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Lootah's fleet of Ready Mix trucks have shown they can be fueled by B5 biodiesel.
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PMV is late to the interview with Yousif Lootah and the traffic isn’t helping. The exit off Dubai’s Al Ittihad Road is clogged and we’re facing ten minutes of frustration and danger in the slow lane, and annoyingly, the only thing moving is the clock display on the dashboard.

The problem it transpires as we crawl forward is a knuckle of construction activity around the new Al Anz Metro station that is extending a green finger of the line into that part of the city.

Before leaving the office that morning, news had come in that Mohammed Obaid Al Mulla, CEO of the Roads Transport Authority (RTA), had told the second International Transport Conference and Exhibition for the Middle East that Dubai had slashed the cost of time wasted in traffic congestion in the municipality from $1.6 billion in 2007 to $1.1 billion in 2009.
On the Al Ittihad road – for a few minutes at least – it is difficult to know which Dubai he was talking about.

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Al Mulla was at the conference to talk about the municipality’s plans to complete its rail and tram network by 2020 and take the burden of 30% of journeys.

The disruption around Al Anz will be nothing when the construction of a 318km-long rail line and a 270km tram line really kick in, but civil works disruption is not the only reason Al Mulla’s speech has added relevance today.

In his address he made a lot of the progress being made in greening the roads of Dubai, including hybrid engine vehicles in Dubai’s taxi fleet and new buses powered by Euro-4 compliant engines. The private sector, including pioneering companies like SS Lootah, is going to be a vital partner if it is going to achieve its 2020 aspirations.

SS Lootah’s own Green Car Program has made good progress since its inception; starting with the conversion of part of the company’s fleet to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), followed by the use of hybrid and electric cars in recent years.

The company’s efforts to promote sustainable transportation have earned it some coveted awards including the RTA’s Dubai Award for Sustainable Transport (DAST) in the conservation of environment category.

Its latest initiative is the topic of our interview, a recycling scheme that takes used cooking oil from the city’s restaurants and recycles it as a blended cocktail with diesel, otherwise known as biodiesel.

The multifaceted approach of SS Lootah is pioneering a green-print for private companies that takes sustainable transportation and vehicle operation quite a few steps further than the RTA’s attempts so far, and worthy of a today’s discussion.

From the off, Lootah explains that the company, which started in 1957, first in construction before diversifing into many other areas (86 individual companies form the group today), has a tradition of being at the leading edge of progress in the UAE.

“We opened the Dubai Islamic Bank, the first Islamic bank in the world,” he begins. “And the Dubai Medical College for Girls, the first further education institution of its kind. Also Al Islami the first halal food producer in the UAE.”