Now in its fifth year running, the EmiratesGBC & Trane co-hosted Iftar was held on June 7^th at The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort in Abu Dhabi. The gathering was a great success with members of the EmiratesGBC and Trane community enjoying an iftar meal together and meeting new industry contacts. We are grateful that a valuable number of guests attended this year to benefit from a great networking experience and to enjoy the delicious Iftar buffet. EmiratesGBC wishes the green building industry, Eid Mubarak.

The EmiratesGBC Energy Efficiency Program (EEP) will once again host an engaging town hall session, this time being held with Taqati on August 28^th at Sheraton Mall of the Emirates. Save the date, as more details will follow in next month’s newsletter.

EEP Town Halls are a direct benefit for members of the EmiratesGBC Energy Efficiency Program.  If you are a corporate member of EmiratesGBC but not yet participating in the EEP, please email eep@emiratesgbc.org to learn more.

Better Places for People, WorldGBC’s Global Project supported by EmiratesGBC, is launching its 2017 Expressions of Interest for case studies for a new report on green and healthy buildings. The 2016 Case Study report, Building the Business Case, was a huge success, with exposure to over 3 million people, more than fifty press mentions, and over 8000 downloads. Click here to access more information and submit your expression of interest before July 4^th.

This month, we recognise Meshayel Omran Lehssoni, Director for Future Energy and Security of Supply, Chief Happiness and Positivity Officer, Future energy and Security of Supply Department, Ministry of Energy, UAE.

Eng. Meshayel is responsible for the department of Future energy and Security of Supply activates, including the preparation of the Greenhouse Gas Inventory of the United Arab Emirates and the fourth national communication report.  We look forward to her participation in EmiratesGBC Congress, where she will be delivering a keynote address.  To see other confirmed speakers, check out our exciting speaker line-up here.

Held under the theme “Urban Energy: Powering Smart, Happy and Efficient Cities”, the 6^th Annual EmiratesGBC Congress is on the horizon and invites your active involvement through sponsorship.

Sponsorship opportunities are still open, and we encourage you to view the available Congress sponsorship packages.  For more information on how to support this important flagship event, please contact us at engagement@emiratesgbc.org.

Thank you to our Venue Sponsor Majid Al Futtaim & Principal Sponsor AkzoNobel for supporting this pivotal event.  The 6th Annual EmiratesGBC Congress will be taking place on October 17 & 18 in Dubai.

EmiratesGBC has launched the Green Building Tooltips, a rich online platform serving to further educate the industry and community on simple green building practices.

The Green Building Tooltips were officially launched on June 5^th, 2017 to mark World Environment Day, an easy to navigate online tool, the EmiratesGBC Green Building Tooltips aim to provide relevant information on green buildings for an audience of varying levels of technical capacity. The interactive designs cover three different building typologies, showcasing a home, school and office building.  The initiative is powered by BASF and Legrand, EmiratesGBC board members, underlining their commitment to promoting sustainability.

We strongly urge you to visit the Green Building Tooltips on our website to test out this valuable online tool and fulfil your goal of pursuing a greener lifestyle whether it be at home, school or at the office.

More than 12,000 solar panels will be added to malls across Dubai, to help save Dh80 million in energy costs over 25 years.

Enova, a joint venture between Dubai’s Majid Al Futtaim and Veolia of France, will install 12,500 panels at four Majid Al Futtaim Malls in a deal signed coinciding with the World Environment Day. Majid Al Futtaim is aiming to have at least 5 percent of the energy it uses to power its operations come from renewables by the end of the year. The shopping centres that will be outfitted with the panels include Mall of the Emirates, City Centre Deira, City Centre Mirdif and City Centre Fujairah.

We would like to congratulate Majid Al Futtaim, EmiratesGBC Board Member and consistent champion, on this positive venture towards advancing green building principles in the UAE.

Read more here

World Green Building Week is on the horizon. Led by the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), World Green Building Week is an annual event that empowers the green building community to deliver green buildings for everyone.

This year, the week takes place in the last week of September (25th September to 1st October) and  Emirates Green Building Council would like to encourage you to support the week by marking your calendars and attending the activities we will be hosting.

