Unlike other areas in the UAE which have adopted or modified international green building standards such as the United States Green Building Council’s LEED program, Abu Dhabi has developed a green building standard of its own. The standard is entitled “The Abu Dhabi Estidama Pearls Assessment Method for New Residential and Commercial Buildings” often referred to simply as Estidama, which means sustainability in Arabic. This article is intended to provide a summary of some of the highlights of Estidama as well as to point out some of the similarities and differences to LEED.
Credit Categories and Weightings
Estidama has divided up the 100 credits which comprise the assessment method into 10 categories: Water, Energy, Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), Ecology, Management, Transport, Pollution, Materials, Waste Management, and Land Use. It would appear that careful consideration was put into the number of credits allocated to each category resulting in a credit weight distribution that reflects the sustainability concerns of greatest relevance to the City of Abu Dhabi.
It is interesting to note that the current version of Estidama does not include any prerequisites as apposed to the current version of LEED® for New Construction which has 8.
Certified Estidama projects will be awarded 1 to 5 Pearls depending on the percentage of credits achieved. Estidama’s even 100 credit total allows the percent of credits required for each certification level to increase in logical 10% increments from 35% (1 Pearl) to 75% (5 Pearls). LEED for New Construction is currently comprised of 69 credits and awards a Platinum, Gold, Silver, or Certified rating depending on the number of credits achieved. The incremental number of credits required for each level of LEED certification does not follow a consistent percent increase as it is does in Estidama. The USGBC has identified this as a short coming of LEED and intend to move to a 100 credit system with the release of LEED 2009.
Development History
The USGBC has been developing LEED® for 14 years, which has resulted in several major revision of their flagship LEED® for New Construction ratings system, as well as the development of 6 other rating systems. The next major revision of LEED® is underway, entitled ‘LEED® 2009’. The USGBC as an organization has grown at an exponential rate over it’s 14 year life span and is considered now by some to be the largest non profit organization in the world. Estidama on the other hand is currently in a “working document” phase of development with intent on inviting projects for pilot in the near future.
Resources
The Estidama Assessment Method which currently only applies to commercial new construction developments is comprised of three main documents:
•Estidama New Buildings Design Guidelines
•Estidama New Buildings Design - Assessment Method Report
•Estidama New Buildings Design - Assessment Tool Spreadsheet
Until as late as last week (September 29, 2008) these documents were available for download on www.estidama.org however, after a major update to the website the documents no longer appear to be available.
LEED which is now comprised of 6 different systems for which the USGBC has developed rating systems and reference guides for each. In addition to rating systems and reference guides the USGBC has issued application guidelines and credit interpretation rulings to provide further clarification where required. The result is a lot of information some of which has become redundant or contradictory. Resolving these issues is one of the key motives behind LEED 2009.
Conclusion
With 14 years of development work in place and thousands of certified projects LEED has proven to be a leading edge sustainable building assessment method. That said, the current LEED systems are not without their short comings. However, it is highly encouraging that the USGBC has acknowledged this and is working on a solution, LEED 2009.
Estidama in its relative infancy should be commended for having already developed a functional assessment method for new commercial developments. However, Estidama has a great deal of development work ahead to create new assessment methods and/or further expand their current assessment method to encompass other developments types and existing buildings.
It will be interesting and exciting to watch as Estidama develops to see if lessons can be learned from the development of LEED and potential pitfalls avoided.
