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October 17, 2008 - Wake up, Earth! Wake up, Dubai!
David Gottfried is the founder of the US Green Building Council and the author of the first White paper on LEED Green Building Rating System. He asks a few tough questions about the implications of not heeding to the eco alarm bells ringing loud and clear.
IT’S NOW customary to boast that most of the world’s cranes are in Dubai. It would be a matter of greater pride if it referred to the birds and not the giant construction equipment. Yes, we have the world’s tallest structure in Dubai. And an even taller one will soon rise to jostle for the number one spot, unsurprisingly, in Dubai. The ever-changing skyline of great cities comes at a price — our planet.
“Dubai is first in so many things. So how about a carbon neutral Dubai? It’s Dubai’s choice,” says David Gottfried a pioneer of green buildings initiative. “Do we want our kids to have the opportunity of life or not? That’s why I’m in Dubai,” he says. I’m here to ask the question and offer guidance. I’m here as a special invitee of Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development (MECSD). I want to help green Dubai. With the creation of new cities, we need to make sure the bar is set high enough and they don’t miss the opportunity to go green.”
It is evident that David Gottfried is passionate about the environment. Though soft-spoken and mild-mannered, his tone emanates a sense of urgency when he speaks about what is happening to our Earth — rather, what we are collectively doing to it. He is a real estate developer. But in his more significant avatar, he is a champion of green buildings. His mission is to turn the cities of the world green.
“What we need is sustainable architecture — buildings designed in such a way that we have a future as a species. It’s sustainable, renewable and the ultimate is that it’s regenerative — it’s when it generates more power than it uses, cleanly,” he says. “We can regenerate water by capturing rainwater, capture wastewater and treat it on the site and reuse it in a closed-loop system. This way we don’t tread heavily on the aquifers so when it rains it recharges the groundwater table. We can also grow food on the roof.”
He defines green technology: “It performs with a low carbon footprint and ecological footprint in its manufacturing. It uses very little or no energy in its production, transportation and operation. At the end of its first life, it can be recycled into a second life with a “cradle to cradle” methodology. It’s produced in a green manner with green labour and provides green collar jobs — jobs that can help improve the environment. It’s a green company with a carbon footprint that follows ISO 14001 — environment management systems and standards — that transparently revealed their footprints to society.
Despite the fast-paced development, how can we make Dubai more eco-friendly, is a question everyone is asking.
“You plan and plan right,” says Gottfried. “You encourage innovation and incentivise higher levels of green performance. You come up with cars that don’t cut off our future — both environmentally and in terms of time.
“There’s enormous traffic in Dubai. I know there’s a Metro line coming, but is that enough? You need to have legislation in place. You need to be the world’s standard in green. For that you need to bring the talent of the world here. But that’s not enough. You need to keep them here by creating a green council. You need to set aside capital investment for Dubai Green Fund.”
Gottfried speaks of the epiphanic moment that transformed him from a real estate developer to turn his focus on the concept of green buildings: “At a deeper level I wanted to have a purpose in my life. I wanted to make a difference. I knew buildings. So I decided to create a green building council. And then I wanted to share this model with the world. I wanted to break down borders of countries because pollution knows no boundaries. I founded the US Green Building Council (USGBC) in 1993. It was the first one in the world. It’s now probably one of the fastest growing non-profit organisations in the world. We have 20,000 organisation members; we have 83 chapters. The model has worked well.
“I went to Japan in 1998 to welcome the Japan Green Building Council, Tokyo. And on the stage I founded the World GBC. I said, ‘I have the US, I have Japan, and we are going to go global. And the next year we started GBCs in Australia, Canada, Mexico and Spain. The idea was to create a UN of country councils that could ensure that practice, tools and knowledge that are compatible and work with a common vision. The vision is to get the world to work together focusing on green buildings and have each country create its own councils with a coalition model and a road map.
“In this region we have the Emirates GBC, Qatar GBC and Gulf GBC. At a deeper level I want us to be humane and have world peace. We can achieve it by working together towards sustainable development.
