BUSINESS
SUSTAINABILITY IN SAUDI ARABIA It’s now or never. By Amr Banaja, VP Marketing and Corporate Responsibility, SEDCO
As Saudi Arabia witnesses one of its toughest economic challenges in recent history, the government has launched both Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Plan 2020 to aid in shaping a new, more diversified, robust and sustainable economy. The vision has mainly been fueled by the recent drop in oil prices which historically uplifted the Saudi economy over the past eight decades reaching record highs of USD 145 a barrel in 2008.
Now with a 52-week low of USD 28 per barrel, Saudi Arabia is left with the question, “How can we sustain our economy when over 90 percent of revenues depend on a depleting resource that’s also dropping in price?” 16 DESTINATION JEDDAH DECEMBER 2016
USD 28 per barrel
The very definition of sustainable development is to meet the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations. As the Saudi government starts to take noticeable and transformational actions, a lot of companies in the private sector faced with the same predicament, are asking the same question, “how can we be sustainable?”