It is undeniable to admit that sustainability has become a paradigm and an important issue that all countries and societies should address seriously, amid the lack of resources in the world, especially energy which reflects the main weakness of human beings since decades ago.
Natural hazards have become global concerns, therefore raising the urgency to address them. Sustainability is designed to tackle each hazard and result in resources and products that benefit future generations by managing, preserving, and protecting all aspects of the environment. It helps clean up global air pollution and water shortages as well as eliminate damage to the land and wildlife. With these objectives in mind, it's no wonder why sustainability has gained popularity worldwide.
Sustainability is defined as being able to continue without losing one's resources or support. In other words, in order for something to be sustainable, it must have a guaranteed outcome. We say that good may be sustained for him and for his son, asking for good sustainability for him and for his son. Sustainability is idiomatically identified as the meeting of human needs now, without affecting the new generation's needs.
Environmental design or sustainability codes are laws regulating the most prominent architectural requirements:
Building codes specify the requirements that must be met to ensure a building is as close to sustainable as possible, such as preserving the environment and providing water and energy, natural ventilation, and reducing pollution and waste. The most famous codes in use include:
The American "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design" LEED
The American "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design" (LEED) is the most famous rating system. This system was developed in 1998 by the US Green Building Council (USGBC). It is an internationally recognized system as a design, construction, and operation standard for environmentally friendly and high-performance buildings.
The LEED certification program aims at setting standards for sustainable construction and operation of all types of buildings around the world, to improve the environment in which we live.
LEED uses a points system to reward projects that meet certain green building criteria. The more points a project earns, the higher its level of LEED certification. A project must earn the minimum number of points required to reach a level of certification to receive it.
The British "Building Research Environmental Establishment Assessment Method" BREEAM
The British BREEAM code is the world's first method for assessing and classifying the environmental performance of buildings. It was launched in 1990 in England by the British Building Research Establishment (BRE).
The use of this code has expanded throughout Europe and worldwide, and it is now used in more than 60 countries. It is also used in Qatar to assess buildings for energy efficiency.
The BREEAM code contains a set of standards and criteria that are used to assess and classify buildings according to their environmental performance. The classification system is divided into three categories: pass, good, very good, excellent, and outstanding.
The BREEAM code is divided into nine categories: management, health and well-being, energy, transport, water, materials, waste, land use, and ecology and pollution. Each category has a number of credits assigned to it depending on its importance. For example, the transport category has two credits for accessibility by public transport and two credits for building location.
In this article, we focus on the codes and standards for sustainability in Arab countries. Codes and standards are essential tools for measuring the sustainability of a specific building toward sustainability elements and components through specific experiments, calculations, and questionnaires. The codes and standards provide us with useful information about how to improve the building's sustainability.
Abu Dhabi (nascent)
In 2008, Estidama Rating System was established by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) to improve Abu Dhabi residents' life by focusing on cultural customs and social values. It is designed to support sustainability from design, through implementation, to operation. It includes communities, buildings, and villas and provides guidelines and requirements to evaluate the expected project performance from a sustainability perspective.
The Pearl Rating System (PRS) is the main pillar of the Estidama program, where it constitutes a framework that enables the developers to achieve sustainable design, construction, and operation for urban communities, buildings, and villages. The Pearl Rating System has been specially established to suit the hot weather, desert climate, high evaporation rate, lake of rain, and the scarcity of potable water in Emirate Abu Dhabi.
The Pearl Rating System
The Pearl Rating System is designed to support sustainable projects from the design stage, through the construction stage, to the operation stage. In addition, it provides the necessary guidelines and requirements for the potential performance of the projects in relation to the four sustainability pillars.
Pearl Rating Systems consists of main seven categories of sustainable development. Each of these categories includes mandatory and optional rating units. To achieve one pearl credit, all mandatory requirements must be met, and to achieve 2-5 pearls, all mandatory requirements along with some optional requirements must be met.
In addition, all new projects must, at least, meet the one pearl credit requirements to obtain the required approvals from the planning and licensing bodies. Government-funded buildings must at least meet two pearls requirements.
The Pearl Rating System is assessed in three stages:
Pearl Rating for design
Pearl Rating for construction
Pearl Rating for operation
The Pearl Rating System includes two types of credits
"Mandatory Credits" reflect the requirement of Abu Dhabi Counsel
"Credits Optional" to improve the environmental performance of the building
Noteworthy, there are common points between Arabic sustainability codes, such as the preservation of water and energy. There are also differential points in the assessment of some items due to the specifications differences of every country, as well as the need for the government's support to encourage applying sustainability in construction projects.