ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 259

tiveness commercially, socially and environmentally the sustainable design has to afford measurable benefits, spatially in commercial and educational design. Some of the reported benefits of
the sustainable buildings are; energy and water efficiency, better occupant health, high level of
comfort, high productivity, less pollution and landfill waste (Bradshaw 2006).However, in order
to convince the private developer to approach new trend and use a sustainable technology, the
design should maximize the benefits and minimize the expenses further to increase the efforts
of illustrating the economies in fuel bill, market advantage, long term exposure to environment
problems and the enhancement in productivity of workforce.
From another point of view, there are some challenges that the designer may face and questions
may rise like: Will the building perform as predicted? Are the green cost affordable and the technology is reliable? Edward (2003) mentioned that such questions required more attention to all
technologies, options, solutions that could be followed to achieve the desired level of building
sustainability.
Green Building Rating Systems
Green Building Rating Systems and practices mainly developed to reduce or eliminate negative
environmental impacts through high performance in aspects of design, construction, operations
and demolition, through covering the main systems categories namely; site selection, energy
and water efficiency, operating and management, material recourses and occupant’s productivity. The main categories and indicators are various between the existing rating systems, which are
also providing an evaluation of sustainability or greenness level of any development, in additional to the opportunity that provided to the stakeholders to enhance or upgrade the development
performance toward greener attitude or higher sustainable levels. Furthermore, each rating system can be an ideal practice guide for sustainable design, operation and management.
In addition to the International Rating Systems, world countries including Middle East countries
tend to develop their own regulations and rating systems which is to comply with the local contents and characteristics. Roderick(2009) stated that Internationally, the most famous rating systems used all over the world are the United States Green Building Council (USGBC)’s ‘Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Development (LEED)’and the UK Building Research Establishment
(BRE)’s ‘Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM)’, as both the USA and the UK have the leadership in this domain.
Locally and complying with Abu Dhabi’s 2030 vision of being one of the world sustainable cities,
the capital of the UAE developed the local green rating tool ‘Pearl Rating System(PRS)’ in order
to drive the sustainable developments towards World Sustainable Capital (WSC). Another local
regulations which will be outlined in this paper is ‘Green Building Regulations and Specifications’
develo ped by Dubai Municipality (DM) as an implementation of Dubai Strategic Plan 2015, and
the aim is to keep Dubai as a model of sustainable city that follows the highest standards of sustainable developments which adapted to local conditions of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Jordan has started steady pace towards sustainability and green buildings design. The Ministry
of Public Work and Housing (MPWH) released‘ Jordan Green Building Guide and Regulations’ as a
reference guide for more efficient and high performance design that comply with international
standards and local content(MPWH 2013).Moreover, Hikmat and Saba(2009) conducted a research
to develop new rating tool to assess and evaluate building’s greenness level in Jordan, and the researchers had published their work explaining that the Jordanian local green building tool ‘SABA’.

An overview of building sustainability rating systems in the Middle East

257