'Green design' legislative framework ready

Dubai Municipality has developed the new legislative framework for green design that will be implemented in all new buildings across Dubai by January 1 next year, a senior official revealed yesterday.

"These regulations will be in line with the Dubai Strategic Plan," said Essa Al Maidour, Dubai Municipality's Assistant Director-General for Planning and Building Affairs. "It will be an ongoing process for new buildings with a tier structure and will be implemented in phases."

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, ordered the implementation of green building standards from 2008. "With the higher authorities, the municipality and the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority were asked to look after the physical implementation. Earlier this year we issued Regulation 161 for green buildings. The second phase will start in 2009."

The municipality's buildings department developed the legislative framework to guide green building design in collaboration with consultants WSP. Fourteen bid for what was titled the green building regulatory project and WSP emerged the winners. A joint conference was held yesterday to outline the key features, give information about Dubai's vision for green buildings and explain the structure of the green building regulations.

"We commissioned WSP six months ago. The regulations that have come out of this effort will be mandatory for new buildings," said Maidour. "Meanwhile, the existing buildings are also a reality. Since it is difficult to disturb the existing residents, we will address the issue by improving on their efficiency with regards to energy savings, ventilation, lighting and so on."

DM plans to hold a workshop this week, which will bring together developers, free zones, consultants and others in the industry. "This will be a beginning of a series of workshops to discuss the findings and improve the efficiency of the study," said Maidour. "This will help to minimise the changes in the future. The aim is to go to the industry, meet the people and get their feedback."

Dan Dowling, who is involved with the Dubai Urban Framework Development & Green Building Regulatory project and specialises in policy and regulation, sustainable cities and masterplanning at WSP, said: "Without curbing on creativity, we can converge the different disciplines within the industry. The local context is of great importance," said Dowling.

"Definitions differ on what a green building really is. But what everyone agrees is that we need to adopt a holistic approach, which not just looks at the building, but also includes what is around and adjacent to the building and how it interacts to the rest of the city."

Said Susan Rogers from WSP (facilities management and sustainable building expert), who also serves as Project Manager for the Green Building Regulatory project: "When WSP developed a roadmap for this project, we did an international review in terms of building regulations, areas with similar climates to Dubai and their building regulations and a Middle East review. We looked at Dubai's current regulations and did a rating systems review. We also looked at international standards out there, including international codes for green building and rating systems. There are 252 rating systems out there and we wanted to boil it down to six for review.

"So WSP looked at systems such as Leed (US), Bream (UK), SB2, Green Star (Australia), Cabe and Green Mark Systems (Singapore).

"We decided the definition was that it was a tool that examines the performance of a whole building and allows comparisons with other buildings, to name a few criteria. We also decided that there were certain goals for green building construction – improving the environmental quality, decreasing environmental impacts, optimising the life cycle costs of building and encouraging best practices," said Rogers.

Dubai is in the very hot and humid and hot and dry climate zone, she said. "About 25 specific cities in countries fall into that category but their regulations were not up to par. So we shortened the pool to 14 countries," she said. "We found that many countries have strong energy regulations and performance standards but no regulations for green buildings. We again shortlisted it to Australia, Singapore and US."

Rating systems are market-driven while regulations are mandatory and set minimum requirements, according to her. "In Dubai, we felt the best way was to create a mandatory system. There is currently a set of building codes and standards that set the minimum. The green building regulations will be introduced over a period of four years and will be brought in over time in two levels or tiers," she said.

The implementation will consist of four tiers. Tier 1 involves minimum standards for green buildings and the scope will increase when it reaches Tier 2. Tier 3 will consist of advanced strategy, while sustainability is the focus of Tier 4.

"We thought very carefully about what we are trying to do. For the first tier, 60- 80 per cent of the regulations will have some similarity to the former system that currently exists in Dubai. About 20-40 per cent would have new rules. We are writing minimum standards, which are achievable to all."

Initial key areas will be water, waste, energy and indoor air quality. "We will be tightening from tier to tier. The first tier will be achievable. We did a two-month study on the markets – the materials, the supply, the construction industry and costs and we found that there will be no problem in implementing these regulation," said Rogers. "Over time, we will increase the regulations and tighten the process in terms of percentages in specific area. We are very keen on making the systems a Dubai-based system. The rating systems and regulations are on similar tracks and regulations will align with credits."

Said Tim Armstrong from WSP, who is Leed-qualified and specialises in energy and mechanical engineering and project director for Green Building Regulatory project: "There is no end to this project. It is a step on the way. Dubai had the vision last year to set us this task. It is a compliment to us to help in building a more sustainable Dubai."