insights into the rapidly evolving energy transition in a special video interview series filmed at COP 28 in Dubai.
Watch here Youssef Merjaneh Senior Vice President & Managing Director – Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Deepa Poduval, Senior Vice President, Global Sustainability Leader and Global Advisory Leader; were filmed as part of the COP 28 Leadership Interviews, produced by TBD Media.
The two leaders shared their global views on megatrends driving discourse at COP 28. Decarbonization, digitization and a drive for more reliable, resilient infrastructure are reshaping how governments, companies and communities achieve their long-term energy, water and other critical sustainability commitments.
The interview touches on Black & Veatch’s own sustainability journey, which included brave but difficult commercial decisions. In 2020, Black & Veatch exited the new-build coal-fired power generation market, which was its largest business outside the United States, walking away from future revenue potential in order to align with its own decarbonization commitments.
Black & Veatch has since replaced that revenue potential because this strategic action freed its talented workforce to focus on transforming the energy industry. Today the company is leading clients to deliver established decarbonization solutions such as hydrogen production and storage, battery energy storage, renewable energy, electric vehicle charging as well as delivering infrastructure to produce alternative fuels like green hydrogen, green ammonia and sustainable aviation fuels.
Mirroring much dialogue throughout COP 28, the importance of achieving an affordable and fair energy transition was also underlined. Black & Veatch highlighted its work devising financial mechanism on the Climate Investment Fund’s Accelerating Coal Transition (ACT) investment program creating financial mechanism to enable the repurposing of coal facilities.
In addition, two Black & Veatch projects across green hydrogen production and coal decommissioning were entered into the Energy Transition Changemakers, a COP28 UAE Presidency initiative. These are among the world’s most cutting edge and transformative energy transition projects. One project is enabling previous unattainable utility and industrial scale storage of renewable energy while the other is establishing a benchmark for how legacy coal infrastructure can be repurposed for renewable energy while creating positive economic and social impacts.
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