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Councillor Solly Msimanga, Executive Mayor of City of Tshwane. Photo by WRI.

Councillor Solly Msimanga, Executive Mayor of City of Tshwane, South Africa spoke about developing Tshwane’s green building guidelines as the city’s policy commitment to the BEA, and retrofitting an 8-story building as the demonstration project. In addition, the Executive Mayor highlighted the development of Tshwane House, a newly developed green building that serves as a head office for city staff. In addition to bringing city departments together in one physical space and improving their coordination, Tshwane House has helped improve staff awareness about the multiple benefits of green buildings.

Engineer Faisal Ali Rashid, Demand Side Management Director of Dubai Supreme Council of Energy. Photo by WRI.

Engineer Faisal Ali Rashid, Demand Side Management Director of Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, United Arab Emirates shared Dubai’s targets for green buildings. Dubai’s Demand Side Management Strategy sets a target to improve energy efficiency 30% by 2030 compared to business as usual. To reduce the consumption of new buildings, Dubai introduced Green Building Regulations for government buildings in 2010 that became mandatory for all buildings in 2014. To retrofit existing buildings, Dubai relies on super ESCO Etihad Energy Services. Etihad ESCO has already facilitated the retrofit of 3,000 buildings in the municipality with a goal to retrofit 30,000 buildings by 2030, or one-quarter of the existing buildings in Dubai. A new building energy efficiency ranking system, with silver, gold and platinum levels, will further motivate the adoption of green buildings.

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In 2016, Dubai joined the BEA and proposed a new policy on energy performance labels for existing buildings. The city government launched a pilot project in February 2017, led by the Emirates Green Building Council and Dubai Supreme Council of Energy, to measure the performance of 100 buildings. The World Green Building Council is a delivery partner for the BEA, supporting its Green Building Councils involved in the program.

To learn more about this endeavor, the first of its kind in the UAE, we sat down with representatives of the Emirates Green Building Council—Operations Director Lora Shrake, Technical Manager Majd Fayyad and Communications Officer Maha Khogali—to gain a better understanding of the project’s progress to date and the collaborative nature of their work.

Read more here.

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Hotels, malls and schools are being invited to participate in the project, which will be the first BEA pilot project in the United Arab Emirates, and will serve as a referral point in driving forward the energy efficiency of buildings in Dubai.

Read more at the Emirates Green Building Council’s press release and on the World Green Building Council website.

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