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ADDING VALUE THROUGH INTEGRATED SUSTAINABILITY MANAGEMENT

The meteoric rise of the sustainability agenda in recent years does not show any signs of diminishing. In fact the agenda is gaining momentum in the Middle East through fundamental drivers that include introduction of new legislation, climate change targets, energy and water concerns and corporate social responsibility. In terms of construction, local administrations are driving the agenda with iconic projects such as Masdar, the zero carbon zero waste city in the UAE, and the LEED Platinum rated King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, regulatory and legislation developments have led to the introduction of environmental rating systems such as the soon to be mandatory Estidama Pearl Rating System in Abu Dhabi and the Qatar Sustainability Assessment System (QSAS). These top-down actions are coupled with private initiatives by companies and developers who have been forced to re-evaluate their drivers by challenging market conditions. Such re-evaluation from the bottom up is helping the sustainability agenda become part of the mainstream.

Traditional approach to sustainability management

The Middle East has conventionally focused on temporal drivers in the area of project delivery. Added to this has been a tendency to introduce sustainability objectives in the latter stages of design or even after construction has commenced. This late introduction has meant the opportunity to explore more straightforward sustainability objectives has often been missed. Simple design responses, for example, have frequently been overlooked due to higher cost solutions being the only achievable option in the timeframe available. This late establishment of sustainability objectives has often been coupled with an ill-defined agenda or sustainability strategy, open to different interpretations by the project team. As with any element or feature added to a project late in the day, this retro-fitting of sustainability has been found to add
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