This year’s theme is #OurHeroIsZero, which puts focus on net zero buildings.  The theme is in line with the Advancing Net Zero WorldGBC project and follows the launch of the From Thousands to Billions report which highlights the need for all buildings to be net zero by 2050.  It is also well aligned with EmiratesGBC’s Nearly Zero Energy study.

Buildings are often seen as the villains when it comes to climate change, but they can actually be the heroes. When buildings are net zero they use clean energy, are highly efficient and don’t waste energy – helping us to win the fight against climate change.

This World Green Building Week we’re encouraging people everywhere to see the faces of the heroes in the buildings where they live and work and to join us in the mission to make all buildings net zero. In this fight, #OurHeroIsZero.

Emirates Green Building Council will be supporting World Green Building Week for 2017 through marking a new milestone for the Council and releasing the first of its kind Net Zero Energy Report. Please stay tuned for more details on our report launch which is scheduled for September 27th, 2017.

Do not forget #OurHeroIsZero

On July 18, EmiratesGBC is holding it’s monthly Technical Workshop which will look at the influence of the urban built environment on the happiness of residents and occupants.  The workshop aims to delve into the topic of health and well-being and focus on its application in the MENA region.

Spaces are limited and open to members and partners only, so reserve your seat early by emailing us at technicalworkshops@emiratesgbc.org.

To view the Technical Briefs of our previous workshops, please click here.

Are you an EmiratesGBC member or partner and would like to facilitate a workshop? Do you have any suggestions for topics to be addressed? If yes, then we’d like to hear from you.

This month we take a look at The case of Protein Diversity, a report which provides an interesting view on  adopting more sustainable eating habits.  The key finding from the analysis is that consumption of greater levels of protein diversity would, in most cases, result in overall benefits to individual health, at the same time as reducing impacts on climate change, water use and land use.

How can changing one’s dietary habits have a positive effect on climate change?

Click here to download the report

Calling all UAE Green Key hotels! The 2017 Best Practice Competition has been launched by Green Key International under the theme ‘Partnership and Local Engagement for Sustainable Development’.  What better time to apply, as this year has been designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the UN to “support a change in policies, business practices and consumer behaviour towards a more sustainable tourism sector that can contribute effectively to the Sustainable Development Goals”.

Green Key Hotels should submit their stories to Green Key International by 1 September 2017 to enter the competition and be recognised for their important contribution to sustainable responsible tourism!  Only submissions from Gren Key certified hotels will be considered.  The winner will be announced publicly on World Tourism Day, 27 September 2017.

If your hotel is not yet Green Key certified, EmiratesGBC is accepting applications for Green Key certification throughout the year.  Please contact greenkey@emiratesgbc.org for more information on the Program in the UAE.

The summer months are an ideal time to begin thinking about green building industry professional credentials to enhance your career. In collaboration with British University in Dubai, we offer a series of trainings that prepare attendees for examinations including LEED and AEE courses. Please contact us for more details.

As part of EmiratesGBC’s Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEBs) Study, an analytical report is under development that will serve to assist in determining a definition of nZEBs in the UAE.  This definition can then be used as a reference to support future building regulations. The Report will be released during the World Green Building Week in September 2017 aligning with its theme of Our Hero Is Zero. In support of the study, EmiratesGBC has approached its corporate members, partners and standout projects by requesting masked data on best practice low-energy projects.

To evaluate the market readiness and feasibility of nZEBs in the UAE, EmiratesGBC has also approached building experts to complete a survey on their understanding of the concept of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings.  We received a sufficient amount of responses which have positively impacted the progress of the report and measuring market readiness.  Thank you to all who have contributed. Do stay tuned, as we will be updating you with the reports’ progress in the months to come.

We are pleased to invite Dubai Hotels, Shopping Malls and Schools to participate in a Benchmarking Project in partnership with Dubai’s commitment to the Building Efficiency Accelerator, a global initiative under the United Nations program “Sustainable Energy for All”, in which EmiratesGBC is working in collaboration with the Dubai Supreme Council of Energy.  To participate in this project, contact the EmiratesGBC office at  04-3468244 or send an email with your interest to BEA@emiratesgbc.org.

