The Green Building initiative

It made big news in a city where a shiny new building appears on the skyline almost every day. The Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development (MECSD), established by the Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) regulatory arm of Dubai World and Pacific Control Systems, was inaugurated on October 27 last year.

The very next day, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, announced the Green Building directive that would change the way the prospective skyscrapers would be built.

"The day after MECSD was inaugurated the royal announcement came. We knew this was going to happen, that Dubai was going to become green from January 1, 2008," says Stephen Marney, general manager, MECSD.

"From October to January 1, MECSD needed to ensure that all the criteria for going green in Dubai were in place under the directives of EHS." And they did.

To the north, on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, an ambitious project intended to take the capital into the next energy boom is in the making. This time the source is not from below the ground but from the sun that blazes down on the emirate in equal measure.

With the Masdar Initiative, Abu Dhabi is seeking to become a centre for the development and implementation of clean energy technology.

The initiative is a far-reaching programme that seeks to rope in various companies, government offices and universities around the world to help develop and commercialise renewable energy technologies.

The model will be Masdar City, "the world's first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city". "We are creating a city where residents and commuters will live the highest quality of life with the lowest environmental footprint," says Dr Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar.

"Masdar City will become the world's hub for future energy. By taking sustainable development and living to a new level, it will lead the world in understanding how all future cities should be built."

Ultimately, Masdar's aim is to become the centre of clean energy, both producing research and selling the technology. And in a decade, Abu Dhabi should have expertise in solar energy, photovoltaics, energy storage, carbon sequestration and hydrogen fuel.

Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah have their own initiatives on sustainable development too. "We also plan to implement rules for sustainable architecture like the LEED certification for green building rules that Dubai has just implemented," says Samer Kamal, managing director of Bee'ah, The Sharjah Environment Company.

LEED or The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design was developed by the US Green Building Council. It is recognised globally as the benchmark standard for sustainable development.

"We are looking at taking the principles of the LEED certification and identifying how it can be modified to meet regional requirements," Samer explains. "For example, in this part of the world, you can substantially reduce the amount of energy in the form of airconditioning by having a series of smaller windows that allow the light in without inundating the room with sunshine through very large windows.

In the same way, you can also control the amount of heat that enters. Our focus is to integrate such regional energy-saving concepts into the new sustainable architecture. It is essential when you are planning a building that you use as much recyclable material as possible so that once the lifespan of the building is over, it does not contribute to disposable waste."

Gateway City is Ras Al Khaimah's answer to Masdar. Scheduled to be completed in 2012, the plan is to make it entirely sustainable.

In fact, they call it the 'no exit' city, meaning that inhabitants would never feel the need to ever exit the city.

Gateway will not be a stand-alone city, but serve to "service, support and supplement Ras Al Khaimah". It will also provide a tangible link between the past, present and future by using traditional and locally-sourced materials and architecture to support their ethos of sustainability.

The city will utilise cutting-edge solar technology and the 'smart building' concept that incorporates narrow streets and open green spaces to increase natural lighting and shading.

Despite initial scepticism, all the emirates have proved that they mean business. Masdar has already started a $250 million "clean technology fund" and begun construction of a special economic zone for the advanced-energy industry. It has also announced plans to build a 100-MW solar plant in the area, and announced the formation of a graduate teaching and research institute in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) would be the world's first graduate school dedicated to renewable energy and will maintain a body of students and professors focused on developing the next generation of solutions to the world's growing dependence on fossil fuels.

Dubai is not far behind either. The United Arab Emirates has been singled out as one of the highest per capita emitters of carbon monoxide and other greenhouse gases, and the reason is its high energy demand for air-conditioning and lighting.

Electricity is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. And buildings are the single largest consumers of electricity.

Lighting is the largest portion of a building's electricity consumption and is the single most controllable influence to carbon emissions and climate change. This is precisely where the Dubai's Green Building directive will score.

''This decision will position Dubai as the first city in the Middle East and among few cities in the world to adopt the green building strategy," said Mohammad Al Gergawi, Chairman of the Executive Office in Dubai, while announcing the directive.

"Our agenda is to facilitate the rules and regulations that will make Dubai's buildings greener," says Marney.

What about the existing skyscrapers? How can they switch from being 'fuel-guzzlers' to being energy efficient?

"The best way is to have it inbuilt, of course," says Stephen. "The announcement that was made was for all new projects announced after January 1.

So we don't know whether the government will decide that all old buildings will have to be retrospectively fitted or retrospectively comply with the legislation. At this stage, no. However, MECSD has the technology, formula, manpower and the expertise to help any developer of an old project who wants to modify his project to suit the initiative. This is also LEED compliant, he adds.

So, is MECSD more like a consultant or a facilitator? "When we talk to architects and developers and all those who are involved in the onceptualisation of a building project, we not only educate them about the legislation (Green Building directive) but all the terms and conditions that they need to adhere to in order to qualify as a green building.

There are a large number of requirements for green building development," he explains. "What we try to do is examine every single plan, every single building, to see how we can maximise the points that they can collect to get their green building certification."

What are the guidelines that form the basis of the Green Building directive? "I can't tell you what those guidelines are as there about 238 of them!" exclaims Stephen.

"I can give you one or two examples: the process briefly is when we receive an application for a new project, we create an energy model for it.

So we test the plan of the building by taking a look at the materials they are using, what kind of air-conditioning plant they are using, location of the building, what is the orientation of the building on the piece of land.

All of this can determine how energy-efficient the building is going to be.

At the end of the exercise we are able to help the developer determine whether to continue along the same line or alter some of their ideas or plans to meet the new regulations. It's quite a complex process that involves a number of different criteria."

