By IANS,
Dubai : The United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based power company ETA Star International, a member of the ETA Ascon Star Group, has entered into an agreement with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) of India to explore areas of cooperation in sustainable development.
The agreement was signed by Hameed Salahuddin, director of the ETA Ascon Star Group, and Rajendra Pachauri, director general of TERI and chairman of the Nobel prize-winning Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an ETA Star statement issued here said.
According to the agreement, ETA Star and TERI will work together in a number of areas including the assessment of buildings under Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system.
The new pact provides for the two sides to assign LEED-certified basic, silver, gold and platinum ratings to buildings and other associated services to organizations in the UAE and the Gulf region.
“With the UAE witnessing rapid development, sustainability is a key area of concern,” Salahuddin said in the statement.
“Our agreement with TERI clearly demonstrates ETA Star International’s commitment to sustainable development,” he added.
Other areas of cooperation include conducting environmental impact studies, energy audits of commercial, residential and industrial units, clean development mechanism (CDM) studies and reducing carbon footprint in the UAE.
“Meeting only the requirements of the present without attention to the future generations cannot be called real development,” Pachauri said.
“Over the years, lessons in human history have shown us the chaos and destruction we can create. They are clear signals which demonstrate how important sustainable development is to the future of mankind,” the head of IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore, said.
Pachauri added that TERI’s agreement with ETA Star International would go a long way in changing the perception of sustainable development in the region and make its growth more meaningful.
ETA Star International’s landmarks power projects are spread across the UAE, Kuwait, Sudan and Kazakhstan.
Established in 1974, TERI’s work primarily revolves around tackling and dealing with the immense and acute problems that mankind is likely to be faced with in the years ahead particularly in energy resources and pollution.