Gottfried explains the concept of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system: “There are various types of LEED rating systems and tools to measure it —be they a new construction, existing buildings, commercial, school or hospital buildings or homes and neighbourhoods. Right now we have scale of 100 points for different kinds of buildings with six categories that are the same in every LEED rating system: they are points for sustainable site, sustainable energy and atmosphere, water, interior air quality, transportation and waste recycle. Apart from these main categories, there are also points for innovation. Projects are reviewed to see how many credits they get. There are guidelines to be followed.
“LEED also offers third party certification and verification. You have to file your registration and submit your documentation. And then a third party company reviews the information and verifies and then certifies a building as a green building within the parameters of the 100-point scale.”
The rating is not static. Existing buildings in Dubai could rate themselves to see how they fare now and then rate themselves after a year to see how they have improved over time. New buildings can register with LEED to see how they fare. “So it’s not like a medal awarded permanently. It’s a continuous process. It’s not enough to get certification once. You have to continue to prove yourself every year,” says Gottfried.
At an individual level some people make a conscious attempt to go green, admits Gottfried. “Some of my green friends go to a restaurant and when they wash their hands, they wipe their hands on their pants because they don’t want to use the energy at the hand drier or use paper napkins. They take the metro or walk to work. My own home is a regenerative home. I generate my own power. We have solar hot water heating, we grow food in our vegetable garden, we capture rainwater and use it in the toilet….”
What about big corporate houses? It has become a fashion statement to declare themselves green. Is it just a lip service paid to the environment, one wonders.
“We call that green wash — similar to whitewash,” says Gottfried with a wry smile. “Yes, there are many who resort to it. They do it for business reasons. But who are they kidding? They don’t use any standards and their claims are unverified. They don’t report the actual data. They don’t use any standards or they just don’t know! That is why we have third party green standards verification, transparent communication of the data and green seals”
Talking about his book Greed to Green — the Transformation of an Industry and a Life, Gottfried says, “It’s a very personal experience offered with humility. I wanted to share the story of what made me transform myself — not just the superficial story of what I did, but why I did it — to have a dialogue about it and through communication inspire others to do the same. “Ultimately I’m a gardener. My job is to plant seeds that’ll grow into a forest and the forest will grow to not only clean the air, but clean our souls.”
To transform Dubai — or any metropolis — into a green city you need to change the mindset first. How does one do it? Addressing this issue, Gottfried says, “I try to speak to the human being in all of us. There’s a common entity in all of us, no matter where we are from. The entity within us is covered with ego that clouds our judgement. We are from nature. We used to live in harmony with natural systems and principles. But we have forgotten to add them to our products, our consumption and our cities. This appetite for growth and consumption has crept in.
“All big cities have their own agendas. But none of them are regenerative. Some are better than others, for example, Brazil. Japan has moved to solar power and China to wind. Netherlands and Germany are embracing green. The US has a lot of green buildings and green technology, but its carbon footprint is enormous, and China has just exceeded that. So we all can do better.”
Is solar energy the answer for Dubai?
“Solar energy is not the answer, but a major answer,” says Gottfried. “The sun hits every structure here. The solar revolution can start and has to start today. But why isn’t it starting today? Because it’s expensive. So we need to aggregate the volume of all the buildings to have more volume for purchasing. You can manufacture it here using silicon, which is more cost effective. And one huge thing I hope this article does — it’s my one wish — is to get the government to agree that if we put solar panels on the buildings. Then we can feed it to the grid and run our meter backwards. That would imply we can get paid for the energy we save at a minimum of the price of the power we buy. The concept is to spin the meter backwards and get paid for it.
“And if I had a second wish, then it would be that once I hit zero energy, meaning that I have generated enough solar energy to spin my meter zero, I want to then spin it negative — generate more than I need, so I’m paid for it. I become my own utility person and also make money by saving the environment. Once that happens, Dubai’ll be green.”
Talking of the global impact of the real estate sector he says, “The real estate industry is the world’s largest industry. It has the biggest carbon footprint of any industry — more than cars and manufacturing. It uses most water, concrete, the most electricity and all these have an impact. But buildings can generate energy, capture and clean their water, they can use green and recycled materials and lessen the impact. We could have localised community-based life, where kids can walk to school and we to work. We won’t need cars.
