Future of sustainable development

Inayat-ur-Rahman, Business Editor

A sustainable project is an important, not to mention bold, commitment by a developer to furthering the field of sustainable development in the construction industry. The construction industry needs to be moving towards Net Zero now, and we are leading the charge in this direction.

This is because sustainable projects move away from traditional planning and building methods to implement new and potentially experimental practices which may be unproven on a large scale in the construction industry.

This was stated by Carl Atallah, Marketing Director at Sharjah Sustainable City, during an exclusive interview with Gulf Today, adding that each project offers lessons on how to best implement these practices in future developments.

“Diamond Developers, the developers behind Sharjah Sustainable City, were well-positioned in this regard, having already completed the highly successful sustainable real-estate project, The Sustainable City – Dubai, which was launched in 2015. Drawing on lessons learned from Dubai, they were able to apply their learnings to the Sharjah project.”

“With Sharjah Sustainable City, we’ve also enjoyed the added benefit of being able to implement technologies which weren’t available when planning The Sustainable City – Dubai. For example, we’ve become the first project in the region to incorporate the latest energy management systems combined with energy storage technology from our partners, the Hager Group.”

Atallah mentioned that it is  also essential to educate the market on the benefits of sustainable developments, and how they support the vision and objectives of the UAE government’s green agenda, as well as the UN SDGs, by implementing sustainable best practice and contributing towards a circular economy through renewable energy and the recycling of waste and water.