SUSTAINABLE FUTURE Is legislation needed by regional governments to make sustainability work for future generations? Holley Chant
Electricity and water subsidies need to be tapered off and then eliminated. Subsidies create a market failure that is really tough to get around. Tis money could be better spent in the development of social infrastructure for the people.
Rob Cooke
Tere needs to be a balance between incentive, enforcement and education. Forcing legislation is not always a good thing, it can be very complicated and there are often perverse impacts from sudden shocks - although programmes such as Estidama have shown that a big difference can be made very quickly. Incentives would be useful in the region, such as reducing the existing subsidies; and increased awareness will make a big difference. We also need more people across the industry making more noise about their success and raising the bar for new projects.
Adnan Sharafi
We are already seeing a concerted approach by regional governments in this direction. Te vision of the UAE government through its ‘Green Economy for Sustainable Development,’ strategy will serve as a key driver for progress in developing sustainable built environments and promoting overall sustainability.
Matthew Plumbridge
Legislation is about quality not quantity. However, we must appreciate that this region is going through accelerated economic development and new laws are always required, particularly as Abu Dhabi strives to be among the top five governments in the world.
How do programmes like Abu Dhabi’s Estidama drive the message home, and is a regional certification system needed?
Holley Chant Estidama is an extremely positive organisation driving institutional change toward sustainable development. We have clients who want to use it in other emirates – for consistency - but we can’t provide the Pearl assessment for them elsewhere in the UAE and they end up using LEED or sometimes BREAAM Gulf. It appears that the Qatar Sustainability Assessment System (QSAS) will soon become the Gulf Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS); and I am told that Kuwait is poised to adopt it.
Rob Cooke
We should be using the example and lessons learnt from the Estidama programme to establish a new consistent base level across the UAE that may not have the full depth and detail of Estidama, but raises the minimum standards. Tere also needs to be minimum performance standards for existing systems, buildings and infrastructure to make a real difference. Tere are examples of other countries across the region developing their own codes, but this is not a simple or cheap process, so where possible it seems logical to combine forces/ approach in some way.
Matthew Plumbridge
Te message began long before Estidama was developed. Te LEED programme from the US pioneered the idea of green building rating tools. Of the 39,000 buildings that have been through the LEED process, eight per cent have been from the Middle East. Te intent of building rating tools like Estidama and LEED are to raise the minimum standards of all buildings. Fortunately, with the advent of the Abu Dhabi International Energy Conservation Code, the building rating tools have had the desired effect. So the question is really should we have standardised GCC- wide building regulations that have sustainability embedded throughout?
About World EcoConstruct
World EcoConstruct, a crucial collaboration between Abu Dhabi’s two leading building and construction events, CityBuild and Arabian Construction Week, is the region’s only dedicated exhibition focusing on sustainable design and construction for the built environment. Co- located with the 6th edition of Cityscape Abu Dhabi, it provides a crucial sourcing and knowledge platform for the billions of dollars committed to major projects within Abu Dhabi and the surrounding region. World EcoConstruct is supported by its Foundation Partner, the Department of Municipal Affairs; Sustainable Knowledge Partner, Masdar City; Strategic Partner, Emirates Green Building Council; Principal Sponsor, Emirates Steel; and endorsed by the UAE Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Adnan Sharafi
Rating systems can be useful as they help provide a means to measure the level of sustainability of a building, and it is even more effective when they are tied in with building codes. While some countries may understandably choose to develop their own rating system based on their individual regulatory systems, a region-wide system could be just as beneficial because most of the Middle East countries face the same challenges due to extreme environments and resource use l
40 I CITYSCAPE I APRIL 2012
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