Net Zero Centre of Excellence

Emirates Green Building Council launched the Net Zero Centre of Excellence in 2018 as a think tank and accelerator to advance net zero carbon buildings in the UAE as part of its commitment to World Green Building Council’s global Advancing Net Zero Project.

We are proud to announce that this program is sponsored by the Net Zero Centre Champion, Majid Al Futtaim.

The Net Zero Centre of Excellence aims to:

provide a platform for government, academia, civil society and the private sector to learn and share knowledge on net zero buildings,
support future building regulations and the industry towards decarbonization of the building sector by the global timeline of 2050,
offer tools and resources to advance the net zero movement in the UAE.

The summarised objectives and actions of the Centre can be viewed through our Snapshot.

To promote rapid decarbonisation, EmiratesGBC challenges businesses and cities in the UAE to sign the Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment.

Research
Zero Building Certifications
Certification Process
Embodied Carbon
Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment

Definition for Nearly Zero Energy Residence and Office Buildings

A Nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) in the UAE as a highly energy efficient building with a site Energy Use Intensity less than 90 kWh/m²/year which covers a significant portion of its annual energy use by renewable energy sources produced on-site or offsite.

Research

As an important stepping-stone to the achievement of a net positive built environment and a decarbonized economy, EmiratesGBC launched a first-of-kind report in the MENA region on zero buildings in 2017. The report, Defining Nearly Zero Energy Buildings in the UAE – 2017, provides a definition for nearly zero energy buildings in the UAE and highlights the challenges and opportunities for net zero buildings in the UAE.

Key findings from the report included:

The concept of nZEB strongly aligns with and supports the UAE National Vision and commitments, particularly with respect to innovation in sustainable energy.
Early adopters of the concept of Zero Energy Buildings in the UAE already exist with a number of demonstrable cases in the market. This validates that the time is appropriate to transition from an ‘early adopter’ state to ‘mainstream adoption’.
Stakeholders generally agree that the market will be ready for the adoption of the nZEB concept between 2020 and 2030.
In accordance with international practice and stakeholder feedback, it is recommended to commence with the introduction of the concept in the public sector prior to roll out in the private sector.
Based on the large number of high-rise buildings in the UAE, it is recommended to consider renewable energy beyond the plot boundary within the nZEB consideration. This can take the form of district renewable energy systems or potentially extend to regulated Renewable Energy Certificates.

Certifications

In 2019, Emirates Green Building Council (EmiratesGBC) partnered with the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) to deliver Zero Energy (ZE) and Zero Carbon (ZC) certifications for buildings in the UAE market.

Zero Energy Certification

The ILFI’s Zero Energy (ZE) Certification allows projects to demonstrate zero energy performance and certifies that the building is operating at zero energy, harnessing renewable energy to produce net annual energy demand, through a third-party audit of actual performance data. The ZE certification requires that:

“One hundred percent of the building’s energy needs on a net annual basis must be supplied by on-site renewable energy. No combustion is allowed.”

Zero Carbon Certification

The ILFI’s Zero Carbon (ZC) certification recognizes the growing interest and focus on a broad-based tool for highlighting highly energy efficient buildings which are designed and operated to fully account for their carbon emissions impacts. The ZC certification requires that:

“One hundred percent of the operational energy use associated with the project must be offset by new on- or off-site renewable energy. One hundred percent of the carbon emissions impacts associated with the construction and materials of the project must be disclosed and offset.”

In cooperation with ILFI, and based on the Building Efficiency Accelerator Benchmarking Project Report, projects in the UAE may use the efficiency targets in the table below (in the far right column) in lieu of the standard efficiency targets stated on the Zero Carbon page. Because the referenced report only considers data from hotels, schools, and malls, other building types must demonstrate a 30% reduction in energy use in comparison to a typical building of its type through Zero Tool or other proposed data set. Regardless of the dataset chosen, the version or baseline year of the dataset should be explicitly referenced and remain static so that energy targets are predictable for teams considering the standard.

Project Type	Median EUI	30% Reduction
Hotel and Hotel Apartments	249 kWh/m 2/year	174 kWh/m 2/year
Resorts	334 kWh/m 2/year	234 kWh/m 2/year
Schools	134 kWh/m 2/year	94 kWh/m 2/year
Malls	465 kWh/m 2/year	326 kWh/m 2/year

For more information on the certifications, please refer to ILFI’s ZE certification and ZC certification pages.

Certification Process

Follow the steps below to apply for the International Living Future Institute’s Zero Energy or Zero Carbon certifications:

Register your project with the ILFI.

Process your Premium Membership with ILFI.
Log into the Living Future Community and scroll down to the ‘Register’ section, then select ‘New Zero Energy Registration’ or ‘New Zero Carbon Registration’. Create a new submission for the desired certification program, complete the required registration form, and complete registration payment.
Schedule a kick-off call with your project team and ILFI’s energy program staff to discuss best practices for certification at support@living-future.org (for Zero Energy) or zc.support@living-future.org (for Zero Carbon).

