Abu Dhabi - Rules for green buildings almost ready

The new regulations for green buildings in Abu Dhabi are in the final stages and expected to be implemented in January 2009, a senior official announced on Tuesday., which is about time as far as I am concerned. Too many developers are claiming to be building “eco-friendly property developments” with no details to back up their claims, and this will hopefully curb this practice.
Abu Dhabi’s Urban Planning Council (UPC) announced last year the initiative aimed at developing new standards for sustainable development in Abu Dhabi.

“We have come a long way in testing the guidelines issued eight months ago, and now we are fine-tuning the guidelines for new green buildings, ratings and communities to be enforced as law in January 2009,” Falah Al Ahbabi, UPC’s general manager, said.

The emirate is seeking to develop a model of envir-onmental responsibility to be copied throughout the country and the region, sparing no effort or cost to maintain such a model, and accordingly, billions of dirhams have been allocated for such concerns including the higher cost of establishing Khalifa Port, where the structure of the giant facility has been adapted to protect the coral reef there.
“We will not destroy our environment because of the cost factor; to the contrary we will gladly incur whatever is necessary for a sustainable industrial or residential development,” Al Ahbabi said.

The UPC will provide the final draft of the guidelines by November, to be adopted by the emirate’s Executive Council, which is expected to gradually issue the new guidelines as laws starting next January.