Marcos Bish

Dubai, UAE: The Dubai Municipality’s decision to introduce Al Safat, a Green Building rating system for new buildings in Dubai, is set to improve corporate sustainability, according to Summertown Interiors, a fit out contractor specialising in green interiors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The rating system, a press communiqué issued by the company said, has been designed to achieve high sustainable performance of buildings by strengthening their planning, design, implementation and operational phases. The communiqué explained that it is now mandatory for all building owners, investors and developers to meet the Al Safat’s minimum bronze rating, and those failing to meet the minimum rating criteria will not be given permits.

According to the Dubai Municipality, by applying Al Safat standards, the communiqué highlighted, a building can reportedly produce savings in energy use of up to 34%; currently, more than 90% of buildings in Dubai constructed after 2001 already meet the necessary criteria to qualify for the bronze certification. Led by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, the system, the communiqué said, is part of Dubai’s vision to achieve a smart, sustainable city status by 2021. Companies, it added, will be strongly urged to achieve beyond the minimum bronze rating.

Commenting on the Al Safat system, Marcos Bish, Managing Director of Summertown Interiors, said, “The introduction of Al Safat is a promising move by the Dubai Municipality – since Dubai pledged to make Expo 2020 the first sustainable Expo the UAE Government has made very clear its intention to become a successful model of a sustainable economy and has put in place some ambitious targets to make this vision a reality.”

Bish further said that although the UAE has recently been ranked eighth in the 2015 LEED Green Building Nations report released by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and there has been an increased awareness about undertaking green initiatives in the past few years, “the corporate and economic benefits of sustainability are still underestimated in the region”.

He added that implementation of such policies as Al Safat system are highly important to promote and enforce policies to reduce its carbon footprint.