Shargiil Bashir, PhD
Chief Sustainability Officer

Dr. Shargiil Bashir is the Chief Sustainability Officer and Executive Vice President at First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). In this role, Shargiil is responsible for developing, leading, and implementing the Bank’s ESG strategy and initiatives. He was among the main drivers behind FAB being the first bank in the UAE and GCC to make a net-zero commitment by 2050. Under his leadership, FAB was awarded Best Bank for ESG in the UAE (2022, 2024) and Middle East’s Best Bank for Sustainable Finance (2023) at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence. Shargiil is recognised by LinkedIn as Top Voice Green in the Middle East. He is also a member of the Banking Board at UNEP FI and previously served as Chair of the UN-convened Net Zero Banking Alliance Steering Group.

He is a seasoned banker and experienced leader with over 25 years of experience. He has led various aspects of corporate governance, strategy, risk management, risk assurance, and sustainability throughout multiple countries. He is also the author of the book “From Vision to Impact – Implementing Sustainability into Your Business” published in 2024.

Before joining FAB in November 2020, Shargiil held various senior leadership positions at Danske Bank, based in Denmark.

He holds a PhD in Strategic Management and Sustainable Development, a Bachelor of Business Administration, and an Executive MBA from Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, and has completed Executive Education at INSEAD in France.

A Sustainability Inflection Point: From Ambition to Execution

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has moved decisively from a phase of sustainability defined by target setting to one increasingly characterised by delivery. This shift is evident not only in headline commitments, but also in the way climate and sustainability objectives have been integrated into economic planning, financial regulation and national investment strategies rather than treated as standalone environmental goals.

In October 2021, the UAE announced its Net Zero by 2050 Strategic Initiative, becoming the first country in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to formalise a net zero target. The announcement was accompanied by plans for more than AED 600 billion in long-term investment in renewable and clean energy, embedding climate ambition within national development policy. This signalled early recognition that decarbonisation would need to align with competitiveness, productivity and long-term economic resilience rather than operate in tension with them.

Since then, sustainability considerations have been incorporated across core national strategies covering energy, industry, infrastructure and finance. Climate objectives are increasingly articulated as contributors to economic resilience and innovation, a framing reflected in International Monetary Fund assessments of climate policy integration across Gulf economies. Rather than treating ESG as a compliance exercise, national strategies emphasise climate finance mobilisation, technology deployment and emissions measurement as the mechanisms through which ambition can be translated into outcomes.

The 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28), hosted by the UAE in late 2023, marked a clear inflection point. The conference concluded the first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement and, according to the UNFCCC, brought together roughly 85,000 participants across governments, multilateral institutions, regulators and financial markets. For a host country, the scale and outcome of the Global Stocktake sharpened expectations around execution, accountability and system-level delivery.

That shift was also reflected in the financial sector during COP28. Through the UAE Banks Federation, the domestic banking sector committed to mobilising more than AED 1 trillion in sustainable and transition finance by 2030. More significant than the headline commitment itself was the evidence of early execution: publicly disclosed allocations across the sector indicated that more than AED 190 billion had already been deployed into green and enabling projects. This suggested that sustainable finance in the UAE was beginning to move from stated ambition to measurable capital allocation, with the financial system positioned as a central delivery channel.

Building System-Level Credibility Through Global Best Practice

Regulation and supervision now underpin the credibility and durability of the UAE’s sustainability framework. Rather than relying on voluntary standards or market signals, climate and ESG expectations have been embedded into binding legislation, supervisory practice and disclosure regimes, reducing implementation risk and strengthening investor confidence. Sustainability reporting has consequently shifted from fragmented, narrative-driven disclosure towards information designed to support capital allocation, risk pricing and prudential oversight.

A central pillar is the Federal Decree-Law No. 11 of 2024 on the Reduction of the Effects of Climate Change, which entered into force in May 2025. The law applies to public and private entities, including those operating in free zones, and introduces legally enforceable requirements to measure, report and verify greenhouse gas emissions, maintain emissions records, and establish governance arrangements such as climate action boards or dedicated committees. It also provides for penalties in cases of non-compliance and establishes the basis for economy-wide emissions oversight, carbon offsetting mechanisms and alignment with the UAE’s Nationally Determined Contributions. For investors, the legislation marks a shift from policy intent to regulatory certainty, signalling that climate risk management is no longer optional.

Within the financial sector, regulators have moved decisively to treat climate and ESG risks as financially material and prudential in nature. Through the UAE Sustainable Finance Working Group, which comprises the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE), market regulators, free-zone authorities and exchanges, authorities issued the Principles for the Effective Management of Climate-related Financial Risks in November 2023. These established minimum expectations across licensed financial institutions, covering board oversight, integration of climate risk into enterprise risk management and strategy, capital and liquidity planning, and the use of climate-scenario analysis. Their adoption by the CBUAE, the UAE Capital Market Authority (CMA), the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) and ADGM’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) created system-wide consistency.