Under this initiative, we will benchmark at least 100 buildings in three focus groups (hotels, schools and shopping malls).

For more information on how to support this important project through sponsorship, please contact us at engagement@emiratesgbc.org.

EmiratesGBC is pleased to announce Masdar as a partner in the soon to be launched Building Retrofit Training.

In partnership between EmiratesGBC, Dubai Supreme Council of Energy and Masdar, the Building Retrofi­t Training (BRT) Program is a capacity building program that will provide the fundamentals of building sustainability and retrofi­t across the Emirates.  It aims to be a certification-based training that formally educates a wide range of building stakeholders on the viable building retrofit methods available in the UAE, and for building operators and end-users, the sustainable methods they can use to improve the indoor environmental quality of their facilities.

BRT courses are offered at two levels: Level One Training (1-day Beginner course) provides foundational knowledge of sustainability to primarily non-technical participants, while Level Two Training (3-day Advanced course) prepares candidates for inclusion into ongoing retrofit projects and streamlines their technical capacity for more effective post-retrofit maintenance and preventive care.  Course dates will be announced soon.  Click here for more details.

If you are interested in using EmiratesGBC office space for a workshop or meeting, please get in touch with us at 04-3468244 or send us an email to office@emiratesgbc.org. The room is fully equipped with AV and provides a nice environment for focused meetings or training workshops.

Click here to learn more about how the Technical Guidelines can potentially save your facility or home millions in utility bills and reduced operational costs.

EmiratesGBC is pleased to announce a newcomer to the team, Jason John.  Jason John joined the EmiratesGBC team as an intern in May 2017 and his contribution to the Technical Team has been a palpable one and has provided us the opportunity to witness his technical skills, passion for the industry and the potential to develop in this new position.  We are looking forward to witnessing Jason’s input into our growing number of technical projects.

Please join us in congratulating Jason on his new role as Technical Analyst with Emirates Green Building Council.

In this month’s issue the Chairman of Emirates Green Building Council, Saeed Al Abbar, discusses the transformational shifts towards a greener future.  There is a bright and cleaner future with renewable energy.  Now, world leaders and private institutions are working together to make it happen.  Even oil and gas companies have incorporated renewable energy in their technologies to help contribute to making our world safer for everyone. Read more…

The tool provides comprehensive insights and tips for developers, building owners and residents to make their buildings ‘greener’ through simple steps for greater energy and water use efficiency. The online resource on best practices will help the construction industry and community make their built environments more sustainable.  Read more …

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi Hosts Special Summit with Emirates Green Building Council to Address Key Issues  Abu Dhabi has an opportunity to play a leading role in developing environmentally-friendly healthcare practices that could have an international impact, according to experts speaking at a talk in the emirate.   Organised by Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, in association with the Emirates Green Building Council, the event examined a range of programs currently being developed in the UAE. It included contributions from the Department of Municipal Affairs and Transport, Masdar and the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi, presenting the agencies’ initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the emirate.  As host venue, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi is helping to drive sustainability standards for the healthcare sector in the UAE. This month, the hospital received the “Green Commercial Building of the Year” award at the 2017 MENA Green Building Awards. The hospital employs measures to reduce its energy consumption and, in 2017, aims to cut its. Read more…

Etihad ESCO’s busy calendar points towards a growing acknowledgement of retrofitting’s benefits in the UAE. Emirates Green Building Council (EmiratesGBC), in its October 2016 report titled Energy and Water Benchmarking for UAE Hotels, revealed how retrofits could benefit the country’s hospitality sector: “There is a strong need to replace old fixtures and ensure maintenance of water systems, with laundry services and landscaping contributing heavily to water use intensities.”  Hotels built “more recently” were found to benefit from newer technologies and efficient design, as well as stringent codes and regulations. This trend highlights the need for older properties to “consider retrofit as a solution to reduce their carbon footprint”, EmiratesGBC’s statement added.  Read more…