In the latest edition of Qatar Foundation’s Speaker Series, experts from Qatar and around the world discuss how regenerative development can point the way toward a safe and prosperous planet.

Titled Beyond Sustainability: Imagining A Regenerative Future, the international platform enabled the participants to focus on a concept that aims to build, rather than simply maintain, the support systems needed for long-term growth and a resilient world, and reverse damage to the natural environment instead of simply minimizing it.

Embracing regenerative development’s roots in indigenous culture, the event discussed touched on the viability and possibilities of applying it in different cultural contexts.

Ibrahim Mohamed Jaidah, Group CEO and Chief Architect, Arab Engineering Bureau

Speaking in the context on Qatar, Ibrahim Mohamed Jaidah, Group CEO and Chief Architect, Arab Engineering Bureau said, “The amount of construction that has been done in the last 20 to 25 years is more than the last 100 years; there has been tremendous growth. But we are fortunate as we have recognized in the last decade or so that we have overconsumed our part of the earth.

“With the steps, we have taken, in the last 10 to 15 years, we have started to recover, to regenerate. For example, in the last three years, Qatar has managed to increase food security by 400 per cent. If we continue this way, we’ll be self-sufficient in just a handful of years.”

With the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, he explained the importance of planning sustainably as we need to ponder how we need to continue to live with these buildings, rehabilitate them and make use of by people. As stadiums become part of our society, they will be converted into parks, medical facilities, and educational institutes to accordance with this concept.  

Bill Reed, a planning consultant and sustainability and regeneration expert, explained the concept of regenerative development. “We can’t really save the world,” he said.

“The world is too abstract, it’s too big. There is no chief or CEO of the planet. So, what we can do is save the world place by place. And each place is different, which requires us to engage in a unique way. So regenerative development is about developing capabilities to participate in the process of evolution.”

Specifically, in the context of the Middle East, he explained that “It does not matter where you are, it matters how you address where you are. What is the nature of a healthy ecosystem around the Gulf? That is the first question that needs to be asked, and then how do we serve that in our projects.”

Dr Anne Poelina, Chair of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council in Western Australia

The Education City Speaker Series event also heard from indigenous community leader Dr Anne Poelina, Chair of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council in Western Australia, whose work is focused around issues of environmental and cultural protection. Looking ahead, she said, “I think we need to be quite clever, we need to be innovative, we need bring a wide range of collective wisdom into how do we start to look at how we learn and unlearn, and how do we look at what is happening globally and bring that locally. All of these things are really important.”

For a complete list of QF’s initiatives and projects, please visit: www.qf.org.qa

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