A little less conversation…

Language is a peculiar thing. A living, evolving organism that twists, bends, transforms, recoils and develops on a daily basis, it sometimes results in phrases that are as commonplace as they are amusingly bizarre.

Wherever I've lived in the world, local friends and I have often discussed the multitude of weird and confusing English expressions. After all, if we joke at someone's expense, why exactly are we said to be ‘pulling their leg'? I'm pretty sure I've never literally ‘let the cat out of the bag', but I've done so figuratively on many occasions.

‘Flying off the handle' sounds extremely difficult if you ask me; if it weren't, I guess it would be ‘a piece of cake' or ‘easy as pie'. And, unless there have been some fairly major family shake-ups since I've been in Dubai, then Bob is most certainly not my uncle.

Some expressions, however, not only hold true but sum up a wider, more complicated issue in a tidy little linguistic bundle; ‘actions speak louder than words' is a perfect example. And nowhere is that phrase more applicable then when confronting the issue of sustainability in the Middle East.

As of the end of 2008, around 275 projects across the UAE had registered their green credentials under LEED yet just three were actually LEED certified. Aware of the importance that ecological issues and practices play in today's PR-driven world, plenty of developers are happy to talk the talk, but just how many are prepared to walk the walk?

Unsurprisingly for the GCC, industry leaders are on hand with grandiose plans. Masdar will be the world's first completely carbon-neutral city, Bahrain World Trade Centre is powered by three giant wind turbines and every other correspondence I receive talks about green spaces and moving people rather than cars. Yet - as Wadah Abusin asks - just how many developers have even adopted the relatively simple measure of fitting out their developments with energy saving light bulbs, rather than the incandescent varieties that are barely 10% efficient?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with grand designs but, given that a city the size of Dubai is still awaiting the - admittedly imminent - introduction of a vaguely proficient public transport system, maybe we should be thinking in terms of baby steps. My personal concern - in fact, to retreat to those asinine expressions, I guess you could call it my ‘axe to grind' - is that, if we go from one end of the green spectrum to the other without adopting all those measures in between, then sustainability just won't be, well, sustainable.

So, let's see more developers, designers and contractors following through on the smaller promises instead of simply ‘chewing the fat' and then, perhaps, sustainable techniques, materials and practices won't simply be ‘a flash in the pan'. And the real kicker? In the long-term, eco-construction actually benefits your bottom line as well as the environment. So, start thinking green or you risk ‘paying through the nose'...and that just sounds painful.

Matt Warnock is the editor of Middle East Developer.

RELATED LINK: Empire of the Sun

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READERS' COMMENTS

Talking green or "GREEN-WASHING"
Posted by TRUEGREEN BUFF, dubai, UAE on Monday 16 March 2009 at 11:01 UAE time


What an apt article by Matt Warnock. Everybody here is indulging in "green-washing". The need to talk green and yet drive the biggest dirtiest SUVs and 4WDs. Try buying a hybrid or even a CNG powered vehicle; even for leisure purposes and you get a reaction which states "DUH ?" Like uyou were from a different planet. Now large corporates are getting immersed in DEGRADABLE PLASTIC. This is the stuff which degrades in 2 years or so; PROVIDED IT IS LITTERED ALL AROUND THE PLACE. It needs to be in contact with "air" to degrade. Even so; all you get is smaller bits of plastic? An that is supposed to be GOOD ? what we will have is a bigger mess in our beaches and deserts than we have today and will be difficult to clean.

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