Sustainability and Financing Project: The UAE Paradigm

Abstract

The importance of project finance as a method to invest in infrastructure and industrial assets has grown dramatically in the recent years and has become increasingly important not only to public bodies, but primarily to the private sector (Eisenbach et al. in Business Strategy and the Environment 23:375–394, 2014). These trends are expected to continue to grow and one of the major issues within the project finance industry are environmental and social risks (Esty and Sesia in An overview of project finance and infrastructure finance-2009 update. Harvard Business School Publishing, 2010). Project finance industry is increasingly concerned with the volume and awareness of sustainable development (Eisenbach et al. in Business Strategy and the Environment 23:375–394, 2014). Sustainability is becoming a key issue because of its ethical dimensions as well as risk management, firm value and performance. United Arab Emirates (UAE) can be considered a global leader in sustainability. In has actively displayed its commitment by placing sustainable environment and infrastructure as one of its top national priorities in UAE Vision 2021. The purpose of this paper is to mainly present the policies and initiatives that created this unique UAE paradigm. Moreover, the paper examines how sustainability was successfully implemented in UAE’s financed infrastructure at various industries (i.e., smart cities, tourism, sports, etc.) and the added value it produces.