Dana Kamal is a young Iraqi entrepreneur and the owner of GreenScape, a landscaping company that provides high-quality and cost-effective landscape solutions for residential, commercial and urban projects in the Kurdistan Region and wider Iraq. He founded GreenScape in 2013 with a group of ambitious, creative, highly-skilled landscapers and engineers, with a vision of helping clients achieve their ideal outdoor experience.
Dana Kamal is a young Iraqi entrepreneur and the owner of GreenScape, a landscaping company that provides high-quality and cost-effective landscape solutions for residential, commercial and urban projects in the Kurdistan Region and wider Iraq. He founded GreenScape in 2013 with a group of ambitious, creative, highly-skilled landscapers and engineers, with a vision of helping clients achieve their ideal outdoor experience.
But in water-strapped Iraq – among the top five countries most affected by climate change globally – those interested in this sector need to get creative. Indeed, Dana’s company recently established a smart drip irrigation system (an innovative method for climate-smart watering) for a pomegranate garden in Halabja.
Installing an irrigation system. (IOM Iraq/2022)
"Our deeper aim is to redesign cities with more nature, to further penetrate the agricultural sector with improved irrigation and to save water. For this purpose, eco-friendly systems are essential to realizing our sustainability plans," he explained.
Though Dana wants to implement sustainable urban projects, he recognizes that in practice, his vision demands a stronger sustainability culture in Iraqi society. In line with this, GreenScape is committed to enriching its systems through the use of sustainable products, improving its design skills and expanding its engineering experience.
Unfortunately, Iraq's private sector faces many challenges, including a lack of supportive industrial policies and limited access to financial and other necessary support services.
“Because clean and renewable energy materials are expensive, there should be efforts to minimize taxes on them. Simultaneously, financing should be made available to enterprises that provide clean and renewable services in order for them to thrive.” Dana said.
With city populations growing and greenery shrinking, new approaches to greening residential areas are needed. An example of GreenScape work. (IOM Iraq/2022)
He Dana continues: "We must not be indifferent to the identified difficulties that have contributed to water shortage. Plan B, which is water management through the use of advanced irrigation systems in agricultural projects, must be implemented."
Dana's mission is to provide the best outdoor experience possible within cities. (IOM Iraq/2022)
"Before, we had to import the trees and flowers we used, but after the EDF grant we were able to establish multiple greenhouses. We now use our own trees and flowers for our projects, and we were able to hire [15] more employees to maintain our greenhouse and addsolar panels to supply electricity instead of a generator," Dana told us.
Solar electricity was installed to operate the water pump. Image: IOM Iraq / 2022
EDF-Green will target innovators in the agricultural sector and those contributing to climate resilience, including those working in waste sorting and recycling, renewable energy, food processing, agriculture and other green areas. The initiative is planned for launch in Sulaymaniyah, Diyala and Baghdad governorates in March and April of 2023, with qualifying green enterprises able to apply for a grant to increase their green activities.
These activities were made possible thanks to support from the Government of Germany, through KfW.
Story by: Aram Hakim
