DOHA, Qatar — Attitudes about energy use are changing across the Gulf. There is a growing recognition that the once seemingly limitless fossil fuels will someday run out and that these countries need to chart a more sustainable path. Buildings are a logical place to start. They consume up to 70 percent of energy in parts of the Gulf compared to 40 percent worldwide due to the preponderance of glass skyscrapers and brutally hot conditions from Dubai to Jeddah, according to Thom Bohlen, chief technical officer for the Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development. The Middle East has come late to the green building movement, lagging far behind the United States, Europe and Asia in building structures that emit fewer emissions and consume less water, according to the United States Green Building Council. The USGBC's voluntary program, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, is used internationally to certify green buildings. But when it comes to buildings in the works that are trying to earn LEED status, the Middle East is among the leaders. It has 1,348 LEED-registered buildings which surpasses all but Asia and the United States. Dubai in the UAE is home to one of the region's first green shopping malls and is building an eco-friendly mosque in 2013. In Abu Dhabi, the government-run Masdar Institute has built the first phase of a pre-planned city that aims to be powered by renewable sources including solar. In Doha, work started in 2010 on Msheireb Downtown Doha, which promises to be the world's largest sustainable community with 100 buildings using an average of a third less energy. Saudi Arabia's first LEED-certified project, the 26-building campus of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, opened in 2009 and recycles all its wastewater, uses 27 percent less energy than a typical campus and was built with 20 percent recycled content. Most of these green buildings rely on 21st century solutions to reduce their footprint high-tech operating systems that ration electricity and power, additional insulation and thicker glass to reduce heat coming into the building and designs that orient the structure to limit the sun exposure. Along with its water savings and solar power, the project features wind towers, lattice-like shading on windows known as mashrabiya and a tent-inspired roof system that blocks the sun and extends throughout the campus. “When we start a project, we will do some research on what people built in this location before they had electricity. How did they keep buildings warm or cool?” said Bill Odell, a senior vice president for HOK Architects who designed the KAUST campus. “We did that on this project and there were serious techniques that clearly worked. ... All these ideas we took out of traditional Islamic architecture.” The challenge now, experts say, is going beyond a handful of high-profile projects and applying green building practices to the bulk of Gulf construction such as low-rise office towers or residential housing projects. To do that, governments in the region will have to make green building codes compulsory most are now voluntary and provide greater incentives for developers to build or retrofit more sustainably. — AP
