A comparative study of local and international green building rating system

Abstract

With Dubai aiming to be one of the greenest cities in the world, the government has set various requirements and regulations to achieve this goal. This research is conducted to compare local green building rating systems (Al Sa'fat v1.1 by DM) and established international green building rating systems (LEED v4 by USGBC) in order to find the effect of both green building rating systems on the buildings. In addition, the effect of proximity from public transportation network on a project certification, the additional cost to upgrade the project to different LEED and Sa'fat tiers, to the effect of both Green building rating systems on a projects Electricity and Water consumption are investigated. Furthermore, the research looks into the regional benefits of using local green building rating systems versus established international green building rating systems.

A sample of sixteen representative commercial quality buildings was selected for the study. A model was created for each project to estimate the cost of upgrading the project to different LEED and Al Sa 'fat tiers. The model was optimized to select the alternatives that earned the tier at the lowest financial investment. Moreover, the models are optimized for Dubai to enhance the regulations and requirements for new buildings set by Dubai Municipality (including the green building regulations and specifications). All the project's costs and respective upgrade costs are based on estimates and quotations attained from the local market.

The research shows that Al Sa'fat green building rating system yielded higher water and electrical savings when compared to the same tier in LEED, however, the electrical savings proposed by Al Sa'fat are not feasible due to unrealistic on site generation requirements and the water savings could be improved by using more cost-effective techniques proposed by LEED green building rating system.

In addition, the study investigates the importance of a project's location in terms of availability of a public transportation network within the project vicinity, and its potential impact on the investment required to achieve the different tier of certification in LEED The outcome of the study reveals that buildings within close vicinity to public transportation network can achieve gold certification at relatively low cost and platinum tier with a 49% additional investment, while projects located outside the public transportation network will require additional investment (with an average of 13%) in which it deems infeasible to achieve the platinum certification.