Supervisory focus has since expanded from risk identification to disclosure quality and transition governance. The Principles for Sustainability-Related Disclosures issued in June 2024 reinforced expectations that reporting should align with internationally recognised standards, notably the ISSB Sustainability Disclosure Standards, and support investor decision-making and financial stability. This was followed by the development of supervisory expectations for climate transition planning, covering governance, metrics, implementation and periodic review. As a result, climate risk, transition strategy and emissions data are increasingly being integrated into mainstream reporting and governance processes rather than confined to standalone ESG sections.

By 2025, climate-related financial disclosure aligned with international frameworks had become increasingly standard practice among UAE-licensed banks and many large, listed issuers, with reporting increasingly framed around impacts on strategy, capital allocation and financial resilience. The depth and consistency of disclosures have also improved, particularly around governance, enterprise-risk integration, scenario analysis and transition pathways, driving investment in data systems, internal controls and technical expertise.

Early momentum is also emerging in nature-related risk and impact reporting. While practice remains nascent globally, leading UAE institutions exposed to water, land-use and biodiversity dependencies have begun adopting Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)-aligned approaches, signalling recognition that nature-related risks will increasingly complement climate risk within financial-risk frameworks.

Together, these developments mark a decisive shift in the UAE, from ESG disclosure as narrative communication towards enforceable governance, supervisory oversight and data that can support investment decisions. For capital providers, this reduces greenwashing risk, enhances comparability and provides the regulatory foundation required to mobilise sustainable and transition finance at scale.

Mobilising Capital at Scale to Finance the Real Economy Transition

Sustainable finance in the UAE has evolved from a collection of niche green transactions into a system-level mechanism for financing the transition of the real economy. This evolution has been led by the banking sector and reinforced by growing capital markets activity.

A defining feature of this shift is the move away from financing isolated green assets toward managing transition at portfolio level. Banks increasingly embed emissions intensity, sectoral pathways and transition readiness into credit allocation frameworks, reflecting the reality that decarbonisation requires engagement with high-emitting and infrastructure-intensive sectors rather than an exclusive focus on green use-of-proceeds instruments.

The significance of this phase of capital mobilisation lies not only in the volume of finance involved, but also in the way it is being organised. Sustainable finance is increasingly treated as a system-level allocation strategy, with banks directing capital across portfolios, sectors and instruments in ways that support economy-wide transition rather than isolated green projects. This broadens the role of finance from product-specific activity to balance-sheet deployment aligned with industrial transformation, infrastructure investment and long-term economic resilience.

The architecture of large-scale transition finance is also being expanded through Alterra, the UAE-backed climate investment vehicle launched at COP28. With USD 30 billion in catalytic capital and a stated aim of mobilising USD 250 billion globally by 2030, Alterra reflects a model in which UAE-sponsored capital is used to absorb risk, improve investability and crowd in institutional investors at scale. Its commitments so far include USD 2 billion to Brookfield’s Brookfield Global Transition Fund II, up to USD 1 billion in catalytic capital for Brookfield’s emerging-markets Catalytic Transition Fund, and support for TPG’s Global South Initiative, which reached USD 1.25 billion in initial capital commitments in 2024. Together, these investments indicate that capital mobilisation in the UAE is no longer limited to domestic lending and labelled debt issuance, but increasingly extends to the construction of cross-border transition platforms focused on emerging markets, infrastructure and industrial decarbonisation.

Capital markets activity has reinforced COP28 momentum and the UAE banking sector’s AED 1 trillion sustainable and transition finance commitment. Green bond and sukuk listings reached AED 8.6 billion in 2025, a 50 percent increase from the previous year, according to the UAE’s Capital Market Authority. Bloomberg Intelligence data shows that while total sustainable debt issuance across the MENA region declined to USD 35.1 billion in 2025 amid global headwinds, green-labelled instruments expanded by 60 percent to USD 25.8 billion, signalling resilient investor appetite.

Issuance activity in 2024 and 2025 was concentrated primarily in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which together accounted for more than two-thirds of regional labelled issuance. UAE banks played a leading role in underwriting and balance-sheet deployment, supporting a transition from sovereign-led issuance toward a bank-anchored market structure aligned with regulatory expectations.

Bloomberg data and DFSA-Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) research also show growing participation from first-time corporate issuers and expanded use of Islamic structures, with green and sustainability-linked sukuk dominating issuance. Approximately 70 percent of labelled sustainable bonds in the region over the past three years have been accompanied by impact or allocation reporting, indicating improving market discipline as sustainable finance increasingly supports power, industry, transport and water infrastructure.

Real Economy Delivery Through Flagship Projects and Sectoral Transformation

Execution in the UAE is increasingly visible across the physical economy, particularly in energy, fuels, industry and water systems. Clean-energy deployment has reached a scale where progress is measured in system capacity rather than individual projects.