“We have to wake up globally and understand what the impact is and how faulty architecture and design is hurting society. It’s been doing that for 50 years or more. It’s a cost we can no longer afford. So architects have to invent future buildings — buildings that are regenerative.”
Gottfried asserts that it’s more economical to go green in the real estate sector in the long run. Apart from saving the planet, it’s financially more cost effective.
“If you don’t go green, you’re going to go bankrupt,” he says. “That’s because there are millions of people like me who will reengineer the economy and redefine of value. And ultimately, as we go towards seven billion people or eight, the resources will be the key of the future — clean air, clean water and food. Once we run out of these, you know what happens? We’ll die.”
We can no longer turn a deaf ear to the alarm bells ringing vis-à-vis climate change. How much time do we have? I ask him.
“If we don’t address global warming in 10 years, it’s irreversible, if it’s not so already,” he says. We have exceeded the sustainability CO2 level. And the maximum threshold was 350 particles per million. We’re 385. We’re over the red line. And it takes 50 years to shift that because they’re there in the atmosphere. And all the scientists agree about this. Now is that going to kill us in 10 years or 25 years? I don’t know. Are these hurricanes going to kill us? I don’t know.”
The sincerity in Gottfried voice is hard to miss when he says, “You want to know something worse? The certification of the seas — the pH levels are off the charts. And the oceans that have been feeding us are declining every year. And with climate change, we’re playing with God’s creation. The results can be destructive — maybe irreversible. We could all go on a global war because we won’t have food and water and may end up killing each other.”
“Don’t talk about going green. Do it!” is his advice to the UAE. “The time’s now and it’s your choice. Wouldn’t you rather die on a planet seeing it change for the better — a change you’re proud of? That’ll give your grandchildren a future?” asks Gottfried rhetorically and adds, “Wake up, Earth! Wake up Dubai!”
Sick of it all!
WE SPEND long hours at our workplaces. Many of them are not conducive to health. So we may be suffering from Sick Building Syndrome without knowing it.
“This is particularly pertinent to Dubai because it’s so hot outside,” says David Gottfried. “The concept of the Sick Building Syndrome popped up in the 1980s because we sealed up our buildings, as we wanted to make them energy efficient. But what the engineers did was they lowered the fresh air intake — the filtration of the air. As a result we started getting sick. Ther is also all the artificial products that the manufacturers put into office space. The carpets, the paints, fittings — our doors are made of glued together particles of plywood — all that glue is toxic. And some of the products used have Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs. It’s a chemical cocktail. All this makes us sick. It’s the same with the interior of new cars. It’s all glues that give off gases. Ideally, new cars should have no smell.”
How do you get rid of it?
“You specifically buy green materials that don’t give off gas. You put more fresh air into the space. You need to have censors for CO2 and CO. If your building’s on the free way, and your fresh air intake is on the roof, the carbon monoxide from the cars enter right into your fresh air. So you need signals to say ‘Too much CO’. You need to filter and scrub that air because you don’t have access to fresh air for your building for you to breathe.”
What’s the worst-case scenario?
“Two things: We may no longer be here as humans. We blew it! Another thing which’s worse is, we’ve killed all other living species, and of course, that leads to killing ourselves. That’s the path we are now on. We’ve already eradicated thousands of species. And we have not reduced the pace. And we’re cutting down all the trees. And we’re killing ourselves.”
What can I do?
ENERGY SAVING and efficient water use are the mantras. Here’s what we can do at an individual level to inculcate sustainable practices says David Gottfried: “Individuals are the solutions to problems. Most people think they are powerless. But each of us can be an agent of ‘Green Change’. You can green your home and your diet. You can green your work. You can green the things you make and buy, invest green and teach your kids to think green. Ultimately, you can rate yourself whether your life is green and measure your level of contentment. I do that. It’s in the last chapter of my book. It’s called Greening My Life.”
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Publication: Khaleej Times
