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Non-profit organization US Green Building Council (USGBC) recognized the UAE as one of ten countries having the biggest number of green buildings in the world.
It is USGBC who assigns countries a position in the Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system) green building ranking. According to this rating, the UAE ranked eighth in the world, outside the United States, by the number of buildings certified according to Leed green building standards. The total floor area of these buildings in the UAE is 1.3 million square meters.
The first places in the ranking, outside the United States, belong to Canada, where there are 26.6 million square meters of buildings certified according to Leed standards, and China — 22 million square meters of green buildings.
Moreover, the number of buildings in the UAE constructed in full compliance with all the requirements of green building system and certified by Leed ranks the UAE fifth in the world. There are 990 such buildings in the UAE, with most of them located in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. At the same time the number of professionals working in the field of green building in the UAE, ranks the country fourth in the world.
“The UAE has become an increasingly important centre for the global green building movement, a development that will help provide greater environmental health and increased economic opportunity for its citizens and will hopefully help to inspire a robust green building market throughout the Middle East,” said Rick Federizzi, the chief executive of USGBC.
Among the most well-known green buildings in the UAE there are Rosewood hotel and International Tower office center in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce building in Dubai Creek and also Standard Chartered Bank headquarters in Dubai.
There are official and mandatory regulatory standards for sustainable and green building applied for today in Dubai and Abu Dhabi: in 2014 Dubai Municipality introduced its own mandatory Green Building Regulations, and Abu Dhabi has long existing system of Estidama, which is a combination of mandatory regulations for developers and rating "pearls" system designed to encourage developers through awarding them one or more "pearls" for compliance with green building standards.
