winning Wadi Hannifah, Riyadh, is a clear demonstration of how integrated thinking can create something that generates social, environmental and economic improvement to a region," Dr. Rob Cooke, associate at engineering consultants Buro Happold, UAE, said at the WORLD ecoConstruct Summit taking place in Abu Dhabi. "We have provided environmental remediation to the Wadi and its environments, transforming this once polluted water course into a social and economic space for the population of Riyadh and its environs," he noted. He said the establishment of a region-wide certification system based on Abu Dhabi's Estidama initiative and Pearl Rating System was now a logical step to accelerate the green building process. "We should be using the example and lessons learnt from the Estidama program to establish a new consistent base level across the UAE that may not have the full depth and detail of Estidama but raises the minimum standards," Cooke said. Estidama - Arabic for sustainability - is an initiative developed by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) to preserve the emirate's physical and cultural identity, while improving the quality of life for residents on four equal pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic, social, and cultural. The Pearl Rating System is a point-based scheme that awards construction projects credit points grouped under seven sustainable criteria categories. He highlighted a new era of green thinking in the region during a panel discussion. "Several of the regional real estate developers we are currently working with include sustainability as one of their key requirements, which is a fantastic shift in the right direction," he said. Cooke further said "the best sustainability projects are those that create a balance and are designed to be future proof, often not big impact projects but ones that come in to their own over time. It's key that these developments can demonstrate added value by maintaining long-term economic viability." Abu Dhabi has laid the foundations for a future based on greener living in the Middle East, inducing a shift by regional developers towards adopting sustainable building practices, industry experts said. Ivar Krasinski, Design Director with architects STR-EDGE, UAE, and another speaker at the summit, said contrary to conventional wisdom, sustainable buildings can actually reduce capital expense. "Costs can be kept down by allowing the areas where different design disciplines overlap to be optimized. This means that if the architect takes the input of structural and MEP engineers on board early, we can reduce the cost of the facade, structure and MEP system while improving building performance." "Companies on the client side can benefit from sustainability just by insisting on integrated design since this approach can lower capital expenditure significantly. This means that sustainability is more than just a PR strategy, and actually helps the financial model of a project and the client's bottom line." Cooke added "clients in Abu Dhabi are more in tune with sustainability than in other Middle East regions, partially due to the introduction of Estidama, which they have been forced to embrace. We feel that the developers with a more international reach or exposure are also more in tune with global trends toward sustainable design."
