ArabianBusiness.com - Middle East Business News
Monday, 23 November 2009 06:20 UAE time

YOUR DIRECTORY /

| Share |

Get sustainable or go under, Nakheel warns

by This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  on Wednesday, 17 October 2007

A number of Gulf developers are simply paying "lip service" to the issue of sustainability and are at a "superficial level in terms of their promises", the CEO of Nakheel has admitted during this year's Cityscape property expo in Dubai.

"Lots of people are paying lip service to this issue [sustainability]. A few want to change things and change the region's culture on sustainability," Chris O'Donnell told Arabian Business. "Some developers are at a superficial level in terms of their promises of sustainability."

However, O'Donnell said that the "tipping point" would occur when "everyone else starts doing it properly".

Story continues below
advertisement

"They will either be forced to upgrade their product offerings or perish. Remember when seatbelts first started appearing in cars or airbags, not every car had them, now all of them do. It is a marketing edge but also a must for any quality developer."

Six months ago Nakheel carried out an international sustainability group analysis to identify positive and negative elements in its sustainability planning going through the business's entire social, economic and environmental framework and followed this by putting in place an improvement programme.

"Nakheel is well advanced in sustainability planning but what we weren't good at was collecting all that information together with everything we'd been doing over the years," said O'Donnell.

"The good thing is that everything we do is new therefore we can influence the way things are designed to create the most sustainable environment anywhere in the world."

O'Donnell's comments follow calls from Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar, for the Gulf real estate sector to seriously address sustainability issues if it wants to deliver US$500bn worth of regional developments planned over the next seven years.

"These planned developments will require an additional two million cubic metres of water per day, 75 million additional megawatt hours of energy per year, all while producing an additional 3.5 million tonnes of solid waste and 300 million tonnes of carbon emissions per year", Al Jaber said. "This level of growth is not sustainable."

| Share |


READERS' COMMENTS

Disclaimer: The views expressed here by our readers are not necessarily shared by ArabianBusiness.com or its employees.

Click here to post a comment


Add your Comment
All posts are sent to the administrator for review and are published only after approval. ArabianBusiness.com reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic.
Arabian Business would like to point out that only comments relevant to the story will be published. Any containing personal insults or inappropriate language will not be approved.
Name *
Remember me on this computer
Email *
(Your email address will not be published)
City
Country
Subject *
Comment *
Notify me of further comments


Please click post only once - your comment will not be published immediately.


MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM

From  Current Issue

SHARE PRICE CHECK

RELATED STORIES

Cityscape
3 stories
  1. Looking outwards
  2. Property matters
  3. Developers' transient obsession
Nakheel - UAE
| 491 stories
  1. Dubai developers see negative press reports decline
  2. Islamic finance steps up
  3. 2,000 new residents set for Palm Jumeirah move

RELATED LINKS

  1. Nakheel - UAE»

 EMAIL ALERTS

  1. Nakheel - UAE

  2. Real Estate


CURRENCY CONVERTOR

Tell us your story

READER COMMENTS

  1. Dubai population grows 1.9% in Q2 04
    22 Nov ' 09 at 21:41
    the figures on 'population' do not come from rental stats and who is living where, it comes from the number of visas issued that are...   More  »
  2. RTA to lease last batch of retail outlets on Red Line 04
    22 Nov ' 09 at 15:33
    Dont really know how well these outlets do. No feedback.   More  »
  3. The Roubini Vs Rogers debate 03
    22 Nov ' 09 at 14:44
    Simon, I agree with everything you say. The paper gold games of Comex and the gold fractional reserve banking system of the LBMA are...   More  »

Read all user comments >

Gitex 2009

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM