Maison Safqa, a members-only private sales platform, has officially launched in Saudi Arabia, providing a curated online destination for luxury fashion and lifestyle at exclusive prices. Designed specifically for the modern Saudi shopper, the platform combines international prestige with regional creativity, debuting with well-known global brands and planning to gradually showcase emerging Saudi designers.

Read-How Saudi Arabia leveraged events and influencers to boost reputation

The platform redefines access to luxury style by offering time-limited private sales that allow members to shop premium fashion, lifestyle, and beauty products with a sense of exclusivity and excitement. Each brand appears on the platform for a limited period, creating urgency and freshness with every drop—from coveted high-end labels to rising global designers.

“Maison Safqa was built on the idea that each brand deserves a dedicated off-price sales channel to maximize its performance and reach without compromising the equity and name they have built,” said Co-founder and CEO Léa Mehaweg. “For our customers, we wanted to create a space where they could shop premium and luxury brands with insider prices, without sacrificing experience or taste.”

Luxury brands often face challenges with fast-moving fashion cycles leaving excess inventory. Maison Safqa turns this into an advantage by providing a private, members-only platform where brands can discreetly reintroduce past collections. This strategy protects brand prestige, preserves value, and keeps luxury on its own terms.

Now live in Saudi Arabia, Maison Safqa offers a fresh approach to fashion, luxury, and digital exclusivity for discerning shoppers.

For too long, the global response to climate change has been reactive, sluggish, and above all, mispriced. Flood defences, solar infrastructure, water recycling systems—these lifesaving essentials are often framed as burdensome costs on public balance sheets, rather than what they truly are: economic stabilisers and future-proof growth engines. It’s not just bad accounting. It’s a dangerous illusion.

In the Gulf, where sun and sand are abundant, and where cities like Dubai have shown what’s possible with speed and scale, the time has come to pivot from damage control to proactive efficiency. That shift won’t be driven by slogans or subsidies alone—it will be driven by smarter investment logic.

Climate change doesn’t send invoices—it sends storms

In April 2024, a record-breaking storm brought Dubai to a standstill. Roads turned into rivers. Power systems are strained. Insurance payouts skyrocketed. What looked like a “once-in-a-century” disaster soon proved to be just the beginning of a recurring pattern.

Yet many of the world’s economic systems still categorise climate preparedness as “optional.” The cost of building a solar farm or rethinking coastal urban planning is still filed under ‘expenditure’, while the trillions quietly burned in reactive cleanups, lost productivity, inflationary food imports, and healthcare bills don’t show up under the same scrutiny.

This is precisely the accounting fallacy that needs urgent recalibration. Because when climate volatility becomes the new baseline, business-as-usual is not just bad policy—it’s financially reckless.

Growth, but smarter

We’ve all inherited an economic model obsessed with expansion. Bigger buildings. Faster growth. Higher quarterly returns. But growth without efficiency on a finite planet is not strategy—it’s entropy. The real economic revolution lies in radical efficiency. That means squeezing every unit of value from every kilowatt, every kilo, every line of code and capital. Not to scale back ambition—but to scale smart.

Clean energy is no longer a boutique concept. It is outpacing fossil fuel investments globally, creating jobs, stabilising grids, and offering long-term resilience in the face of chaos. Our own work, from building the world’s largest Community Solar Power Programme to deploying zero-emission tire recycling tech in emerging markets, reflects this philosophy: minimise waste, maximise value, decentralise access.

This isn’t charity. This is smart capitalism, rebooted.

The UAE has the tools. Let’s use them.

Few regions are as uniquely positioned as the UAE to lead this charge. There is wealth. There is vision. There is speed. When storms hit, local authorities act swiftly. Infrastructure rebuilds happen in days—not years. But we need to move from swift reaction to strategic prevention.

Dubai’s coastline regeneration, solar megaprojects, and water management efforts prove that when there’s political will, the technological roadmap already exists. What’s needed now is a broader shift in how we measure ROI—not just for governments but for corporations and capital markets.

Why isn’t a climate-resilient supply chain considered a premium asset? Why do insurance companies still treat climate-linked damage as “acts of God” when the causes are very much human? Why do investment dashboards still struggle to assign monetary value to prevention?

It’s time to stop asking whether we can afford climate interventions and start asking how we ever afforded not to.

Read: Sheikh Mohammed establishes Dubai’s climate change authority

Investing in stability, not just returns

We don’t need a revolution in technology—we need a revolution in thinking. Renewable asset-backed instruments, such as the SDBN tokens, are just one example of how new models can offer both steady returns and climate resilience. Sunmoney’s community solar programme shareholders, on the other hand, receive monthly payouts based on actual solar energy production, tying their digital investment directly to real-world infrastructure. When linked to circular economy solutions like our Resun zero-emission tire recycling initiative, the value multiplies: environmental waste becomes industrial input, with zero emissions and global portability. The system can even convert waste into electricity in an ecological manner, proving that discarded materials aren’t just pollutants—they’re untapped energy sources.

These aren’t hypotheticals—they’re operational, profitable, and rapidly scalable.

Efficiency is the new growth

The next economic superpower won’t be the country with the largest GDP or the most skyscrapers. It will be the one that uses the least energy to achieve the most outcomes. The one that builds resilience, not just revenue. The one that turns survival into a dividend. These ideas—about efficiency, adaptation, and economic resilience—have also surfaced in recent conversations on We Are Endangered Species podcast that explores the human side of the climate crisis through the lens of lived experience and practical innovation.

This isn’t about giving up on growth. It’s about redefining it. A megawatt saved is a balance sheet strengthened. A recycled resource is a supply chain secured. A storm prevented is GDP protected.

The future belongs to those who stop mistaking climate action for cost and start recognising it as the most important investment of our time.

Aqua Index, a company founded in 2007 by high-tech entrepreneur and commodities expert Yaacov Shirazi, is working to reshape how the world values, prices, and trades water. With a recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with DMCC in Dubai, the company is positioning the UAE as a hub for a new frontier in environmental finance: water tokenisation.

Shirazi, who holds over 700 approved patent claims covering water pricing algorithms and blockchain-based trading systems, says Aqua Index’s core innovation lies in its ability to transform both virtual and physical water into a structured asset class.

“At Aqua Index, we’ve developed two foundational technologies. The first transforms virtual water, embedded in agricultural commodities, into a financial benchmark,” he said. “Given that over 70 percent of the world’s freshwater is used in agriculture, we extract a water index price by analysing international commodity futures, each product’s water footprint, its wet mass, and yield efficiency.”

This proprietary process produces a virtual water index, much like the S&P 500, which can then be used to create structured financial products and debt instruments.

The company’s second core innovation is physical water tokenisation. “We’ve patented the ability to assign a financial instrument to localised water sources based on verified quality metrics, mineral composition, and regional utility,” said Shirazi. “These water-backed tokens are issued on blockchain and function much like warehouse certificates for gold, representing real-world, auditable reserves stored in aquifers or lakes.”

The tokens are tradable and, critically, redeemable. “Yes,” Shirazi confirmed. “Our first physical tokens are backed by water sourced from a regulated aquifer in Texas, which already supplies manufacturers and industrial users. Holders can redeem tokens by taking delivery at established distribution points where you simply connect your tanker and draw down your allocation.”

Market value and pricing dynamics

Aqua Index’s pricing model is built around standardised inputs. “We use globally recognised commodity prices and water usage metrics to derive regional and international benchmark indices,” he said. “These indices aggregate supply and demand variables through a weighted-average model, similar to how energy or food indices are constructed.”

Physical water tokens reflect more granular variables like source quality and infrastructure proximity. “While the index provides macro-level benchmarking, the token’s floating price will ultimately reflect real-time market dynamics and local scarcity, encouraging transparent price discovery and global liquidity,” he explained.

Read: DFSA’s Charlotte Robins on how its Tokenisation Sandbox is gaining traction

New trading infrastructure via DMCC

With the DMCC agreement in place, Aqua Index plans to help build a full water-trading ecosystem in Dubai.

“We are actively working with DMCC and Dubai-based regulated entities to set up the full ecosystem, which includes digital exchanges, custodians, brokers, and licensed trading platforms,” Shirazi said. “Liquidity will be enhanced through market-making arrangements, listing mechanisms, and eventually, the introduction of derivative contracts and structured products.”

He credits DMCC’s regulatory clarity and commodities infrastructure as key advantages. “The DMCC, under the visionary leadership of Ahmed bin Sulayem, is the world’s premier free zone for commodities and already houses infrastructure for trading metals, energy, and now water.”

Overcoming regulatory hurdles and enabling ESG finance

Tokenising a finite natural resource like water is not without challenges. “One of our main focus areas is meeting VARA’s (Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority) criteria for token issuers,” Shirazi said. “While we intend to become a licensed issuer, we may initially launch tokens via an existing regulated entity.”

Importantly, Aqua Index’s approach aligns with ESG frameworks. “Our model incentivises better water stewardship by recognising water as a valued, collateralised asset,” Shirazi noted. “It naturally encourages investment in conservation, infrastructure upgrades, and long-term water security—critical ESG goals for both private and public sectors.”

Adoption, hedging tools, and future roadmap

Initial adopters include commodity traders, institutional investors, and large-scale water consumers such as agriculture groups and manufacturers. “These entities seek efficient tools for hedging, cost control, and capital optimisation,” he said.

As the platform matures, Aqua Index aims to introduce a suite of risk mitigation products. “We are developing derivatives, insurance mechanisms, and contract pools, similar to how oil or electricity markets function,” said Shirazi. “Different tokens will represent different geographies, allowing users to choose exposure according to their risk tolerance.”

Looking ahead, Shirazi envisions a five-year roadmap that includes ETFs, sovereign bonds backed by water reserves, and tokenised debt instruments for infrastructure development. “Ultimately, our goal is to establish Aqua Index as the global benchmark for water trading, on par with what ICE or CME represents for traditional commodities.”

Global vision, regional commitment

Although its operations are based in Dubai, Aqua Index is pursuing global partnerships with governments, utilities, WaterTech firms, and NGOs. “We’re engaging with stakeholders across North America, Latin America, South Asia, and the MENA region,” Shirazi said. “In addition to our core financial products, Aqua Index will support initiatives in education, water purification, and equitable access.”

He concluded, “We believe the time has come to assign water its rightful place in the global financial system as a tradeable, collateralised, and transparent commodity. Our mission is to provide the tools, platforms, and governance models to make this a reality, starting from the UAE and expanding globally.”

In a city known for mega-projects and high-profile real estate launches, MAG Group is taking a more intentional approach. Its new development, Keturah Ardh, isn’t just another cluster of luxury towers.

Chairman Moafaq Ahmad Al Gaddah says it’s a response to what today’s buyers are actually looking for: green space, wellness, and integrated communities. Here, he discusses the long-term thinking behind the project, and how it ties into the UAE’s evolving urban and investment priorities.

Tell us about your long-term vision behind developing a private city in one of the fastest-growing areas of Dubai.

Our vision is to create a next-generation city that redefines what urban living can and should be. We saw a rare opportunity to build a fully integrated private city that goes beyond traditional development.

Keturah Ardh is designed to offer more than just homes or commercial space — it’s a holistic environment that combines art, nature, and wellness to elevate the quality of life. The project also supports Dubai’s ambition to be a global leader in innovative and sustainable urban development.

How does the Keturah Ardh development align with Dubai’s 2040 Urban Master Plan and the emirate’s broader vision for sustainable urban growth?

Keturah Ardh was designed in alignment with the key pillars of the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan, namely sustainability, enhanced quality of life, and smart land use. The development integrates green infrastructure, walkable spaces, and environmentally responsible design.

With over 100,000 trees and a clear focus on sustainable urban growth, Keturah Ardh not only supports but also amplifies the emirate’s broader vision for long-term, people-centric, and climate-resilient development.

The concept of ‘Life-Scaping’ is central to the project’s design philosophy. Can you elaborate on how this approach will transform the living experience for future residents?

‘Life-Scaping’ is a core philosophy of Keturah Ardh. It means designing spaces where nature is not an afterthought, but a foundational element of the built environment. By integrating mature trees, natural materials, and biophilic design throughout the project, we’re creating a living ecosystem that enhances physical and emotional wellbeing.

Residents will experience improved air quality, increased access to green space, and a stronger sense of connection to their surroundings. It’s a complete shift from conventional development toward a lifestyle that prioritises wellness and community.

What measures are being taken to ensure Keturah Ardh meets global sustainability standards, and how do certifications like LEED ND and WELL Building Standard factor into the project’s long-term impact?

Sustainability is embedded into every layer of Keturah Ardh. We are actively pursuing LEED for Neighborhood Development (LEED ND) and WELL Building Standard certifications to ensure the project meets the highest international benchmarks.

These certifications address both environmental impact and human health, covering everything from energy efficiency and water conservation to air quality and wellness features. Our goal is not just to meet the standards but to set new ones for sustainable luxury living in the region.

With growing demand from both regional and international investors, how is the UAE positioning itself as a long-term destination for high-end real estate investment?

Under the visionary leadership of the wise leadership, the UAE has made significant strides in positioning itself as a premier destination for high-end real estate investment.

Forward-thinking policies, such as long-term golden visas, full foreign ownership rights, and robust regulatory framework, are the result of a leadership that prioritises economic diversification, innovation, and global competitiveness.

Dubai, in particular, has emerged as a beacon for international investors, thanks to the continued guidance of Dubai’s leadership. The emirate’s stability, world-class infrastructure, and unmatched lifestyle offerings make it a natural choice for long-term, high-value investment.

How are changing buyer preferences, particularly around wellness, sustainability, and integrated communities, shaping future development strategies in the UAE?

Today’s buyers are more discerning than ever. They are no longer just looking for property, they are seeking environments that support their health, reflect their values, and foster meaningful connections. Wellness, sustainability, and a strong sense of community have become essential, not optional.

This shift is deeply aligned with the forward-looking vision of the UAE’s leadership, where the country has made remarkable progress in prioritizing human-centric urban planning and sustainable growth. These national priorities are now being translated into real, measurable expectations from a new generation of homeowners and global investors.

We view this evolution not as a trend, but as a defining force that shapes the future of real estate. Developments like Keturah Ardh are thoughtfully designed to meet these expectations, placing wellness, biophilic design, and social connectivity at the center of the living experience. It’s about contributing to a larger national vision where people, nature, and long-term well-being are seamlessly integrated into every layer of urban life.

In your view, what are the key economic or regulatory trends currently influencing the UAE’s real estate sector, and how is MAG Group adapting to stay ahead?

Several key factors are shaping the sector such as the UAE’s evolving visa and ownership laws, and a strong push for sustainability. We are aligning with these trends by partnering with global leaders, like CITIC Limited, and by investing in smart, sustainable developments.

We’ve secured all regulatory approvals for Keturah Ardh from bodies such as DDA, DEWA, and RTA, ensuring a smooth path forward.

Our approach is proactive, future-focused, and grounded in creating long-term value for residents and investors alike.

