Meet The Entrepreneur Who Is On A ‘Mission To Cool Cities’

Sustainability Meet The Entrepreneur Who Is On A ‘Mission To Cool Cities’ Jamie Hailstone Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I write about air quality and the environment. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Oct 17, 2022, 05:45am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JULY 24: Children cool off by playing in a fountain in Domino Park, Brooklyn . . .

[+] with the Manhattan skyline in the background as the sun sets during a heat wave on July 24, 2022 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. The five boroughs of New York City are under a heat advisory until 8 PM on July 24th according to the US National Weather Service. Much of the East Coast is experiencing higher than usual temperatures as a heat wave moves through the area forcing residents into parks, pools and beaches to escape the heat.

(Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images) Getty Images Everyone knows that when heatwaves strike, city life can get really get hot. This is because roads and buildings typically absorb heat, which often gets trapped at street level. In addition, cities are more densely populated that rural areas, with higher levels of traffic and energy use, which can exacerbate the problem.

The issue was highlighted recently by the United Nationals Environment Programme, which noted that almost 90 cities issued heat alerts during the recent heatwaves , according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Fortunately, help is at hand in the shape of Abu Dhabi-based entrepreneur Jay Sadiq, the founder of the cleantech startup Fortyguard, which is on a “mission to cool cities”. “The biggest driver, when it comes to climate change, is temperature,” said Sadiq.

“Building cooler cities is essential. We need to make them more efficient and resilient, as well. And everyone needs to be involved.

“So, it’s not only the government’s responsibility to cool cities down. It’s also the responsibility of the private sector, developers, communities, and so forth. ” Sadiq added it is important to understand how outdoor temperatures can vary in modern cities.

For example, he said the temperature in one part of New York can be 47 degrees Celsius and 29 in another part of the city. He said this information can be used by city planners to monitor outdoor temperatures or developers, who are building cities and they want to make them more comfortable for residents. For example, it could point to places where greenery and other nature-based solutions are needed to cool the outdoor air or instances of where hot air has become trapped in city streets, otherwise known as the urban heat island effect.

MORE FOR YOU Livestream Shopping Stays Hot As Whatnot Valuation More Than Doubles To $3. 7 Billion Disability Power 100– Influential Disabled People How To Overcome Barriers And Drive Growth For New Products And Services Using a mixture of local and global temperature sources, Fortyguard provies hyper-local, accurate analytics about temperatures are operating outdoors. “We provide a thermal assessment to how the city is behaving in a very granular level, down to one metre square granularity,” explained Sadiq.

“These insights can guide the designers, engineering consultants, and contractors to understand how they can design their cities to make them a lot more cooler than they are now. ” He pointed to the example of Masdar City in Abu Dhabi, which is a city that has been specifically designed to be 10 degrees Celsius cooler than other cities in the region. “We want to change behaviour,” he added.

“We want you to take your next city walk, based on the coolest route, rather than the shortest one, or buy a property in a cooler place to make sure it’s safe for your family. There’s a lot of potential. ” Fortyguard is part of Hub71, which is Abu Dhabi’s global tech ecosystem, which provides access to global markets, a capital ecosystem, and a vibrant community.

“The world is urbanising at a very rapid pace. And we’re building a lot of infrastructure, buildings and roads, which mean cities keep heating up. We need to quantify this, which is why we think of ourselves as a measurement tool.

We want to measure and bring this issue of rising temperatures to the fore of every decision about how we build our cities. ” Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn . Check out some of my other work here .

Jamie Hailstone Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.