PLANET SA, a Greece-based management and project management consulting company, has been selected by the Royal Commission for Riyadh City as the lead consultant for the “Cooling Riyadh Project”.

The project is one of the most ambitious international efforts to mitigate the urban heat island effect at a metropolitan scale and is considered the first initiative globally to comprehensively redesign urban thermal conditions across an entire city, the company said in a statement earlier this month.

Implemented within the framework of the Green Riyadh Programme, the project includes developing a city-wide cooling strategy for Riyadh, preparing urban planning and building material guidelines, and identifying five pilot districts where new urban cooling solutions will be tested and evaluated.

The project aligns with the kingdom’s national climate transition initiatives, including the Saudi Green Initiative.

Over the course of 12 months, the project will deliver a broad framework for understanding Riyadh’s thermal challenges and a practical roadmap for reducing urban heat through data-driven analysis, sustainable urban planning, and resilient infrastructure practices, PLANET said. 

Beyond its local impact, the initiative is expected to serve as an international reference model for cities facing increasingly extreme temperatures due to climate change, it added.

(Editing by Anoop Menon) (anoop.menon@lseg.com)

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