Data from the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that total renewable-energy capacity reached 7.91 GW at the end of 2025, up from 6.85 GW in 2024, marking a 15.4 percent year-on-year increase. Installed renewable energy capacity is expected to lift total capacity beyond 23 GW by 2031, according to the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure. Over a longer horizon, renewable capacity rose from just 0.14 GW in 2016, reflecting sustained investment and accelerating deployment over the past decade. Renewables also accounted for 15.3 percent of the UAE’s total installed power capacity at the end of 2025, up from 14.3 percent in 2024, underscoring their expanding role in the national energy mix.

National investment in renewable and clean energy has surpassed AED 190 billion, while the UAE Energy Strategy 2050 targets a tripling of renewable-energy contribution by 2030 and for clean energy to contribute 35 percent of electricity supply by 2031. Taken together, these figures indicate that renewable-energy expansion is no longer incremental, but is being pursued as a rapid scaling of system capacity within a broader clean-power transition.

Execution is also visible in how finance is being linked to large-scale clean-power assets. In 2024, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) participated in the AED 8.89 billion refinancing of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, which Emirates Nuclear Energy Company (ENEC) described as the first transaction in the MENA region and Asia to be independently recognised as a green loan facility for a nuclear asset. Barakah generates around 40 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, provides up to 25 percent of the UAE’s electricity, and avoids approximately 22.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions each year, according to ENEC. FAB’s role in the refinancing illustrates how bank capital is being used not only to support clean-energy expansion, but also to strengthen the stability of the UAE’s lower-carbon power system through long-duration, dispatchable supply. This financing model was extended in 2025, when FAB issued what it described as the world’s first low-carbon energy bond by a financial institution, with proceeds earmarked to refinance eligible nuclear power generation projects under its Sustainable Finance Framework.

The UAE’s National Hydrogen Strategy 2050 supports industrial decarbonisation ambitions by targeting low-emission hydrogen production capacity of 1.4 million tonnes per year by 2031, rising to 7.5 million tonnes by 2040 and 15 million tonnes by 2050. Forecasts of domestic demand of 2.7 million tonnes per year by 2031 provide a foundation for substitution in hard-to-electrify sectors and export-oriented supply chains.

Water security has also emerged as a core transition priority. The UAE Water Security Strategy 2036 targets a 21 percent reduction in total demand and 95 percent reuse of treated water, with projected savings of AED 74 billion and emissions reductions of 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide related to desalination. Policy momentum toward decarbonised desalination is evident in Abu Dhabi’s target to produce 90 percent of desalinated water through reverse osmosis by 2030 and Dubai’s ambition to source 100 percent of desalinated water from clean energy and waste heat by the same year.

Together, these initiatives demonstrate execution at scale and the use of sustainable and transition finance to support sectoral transformation rather than isolated environmental outcomes.

UAE’s Global Role as Connector of Sustainable Capital and Solutions

Beyond domestic delivery, the UAE occupies a distinct position as a connector of global sustainable capital and emerging-market transition needs. This role reflects regulatory alignment, a well-capitalised banking system and the capacity to intermediate across public and private capital.

Bloomberg Intelligence data shows that nearly half of MENA’s USD 35.1 billion in sustainable debt issuance in 2025 was attributed to financial institutions, up from 32 percent in 2020. The UAE banking industry has assumed a key role, with local banks acting as arrangers, lenders and underwriters for renewable energy, low-carbon infrastructure, water and resilience projects, many located outside advanced economies. This bank-led structure is particularly relevant for emerging markets, where transition finance relies on intermediation capacity rather than concessional flows alone.

The UAE’s engagement with multilateral institutions, including contributions to the International Monetary Fund’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust and co-financing arrangements with development banks, reflects a model in which public capital is used to crowd in private investment. Concurrently, the UAE hosts one of the world’s largest sukuk markets, with Nasdaq Dubai and ADGM serving as major centres for listing and structuring sustainable and transition-linked debt.

The Next Phase of ESG Leadership

The coming decade will determine whether the UAE’s sustainability framework delivers durable outcomes or plateaus once early momentum dissipates. With a 40 percent emissions reduction target by 2030 and a net zero objective by 2050, the country has already moved from ambition to commitment. The next phase will be defined by execution at scale.

Throughout this transition, the UAE banking system will remain a central delivery channel rather than a peripheral enabler. ESG leadership will increasingly be measured through three system-wide outcomes. Impact will depend on whether sustainable and transition finance continues to flow into sectors that anchor the real economy, including energy, industry, infrastructure, transport and water, where emissions exposure, resilience challenges and capital needs are most concentrated.

Integrity will rest on the credibility of the data, disclosures and governance that underpin these flows, ensuring that transition finance is aligned with forward-looking pathways and supervisory expectations. Resilience will be demonstrated by the financial system’s ability to sustain these disciplines across economic cycles, maintaining investor confidence and comparability as transition risks evolve.

As global sustainable finance moves beyond green assets toward economy-wide transformation, the UAE’s role is increasingly defined by its capacity to align policy, regulation and banking-led capital mobilisation. This alignment between ambition and execution will shape the country’s ESG leadership over the next decade.