Does this necessarily hike the cost of the building? "In the short term. yes. But that is natural as the supply chain of commodities still has to get used to supplying new products required for a green building," says Stephen.

"Once that is in place, the cost will reduce. Secondly, since there will be tremendous energy saving once you
get into the Green Building design, the gestation period before the project breaks even will be reduced.

So designing a Green Building may be slightly more expensive to begin with, but in the long term you save money and that is what matters."

It is a definite win-win situation for all those who are directly or indirectly involved with the project. "Apart from the overall ecological benefits, the benefit to the developer is that the operation of the building is going to be less expensive," points out Stephen.

"What is happening now in Dubai is the government has placed its initiative here not only to save resources but also to make people's lives a lot healthier in terms of the type and amount of airconditioning being used and the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. The Green Building initiative addresses these issues as well."

The response to the initiative has been extremely encouraging. More and more developers from across the UAE are showing interest in building projects that not only meet the basic requirements set by the Green Building initiative but much more than that.

"Some of the new developers not only want to build one skyscraper but develop a whole cluster of them that are fully compliant with the legislation and that's a tremendous thing for a developer to do – to go beyond what the government is saying must be the minimum.

There are even enquiries from the rest of the Gulf region and some parts of the Middle East have started already. So people are paying attention and are willing to do their part for the environment and the future," says Stephen.

The natural conclusion is that once the greening of Dubai is on track, the MECSD would be able to sell their know-how to the other parts of the world.

"We have no immediate plans to market our expertise because our focus right now is on Dubai, the UAE and perhaps the GCC as a whole since we have already had enquiries from other countries in the region. We'd be delighted to work with any developer who wants to try and halt the global degradation of resources."

But he goes on to add: "The lessons we are learning and the information we are gathering from helping the developers to green the entire vicinity means that we can now export this knowledge to other parts of the world."

"Dubai is uniquely positioned to lead the region in sustainable development and demonstrate to the rest of the world that building green can be both simple and cost-effective," says Pete Horton, vice-president market development, Watt Stopper/Legrand.

"As an example, implementing multi-level lighting with automatic shut-off can achieve 60 per cent energy savings. Because of the Green Building directive, these practices are becoming standard in Dubai, and will have a huge impact in the region."

The challenge now would be to make a city carbon neutral. "It's a mammoth task, but I think we've just taken our first steps towards that goal," Stephen muses.

Masdar City

Abu Dhabi's Masdar City aims at:
-Seventy-five per cent reduction in installed power capacity. Masdar City will require approximately 200 megawatts of installed clean power versus more than 800 megawatts of installed capacity to power a similar city based on conventional design.

- Water needs cut by more than half. Masdar City will require around 8,000 cubic metres per day of desalinated water versus more than 20,000 cubic metres per day for traditional cities.

- Landfill area severely diminished. A city of this size would've required millions of square metres of landfill area; Masdar City will need virtually no landfill area.

- Apart from this, Masdar City will be the first city to operate without fossil fuelled automobiles. The design of the city will allow individuals to live and work without the need for a personal vehicle. Also being created is the first large-scale transportation system that is carbon neutral and emission free.

- Masdar will deploy an integrated transportation system that will utilise revolutionary Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and the Material Rapid Transit (MRT) systems that, together with pedestrian and public transit methods, will safely move people, goods and emergency services in a multi-level, barrier-free environment. The PRT will have 2,500 vehicles generating 150,000 trips per day, and the MRT will be capable of making 5,000 trips each day. Masdar City is set to be completed by 2015.

Green Building rules

It is mandatory for all new buildings in Dubai to be certified 'Green' from January 1, 2008. There are various levels of Green certification. "Different developments require different levels," says Stephen. "A mandatory EHS certification is the basic one.

They've decided which of the points from the LEED certification point system they are going to apply as the minimum level. Above that is the silver level, where more efficient buildings are given a silver certificate, then there's the gold certificate, and the platinum, for the buildings that are almost self-sustaining."

The Pacific Controls building in Dubai (above) is platinum-certified. What are the criteria for the certification? "The USGBC is recognised globally as the standard for Green Building and sustainable development," explains Stephen.

"So though Dubai has adopted that as the benchmark, within the United States there are variables; you can have mountainous regions which are cold and snowy throughout the year and desert conditions which are hot and dry most of the year.

So we are working very closely with the USGBC to see how we can continue to develop standards which are applicable to our part of the world here. If we are asked to do it in another part of the Middle East or another part of the world there are other standards we can apply as well.

The list of criteria for sustainable development is impossible to list because buildings are different, anything from hotels to a vast open space like a shopping mall to a gymnasium… We're also looking at huge new complexes, on the Palm for example, and it's so vastly different depending on the usage, everything from offices to private apartments.

So the use of the building plays a huge part in how you determine the energy saving. "Photo voltaic cells on window panels of the building to convert sunlight into energy is a small part of it. When we put the energy model of each building, there's a section in the energy modelling that talks about heat transfer and there are so many different ways to measure the transfer of heat and how that can be used.

Also, how much airconditioning is going to be used to combat an over-heating of the building or what we can do before we use airconditioning to combat it. Is there another way by using panels, by utilising and harnessing the sun's energy into a solar panel for example,which is a good way of solving the issue.

If for example, if buildings in the region have a flat roof, you can put some solar panels to generate electricity to run something of a panel source or use the power to run your airconditioning plant, or heat water.

That's one function of the solar panel. The secondary function is that on the roof it's collecting all the sun's heat, so the roof is remaining cool so the heat transfer from the roof to
the inside of the building is dramatically reduced because the primary function of the solar panel is to attract the sun's energy. That's the fundamental issue: looking at ways
to harness the power."