Environment
“With God’s will, we shall continue to work to protect our environment and our wildlife, as did our forefathers before us. It is a duty, and, if we fail, our children, rightly, will reproach us for squandering an essential part of their inheritance, and of our heritage.” Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, 1998
The Abu Dhabi Government considers that a more sustainable approach to building design is needed to meet the needs of future generations and to ensure sustainable development.
The Government recognizes the need to implement sustainable or ‘green’ building to consider all economic and environmental effects of construction. Green building minimizes the environmental impact of a building, while providing a safe, functional and comfortable living or working environment.
It embraces a holistic approach, sympathetically integrating the local and built environment with the underlining principles of minimizing the use of valuable resources, like water and energy. Simultaneously, it adheres to high standards of quality of performance in design, construction, operation, maintenance, and waste management.
The Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi is responsible for stipulating requirements necessary to implement green building.
Abu Dhabi’s sustainable buildings and communities program, Estidama, was launched on 28th May 2008 by the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council in collaboration with the Environmental Agency of Abu Dhabi (EAD), Abu Dhabi Municipality, and Masdar – a global platform initiated in Abu Dhabi to identify solution to energy security, climate change and the development of expertise in sustainability.
