Dubai Municipality to develop legal framework for green buildings soon

This was stated by Eng. Essa Al Maidour, Assistant Director General of Dubai Municipality for Planning and Building Affairs, in his opening speech at a seminar, organised by Dubai Municipality on Sunday to discuss Dubai's vision of green buildings, its legal framework and the road map for the city's regulations in this regard.

Al Maidour said the Municipality would develop in the near future a new legislative framework for green design that will be implemented in all new buildings across Dubai by January 1 next year. He noted that these regulations, to be developed by the municipality's buildings department in collaboration with consultants WSP, would be in line with the Dubai Strategic Plan.

"It will be an ongoing process for new buildings with a tier structure and will be implemented in phases," he told the seminar, titled "Build it Green: Greening of Dubai through Regulations" which came as part of the civic body's initiative to offer a continuous learning environment for the local architects and consultant engineers. It was organised in association with WSP, a prominent design, engineering and management consultancy firm.

Al Maidour noted that the issue of "Building Green" in rapidly growing urban environments is emerging as a major factor in the booming Middle East real estate market. The Emirate of Dubai has been expanding at a rapid pace, with an unprecedented scale of construction projects that sometimes seems to be defying forecasts by many economic experts in the region.

"Growing concerns about the adverse impact of such a fast paced urbanization have underlined the crucial need for sustainable, eco-friendly and energy efficient property development as well as the challenge of decreasing the Emirate's ecological footprint," he noted.

Commenting on the significance of the seminar, Al Maidour said it was aimed at providing an insight into the key features of this initiative, in line with the directive of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, that all buildings constructed in Dubai should adhere to Green Standards from the beginning of next year.

Three experts addressed the seminar. In the first lecture, Dan Dowling of WSP explained what constituted a green building and what is the vision of Dubai Municipality and Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) with regard to green buildings. The second lecture was delivered by Susan Rogers who presented a worldwide review of existing framework. In the third lecture, Tim Armstrong submitted a road map for Dubai's regulations in the field of green buildings.