Going Green

Growth has continued at an exponential rate in Qatar with large-scale real estate developments rising around the country. However, until recently there has been little focus on environmentally friendly projects and green construction. While it is the same story across the region, Qatar is seeking to take the lead in creating environmentally friendly projects.

As concern grows about global warming and the impact growth has on the environment, the need for developments to be more environmentally friendly is receiving increasing attention and is finally gaining the spotlight.

Ahmed Al Shaer, president of ERA Real Estate, told OBG, “There is a significant and environmentally important trend in real estate development in Qatar that shows a growing movement toward sustainable, green developments that improve the overall quality of life of the country.”

The Pearl Qatar development was one of the first major projects in the region to use a stringent environmental impact assessment to ensure all construction was completed in an environmentally sensitive way. However, these are exceptions and environmentally friendly construction and designs have largely been ignored in the frenzy of development in the country.

The reluctance of developers to embrace green materials and construction has been attributed to the commonly held myth that it is more costly than using traditional methods. “In almost all cases, initial building is actually cheaper in green design than through that of normal construction. Even in the cases where costs are higher initially, such as those that involve large amounts of new technology, the savings over the long term far outweigh the costs of initial investments,” said Al Shaer.

Often green properties have a higher market value which leads to a strong return on investment up front, as well as a greater long-term retention of value when compared to conventional buildings. This is a win-win situation for all involved, as well as being beneficial for the environment.

The momentum toward greener practices and construction looks to be gathering pace with the development of a body which brings together academic institutions, major project developers and industry consultants into one initiative to create sustainable projects. While still unnamed, the intiative is strongly supported by the government, which anticipates the programme formally launching in the near future. This shows the changing attitude in Qatar and is being created with the intention of increasing the quality of life in the country and potentially leading to significant savings in building and in energy costs.

At the Global Warming and Climate Changes Seminar held in Turkey in August, R Seetharaman, CEO of Doha Bank, said, “We must reduce energy consumption with initiatives such as car pooling, putting unnecessary lights off when not needed. And we must totally eliminate the use of non bio-degradable materials, encourage recycling and buy only environment friendly goods.”

So significant changes would appear to be in the pipeline with both public and private sector moving towards more environmentally friendly initiatives.

The trend toward greener practices is not confined to real estate alone – Qatar’s Al Shaheen Oil Field Gas Recovery and Utilisation Project enabled the country to become the first in the region to host a major Kyoto Protocol project. Al Shaheen was successfully registered in May under the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (UNCDM) and is expected to result in a 2.5m tonne annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. This is one of the largest such projects ever registered by the UNCDM.

Other areas where greener practices are emerging are more subtle and include energy efficient lighting. This is attracting growing attention from companies looking to reduce their energy bills, as well as developers looking to increase energy savings in their overall projects.

Yasser Wehbe, managing director of Lumatron, a Lebanon-based lighting company with significant projects in Qatar, told OBG, “Simple retrofits and conversions of conventional lighting systems not only make a working environment more effective [..], the cost savings in energy bills is enough justification for the initial costs, with most companies being able to reduce energy consumption from lighting by half.”

A green agenda is taking an increasingly prominent position in one of the most dynamic economies in the region and while there is much still to be done, Qatar is poised to take the lead.