While temperatures across the UAE will peak at around 45C over the next few days and humidity expected to reach around 90% according to the National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology.

Every day, there are many labourers who work across the United Arab Emirates, even during the summer heat. Despite working hours being significantly reduced during the month of fasting – Ramadan (which falls during the hot summer in the UAE) – as a mark of respect to them while they fast, the weather conditions around remain hot and challenging.

During Ramadan 2016, since we couldn’t change the weather conditions around them, we instead enabled them to take those weather conditions on and beat the heat this summer. FP7/DXB (A part of McCann Worldgroup) in Dubai along with Starcom MediaVest Group have introduced The A/C Vests – a meaningful idea for Emirates NBD, a leading banking Group in the Middle East.

The AC Vests

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The A/C Vests are unique vests specially made with submersible materials, different from the typical safety vests that labourers wear during the summer heat. With cooling mechanisms and refrigeration facilities being virtually non-existent on construction sites, like anywhere else in the world, these A/C vests function based on using something that’s easily available across all camps: Water.

All that needs to be done is to submerge the vests in water. And once the labourers put them on, within minutes they start to feel the effect of the jacket as it reduces the temperature by 5 to 7 degrees.

100s of these specially made vests have been given to workers in Ramadan this year, with many more on the way as the bank’s Business Banking unit is reaching out to business owners across the country within the construction industry, with the video and the idea as direct marketing tools, to encourage implementation of The A/C Vests across their workforce across sites and camps during the summer months. Interested business owners or entrepreneurs are also encouraged to write to Emirates NBD if they’d like to help scale this idea further at businessbanking@emiratesnbd.com.