Aldar Properties on Monday launched a portfolio-wide energy management project to reduce its energy consumption by approximately 20 percent across 80 assets including hotels, schools, commercial, leisure, retail, and residential buildings.
As well as reducing energy emissions, the project will enable Aldar to save approximately AED40 million per year in energy consumption costs, it said in a statement.
The project aims to reduce Aldar’s carbon emissions by 80,000 tons, electricity consumption by 110 GWh, water consumption by 886,000 m3, chilled water consumption by 23,000,000 TRH, and gas consumption by 726,000 cubic metres on a yearly basis.
The announcement comes as the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week takes place this week.
Greg Fewer, chief financial and sustainability officer, said: “As a socially responsible leader in the real estate sector, Aldar understands how crucial it is to take proactive measures towards reducing its carbon footprint.
“The primary step to achieving this goal is to fully understand our energy consumption and put in place measures to ensure we are efficient across our owned and managed assets. We have now reached a significant milestone on this journey as we partner with internationally recognised Energy Service Companies that will help us achieve a significant reduction in energy emissions.”

He added: “As well as the positive environmental impact, sustainability projects like this are also good for business. This project is a clear-cut case where the time and effort invested into sustainability initiatives can yield strong financial returns in keeping with broader societal priorities.”
Based on the completion of the level-III audits by the shortlisted partners, Aldar has awarded five-year energy performance contracts to four ESCOs, including Siemens, Enova, ENGIE (in collaboration with Tabreed), and Johnson Controls (in collaboration with Alliances for Global Sustainability).
Each ESCO will be responsible for a portfolio of buildings, while grfn global has been appointed as the project management consultant.
In the next phase of the project, the ESCOs will carry out retrofit projects across all 80 assets with an expected completion date in the third quarter of 2022.
Upon its successful completion, the ESCOs are required to accomplish the guaranteed energy savings for a period of five years.