Increased industrial growth and urbanization has seen energy consumption in the UAE quadruple in the last 20 years. With the UAE ranked as the highest consumer of energy per capita in the world, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai announced in 2007, a decree stating all new projects are required to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification standards. “The LEED certification scheme establishes a common standard of measurement for energy efficient, environmentally friendly buildings,” said Ajai Kumar Dayal, general manager - Retail and Marketing, Easa Saleh Al Gurg, distributors for high-end appliances including Siemens, Electrolux, Fisher and Paykel, Zanussi, and Vestfrost. As the UAE's leading retailer for energy efficient brands, Better Life has noticed an increase of interest and purchase orders from developers looking to fit out large projects with high-quality energy efficient appliances. “The new laws state that all new building projects in the UAE must be LEED certified, and to obtain certification, developers are required to gain a certain number of points so energy efficiency obviously plays a part,” added Dayal. “We have seen a substantial increase in interest of our environmentally-friendly products, and at least 25 percent of our orders are based on these qualities. We can see that this is going to be an increasingly important factor in our sales, as awareness among customers grows,” he noted. __
