Speaking at the two-day conference which concludes today, Dr. Rashid Ahmad bin Fahd, the UAE’s Minister of Environment and Water said the building code would be phased in beginning early in 2011, and would start with application to government buildings across the emirates.
“We have always been keen to incorporate the environmental dimension in the developmental plans,” Ahmad bin Fahd said. “Realising the pressures of urban development boom, the UAE has given much importance to apply sustainable solutions including transforming the city areas into green, which in turn will reduce the impact of carbon emission and protect the environment.”
Ahmad bin Fahd announced the initiative Sunday before a large gathering at Intercontinental Hotel, Dubai Festival City that included Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and Chairman of Dubai Municipality, Denis Hayes, the founder of Earth Day, Philip Jordan, Mayor of Phoenix, Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director General of Dubai Municipality, among others.
The two-day conference is organised by the Environmental Centre for Arab Towns (ECAT) in cooperation with Dubai Municipality.
The new federal green building code is expected to regulate green building codes developed by individual emirates. Abu Dhabi municipality rolled out its own green building code In September, while the Dubai Municipality announced the approval for its code just two weeks ago.
In Abu Dhabi, all new public buildings must achieve at least one pearl rating while government buildings should achieve two of five possible pearls under the Pearl Building Rating System (PBRS) for Estidama, the capital’s building methodology for constructing and operating buildings and communities more sustainably.
During his own remarks, Denis Hayes spoke favourably and at length about solar power, challenging conference attendees to design and construct a 10-story office building in each of their cities that produces as much energy from the sunlight that falls on it as it uses.
“Oil is a declining resource and sunlight will endure forever. Every country represented here has a hugely valuable solar resource that, with intelligent land use planning, you can employ in a distributed way inside your existing cities,” he said.
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