Registering your project signals your intent to build and certify your project as zero energy or zero carbon. We encourage to register your project as early in the development/occupancy process as possible. When you register your building, you’ll gain access to a variety of support resources, along with the opportunity to connect with industry leaders from around the world.

Fees

You must be ILFI Members to register your project. Read more about ILFI Membership here.

You can find out about the certification costs here.

Documentation

Once registered, a project team can begin organizing and submitting documentation on the ILFI online platform. Once you have twelve consecutive months of performance data demonstrating that your project achieves net zero energy or carbon status, you can then complete the submission of your project for audit and certification.

Audit

Once your documentation is uploaded, ILFI’s Certification Staff will review it to ensure that it is complete, before passing it off to EmiratesGBC auditors for review. Subject to auditor review and feedback, Clarification Requests may be required from the submitting project team. Any clarifications about the audit or audit result are provided directly by ILFI team.

Certification

Based on the audit findings and Final Audit Report from EmiratesGBC Auditors, the certification is awarded by ILFI if the project meets ILFI requirements and is verified to perform at zero energy or zero carbon.

Embodied Carbon

According to the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction’s Global Status Report 2019, the buildings and construction sector accounted for 39% of energy and process-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2018. Of this sector contribution, 28% comes from operational carbon with 11% arising from the energy used to produce building and construction materials, usually referred to as embodied carbon. This demonstrates a need for the industry to focus on reducing both operational carbon and embodied carbon emissions.

Embodied carbon is the carbon emissions associated with materials and construction processes throughout the whole lifecycle of a building or infrastructure. Embodied carbon therefore includes: material extraction (module A1), transport to manufacturer (A2), manufacturing (A3), transport to site (A4), construction (A5), use phase (B1, e.g. concrete carbonation but excluding operational carbon), maintenance (B2), repair (B3), replacement (B4), refurbishment (B5), deconstruction (C1), transport to end of life facilities (C2), processing (C3), disposal (C4). Benefits beyond the system boundary (D) should also be reported separately to modules A-C. Reference the figure above for detail.

Embodied Carbon Vision

By 2030, all new buildings, infrastructure and renovations will have at least 40% less embodied carbon with significant upfront carbon reduction, and all new buildings are net zero operational carbon.

By 2050, new buildings, infrastructure and renovations will have net zero embodied carbon, and all buildings, including existing buildings must be net zero operational carbon.

EmiratesGBC Partnership with Bionova Ltd, developer of One Click LCA

EmiratesGBC has partnered with Bionova Ltd, developer of One Click LCA. The partnership is based on raising awareness around embodied carbon with an objective of transforming the market towards low carbon design, construction and manufacturing practices. To facilitate this, Bionova is offering the One Click LCA Planetary free of charge.

The software has several capabilities which allows:

Calculation of material and carbon efficiency (A1-A3 stages)
Carbon accounting figures (Global Warming Potential)
Comparison of different material options during design for key construction materials
Access to local Environmental Product Declarations (EPD)
Covers top 10 material categories (Bricks, ready-mix concrete, structural precast concrete, glass (regular), gypsum board, cement, insulation (normal types), steel, aluminium, engineered and normal wood)
Designers, consultants, and other users to be request EPDs from manufactures

We invite the industry to explore its capabilities further through their website.

Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment

The Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment officially launched at the Global Climate Action Summit on 13th September 2018. The commitment challenges companies, cities, states and regions to reach Net Zero operating emissions in their portfolios by 2030, and to advocate for all buildings to be Net Zero in operation by 2050.

By setting ambitious ‘absolute’ targets, the Commitment aims to maximise the chances of limiting global warming to below 2 degrees, and ideally below 1.5 degrees, by drastically reducing operating emissions from buildings.

Several EmiratesGBC’s members including AESG, Arup, Buro Happold, Cundall, JLL, Majid Al Futtaim, Mott MacDonald, Multiplex, Siemens and Shaw Contract have signed the commitment. To see the list of committed businesses, click here. For businesses, the Commitment is one of three pathways available to join EP100 from The Climate Group.

To see the list of committed cities, click here.

To see the list of committed states and regions, click here.

The five stages of the Commitment:

Eligibility requirements

Signatories must demonstrate an equivalent level of ambition and impact as the leadership required by the Commitment. A signatory may demonstrate this ambition and impact through the following one or any of the following:

international presence to stimulate global markets
significant presence in their country
significant capacity to influence the built environment
high level of carbon emissions within their sector relative to an average entity, and/or
high potential for advocacy to increase uptake within industry

Within the UAE, eligibility will be assessed by EmiratesGBC and finalised by the Advancing Net Zero team of WorldGBC during the recruitment process. Where necessary, eligibility will be further determined by members of the WGBC’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment Taskforce.
If interested in signing up for the Commitment, please contact EmiratesGBC at netzero@emiratesgbc.org.

Delivery Partners

WorldGBC’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment is delivered in partnership with The Climate Group as a membership pathway to EP100. Delivery partners include C40 (cities) and the Under2 coalition (states and regions), for which The Climate Group is secretariat, recruiting signatories from their respective networks.

Program Sponsors