i8 | greentech corridor A regional testbed and model for sustainable development Kuwait City KUWAIT CITY N 0 10 km Impact of the physical development plan for WSR By relying on seawater technology, the Corridor will not only generate food and RE, but also provide an adequate context for eco-villages, simultaneously generating more jobs and diversifying the economy. Projected development up to 2030 Jobs created 150,000 approximately Main population 50,000 approximately Labor population 190,000 approximately (Spread across towns and villages across the WSR) of land permitted for development by the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). The Green Grid is robust and flexible enough to absorb development constraints such as the military shooting range site, KOC servitudes, power lines, and safeguarded aquifers. The Green Grid locates within its spatial framework all the RE parks, industrial estates, free trade zone, and farms supported by a hierarchy of ecologically responsive settlements comprising two anchor eco-towns along the As-Salmi Highway at Al-Naayim and As-Salmi border, and an even distribution of labor towns and villages. The main driver of development in the WSR will be green tech energy production in the form of renewable solar and wind energy parks. In turn, these will be supported by: Industrial uses whereby green technology products might be manufactured, such as solar and wind energy apparati Agriculture approaches adapted to synergize with renewable technologies and resources Model desert settlements that offer ecologically responsive services and lifestyles. The Corridor will feed off the current As-Salmi Highway linking the Kuwait Metropolitan Area and As-Salmi border, the westernmost tip of Kuwait. The Corridor will be structured spatially by a proposed Green Grid that comes off the highway at various regular intervals. The Grid lines comprise palm grove avenues lending a desert-rural character to the WSR, which are in turn lined on both sides by continuous stretches of productive farms. These farms can be used productively across a range of sustainable activities, or farm franchises, including seawater greenhouses linked to the adjacent RE parks within the Grid. This Green Grid will access and cover the disparate large tracts Blazing a trail: The potential for transferability and up-scaling The Kuwait GreenTech Corridor plan has the potential to be a model to other Gulf countries and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in general. While Abu Dhabi’s high-profile Masdar City project first proposed sustainable urban living relying on RE sources and becoming a hub for clean-tech companies, this development, at 6 km2 in size, differs significantly in scale and scope from the integrated and diverse regional spatial strategy of the WSR spread over 3,000 km2. The usefulness of the WSR model can be illustrated in the following way: • The model is highly transferable under similar environmental conditions, and more so with similar compelling economic conditions that reach locally and regionally • No other Middle Eastern country has planned or sought to pioneer a greentech initiative at this scale that generates clean energy, air, food, and water, within an integrated spatial green framework of ecologically responsive economic activity, land uses and rural/urban settlements • Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) pooling of resources can contribute to a wider cross-border regional green infrastructure network that can yield even further efficiencies, products and services. 08