VOLUME XII ISSUE 8

A Letter from EGBC Family

Dear EmiratesGBC Members and Partners,

For the 11^th year running, we have launched the MENA Green Building Awards in partnership with eight regional GBCs and with the endorsement of the World Green Building Council. The Awards celebrate and recognize excellence in the built environment across the design, construction, and operation of building projects in the MENA region covering 16 different categories. The application window has opened, and we have begun receiving applications from different countries in the MENA region—a testament to the increasing awareness about green buildings and sustainable development. It is an honour for EmiratesGBC to be working alongside green building councils on a regional and global scale towards the common goal of achieving a sustainable built environment.

With the World Green Building Week approaching next month under the theme #BuildingForEveryone and a focus on building for the planet, communities, and economies, we at EmiratesGBC are planning some engaging activities to spark conversations around these important topics in the UAE.

As always, I encourage our members to support the EmiratesGBC flagship events, programs, and events and engage with us in your areas of interest. Sponsorship opportunities are still available for the MENA Green Building Awards and for the World Green Building Week—please contact the team at events@emiratesgbc.org if you have any inquiries.

Sincerely,

Dr. Ali Al Jassim

Chairman

Emirates Green Building Council

Upcoming EmiratesGBC Events

2022 MENA Green Building Awards

The application deadline for the 2022 MENA Green Building Awards has been extended to August 19th!

The MENA Green Building Awards celebrate excellence and best practices in the built environment across the design, construction and operation of building projects in the MENA region covering 16 different categories. The are endorsed by the World Green Building Council and are organised in partnership with eight regional Green Building Councils, and are open to all organisations and projects demonstrating green building excellence in the Middle East and North Africa region.

Sponsorship opportunities for the 2022 MENA Green Building Awards are still available.

World Green Building Week

Save the date! Emirates Green Building Council is celebrating the World Green Building Week by organizing a 3-day event on the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th of September. The sessions will bring together government representatives and industry experts to discuss the latest challenges and opportunities in the green building industry.

This year, the 2022 World Green Building Week will discuss 3 topics over the 3 days:

Building for the Planet
Building for the Community
Building for the Economy

Learn more about sponsorship opportunities available for these events here.

Stay tuned, more details and registration link will be posted on our social media soon.

EmiratesGBC Trainings

Building Retrofit Training

As the UAE is going Net Zero in 2050, a lot of work is needed, and one of the most important ways to achieve this commitment is to look back at our old buildings and see how you can make them efficient.

We would like to invite you to register to our globally certified Building Retrofit Training.

The program was created to provided awareness and technical guidance to industry professionals on the the economically viable methods that can be implemented to improve a building’s environmental performance by reducing a building’s use of energy and water and improving the indoor environmental quality. The course provides knowledge and skills to deliver improved operational efficiency and achieve financial savings.

EmiratesGBC Technical Programmes News & Updates

Advancing Net Zero

Emirates Green Building Council is taking part in the steering committee of Advancing Net zero team at WorldGBC’s global programme. It is working towards total sector decarbonisation by 2050. The committee the collaboration among a number of Green Building Councils across the network to develop tools, programmes and resources to promote the urgency and achievability of net zero carbon buildings and build industry capacity to deliver them.

Green Key

The Green Key programme is a leading standard of excellence in the field of environmental responsibility and sustainable operation within the tourism industry. It is operated internationally under the management of the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) with Head Offices in Copenhagen, Denmark. FEE has national member organisations in more than 70 countries worldwide where Emirates Green Building Council is the national operator in the United Arab Emirates.

Members Opportunities and Engagement

Call for Sponsors

Please consider supporting our education and technical programs in 2022 by partnering with us and coming on board as a sponsor to one of our knowledge-sharing initiatives. Opportunities range from webinars and workshops on our priority areas such as Net Zero Carbon Buildings, Energy Efficiency, Green Schools, The EmiratesGBC Women’s Network and Building Retrofit to our flagship Annual MENA Green Building Awards.

Partnership opportunities are a great way for members to get involved and showcase your organization’s leadership and commitment to sustainable development initiatives. We invite you to find out more – please view our sponsorship packages and contact us to learn more.

Local News

UAE to host COP28 summit at Expo City Dubai

The 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP28) will be held at Expo City Dubai, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has announced. The exhibition site has already hosted the six-month expo event – which ran from October 1, 2021 until March 31 this year – and will now transform into a smart city for businesses, driven by sustainability and innovation. The conference is expected to see over 45,000 participants daily, including heads of state, government officials, international industry leaders, private sector representatives, academics, experts and representatives of civil society organisations.

Regional News

Rising to the challenge: Our journey to green buildings in the MENA region

Anyone who has been to the MENA region will be aware of the unique conditions in this part of the world. Temperatures can reach highs of 50 °C (122 °F) in cities such as Dubai, and water scarcity affects a large proportion of the region. Furthermore, countries in the Middle East such as Oman and the UAE are cited as having some of the highest emissions per capita of anywhere on the planet, due in part to the region’s historical reliance on fossil fuels, but also to the dramatic rate of physical expansion it has experienced over the past 50 years.

International News

An integrated approach to a sustainable built environment: the co-benefits of resources & circularity

In WorldGBC’s flagship report ‘Beyond Buildings’, we analysed how three-quarters of the global infrastructure needed to advance development by 2050 is yet to be built. There are simply not enough finite resources to carry on with the current take-make-waste consumption models. A transition to a circular approach is the only solution to balance international development and environmental goals. The built environment - considering both buildings and infrastructure, in an integrated manner - is a key part of the solution to achieving this. Building materials account for half of the solid waste generated every year worldwide. As much as 32% of landfill waste comes from construction sites, and 13% of materials delivered to a construction site end up being sent directly to landfills without having been used; it is clear that the building and construction sector are responsible for a huge amount of material waste (1).

An integrated approach to a sustainable built environment: the co-benefits of health, wellbeing & social value

The buildings we occupy comprise the very fabric of our society. Health, equity and quality of life cannot be improved without tackling every aspect of the built environment that shapes and situates people's lives. In our first blog, we presented the necessity for tackling the built environment in a holistic manner for climate change mitigation and resilience; this time, we focus on the social aspect of sustainability. Infrastructure and urban ecosystems impact people's quality of life. Almost 90% of people's time is spent inside buildings, and trends of increasing urbanisation reported across the world are expected to reach close to 70% by 2050. However, the cities we currently live in are far from enhancing our health. An estimated 91% of the global population worldwide are breathing unsafe air, with the majority of air pollution experienced in urban environments. Although increasing proportions of the world's population are soon to live in cities, the 75% of infrastructure required by 2050 still needs to be built. This offers great opportunities to tackle our existing health, wellbeing and community engagement challenges - and lead to the advancement of equity and justice in our communities.

The Emirates Green Building Council currently offers five membership levels, which cater to Industry, Corporate, Individual, SME, and Student stakeholders within the Industry

EmiratesGBC hosts events throughout the year as a platform for collaboration and knowledge sharing across the industry

EmiratesGBC offers a wide range of training and workshops related to sustainability and green buildings to build capacity in the UAE and wider region.

The EmiratesGBC Green Building Tooltips is a rich online resource that provides useful information on green building practices.