Eid Al Fitr and Creativity: Reflection and celebration as drivers of innovation

Eid Al Fitr and Creativity: Reflection and celebration as drivers of innovation

This year the UN’s Creativity and Innovation Day falls on the eve of Eid. Creativity and innovation are the central pillars of any business or economy. This has always been the case: When man realised that a wheel could be used to transport objects, or when our ancestors in the Emirates mastered the art of irrigation in the Oasis of Al Ain, individuals and teams needed to apply critical thinking, but most importantly they needed to be creative. It is creativity and innovation that drives progress. For energy companies dealing with some of the most complex and intractable challenges of our times such as energy transition, the role of creativity has never been more critical. Take an area like Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS). The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Sustainable Development Scenario, states that carbon capture technologies will play an important role in supporting modern and flexible power systems. But we are not there yet. We are relying on technological advances to be deployed at scale, and to get there we need creativity and innovation. Every day, people in the energy sector are tackling the most complex engineering, technical and logistical challenges. While it is a sector rightly known