UAE’s green building industry makes progress after authorities intervene

The design for the Midfield Terminal Building at Abu Dhabi International Airport has been awarded three pearls in accordance to the Estidama building rating system. Courtesy choppershoot.com

DUBAI // The environmental performance of the building sector has been improved by Government intervention, experts have agreed.

The more stringent requirements for new buildings have helped create a market for green materials and technologies, while increasing knowledge among industry professionals.

The transformation, said Jeff Willis, associate director of Arup, an international engineering and consulting firm, has been in the making since 2006 when the Government first started taking notice of the achievements of leading entities in the sector.

The discussion took place at the Urban Agenda 2020 conference, which was part of the Dubai Municipality-sponsored Outdoor Design, Build and Supply Exhibition at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

“In 2006, probably no government department had the word sustainability in any vision,” said Mr Willis who is also vice chairman of the Emirates Green Building Council, also created in that year.

“Now it is in all the visions and all the missions of all the government departments and whether or not everybody in those departments understands what it means is sort of secondary at the moment,” he said. “The point is that it is there and people are talking about it and trying to think about it.”

In Abu Dhabi, buildings representing a gross floor area of 1.2 million square metres have already been completed in accordance with the Estidama building rating system introduced by the Urban Planning Council (UPC) in November 2010, said Adi Afaneh, associate assessor at the council. Buildings amounting to an area of six million square metres are currently under construction.

The system made it compulsory for all new buildings in the capital to achieve a rating of one pearl, out of a maximum of five, by implementing basic energy and water consumption reduction measures and other steps. Projects built for the Government have to earn at least two pearls.

“We have seen a number of projects that went beyond that mandate,” said Mr Afaneh.

Among those is the Sheikh Zayed Desert Learning Centre in Al Ain. Set to open soon, it will be the first building to achieve a five-pearl rating. After its design has been already awarded three pearls, the Midfield Terminal Building set to open in 2017 at Abu Dhabi International Airport, is "the biggest singular-rated building in the world" with an area of 700,000 square metres, he said.

When the system was first introduced some within the industry expressed concern over higher costs or the lack of availability of specialised products.

“In terms of overcoming resistance, yes it was the first few months, maybe the first year but people are getting it, consultants are getting it, contractors started to get it and we always remind people it is good practice, we are not asking anything above good practice,” said Mr Afaneh. “We are asking for designs that respect this harsh environment.”

In Dubai, the municipality started implementing green building requirements on government projects since 2010 and so far more than 50 projects have been certified under the new regulations, said Kamal Azayem, mechanical engineering expert at the municipality’s building department. Since March of this year, private developers have also had to comply.

By creating the demand for specialised products, the Government is helping drive prices down, said Mr Azayem, giving as an example a rule introduced by the municipality in early 2013 which required new single-owner buildings to install solar hot water systems. Before the rule was introduced, there were a handful of suppliers and the price of a 300-litre system was up to Dh10,000, he said. “Now there are 30 to 35 suppliers and prices went down form Dh10,000 to Dh4,000 or Dh5,000,” he said.

Mr Willis said Dubai's Expo 2020 bid also places a major focus on sustainability with targets for buildings performance. Among them is a requirement for energy use not to be higher than 70 watts per square metre, while currently "120 to 250 watts per square metre is not unusual" in Dubai, he said.

While efforts are made to design and construct buildings that perform better, a key area missed is how buildings and operated and maintained, said Mr Willis.

“It is still the fact that the facilities managers are entirely at the discretion of the owner of the building, which may not be the developer,” he said, explaining that in some cases sophisticated hi-tech systems are operated by low-paid staff who may lack the necessary experience.