Read: MAG, MultiBank Group ink $3bn tokenisation deal for real estate assets

Apple announced on July 21 the expansion of its retail operations into the Saudi Arabia, unveiling the Apple Store online and the Apple Store app — both now available in Arabic for the first time. This milestone ushers in a new era for Saudi customers, who can now access Apple’s full range of products and services directly from Apple with dedicated local support.

Read-iPhone 17 rumours: What to know about features, possible price, release date

“We are thrilled to bring the Apple Store online and the Apple Store app to Saudi Arabia, offering customers a new way to explore and shop Apple’s extraordinary lineup of products and services,” said Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail and People. “Our customers in Saudi Arabia are passionate about the things they can do with technology, and our teams can’t wait to connect with customers and help them discover how Apple innovations can meaningfully enrich their daily lives.”

Personalised and seamless shopping experience

The Apple Store online is the ideal platform for customers in Saudi Arabia to discover, explore, and purchase Apple’s complete product lineup.

Through the Apple Store app, users benefit from a personalized shopping journey, with tailored product recommendations based on devices they already own. The app also enables customers to compare different models, save favorite items, and track orders conveniently, an Apple newsroom report said.

Particularly spotlighted is the new iPhone 16 lineup, which Apple highlights as “built from the ground up for Apple Intelligence.” This latest generation unlocks advanced capabilities to enhance user experience, while also taking a significant step forward in user privacy and data protection.

For Mac users, Apple offers customisable, configure-to-order options allowing shoppers to select specifications such as chip, memory, and storage to suit their unique needs. Apple Watch buyers can also personalize their devices by mixing and matching cases and bands for a distinct look.

In a first for Apple’s Arabic-speaking customers, free engraving is now available in both Arabic and English on select products including AirPods, Apple Pencil, and AirTag. Customers can add text, emojis, and numbers in dual languages at no additional cost via apple.com/sa-en/store.

Enhanced retail services tailored for Saudi customers

Apple’s retail services in Saudi Arabia are designed to provide a seamless and comprehensive shopping experience. Customers can connect with Apple experts through chat or phone for personalized product guidance, ensuring they find the device that best fits their lifestyle and needs.

After purchase, Apple offers online assistance with Personal Setup, which includes help migrating data safely when switching to iOS, and support for cellular activation.

In addition to flexible shopping options, Apple has partnered with Tamara to offer “Buy Now, Pay Later” installments at zero percent interest, allowing customers to pay over four months. This affordability program makes it easier for shoppers to access Apple’s latest technology without upfront financial strain.

Apple’s Trade In program is also available to Saudi customers, offering credit towards new devices when trading in eligible older devices. Devices that don’t qualify for credit can still be recycled for free, supporting Apple’s environmental commitment by reducing electronic waste and conserving resources.

Customers can also opt for AppleCare+, which provides two years of priority service and expert technical support for iPhone, Mac, iPad, and Apple Watch devices. The plan offers peace of mind through coverage options and priority access to Apple support teams.

Additionally, Apple’s Education Store offers exclusive discounts on Macs and iPads for higher education students, parents, and educators across all levels. Until September 30, eligible customers can also benefit from a special back-to-school promotion that includes free AirPods or accessories with the purchase of qualifying devices.

Looking ahead: Apple’s future physical stores in Saudi Arabia

Building on the momentum of its digital launch, Apple announced plans to open several flagship Apple Store locations in Saudi Arabia, beginning in 2026. Among these is a highly anticipated retail store in Diriyah, a UNESCO World Heritage site, which Apple describes as an iconic addition to the country’s cultural landscape.

This retail expansion complements Apple’s ongoing investments in the region, including the first Apple Developer Academy in the Middle East, which opened in Riyadh in 2021. The academy is a partnership with the Saudi government, Tuwaiq Academy, and Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, aimed at nurturing local talent in app development and technology innovation.

With the launch of the Apple Store online, app, and the upcoming physical stores, Apple is set to deepen its connection with Saudi Arabia’s tech-savvy consumers while supporting the country’s growing digital economy.