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Sustainable design is the smart and subtle way of utilizing modern building methods and materials to achieve a more intelligent building, while using fewer resources and recycling more waste. It is not simply a trend, nor is it only a marketing tool for 21st century developments, but rather sustainable design is a conscientious decision by an architect to take measures to protect the environment, lessen utility costs, and ensure a longer lasting product in the end. The future of Earth can only be looked after by those who inhabit it, and therefore sustainability has become the most important idea today in the field of science and design. Like with many building standards, each country has its own method of measurement and evaluation to the level of sustainability achieved, and because of globalization, there have been several different international standards competing for international recognition and control over the green design process. The three methods to be studied here are BREEAM, LEED, and ESTIDAMA, each presently in use today, and each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
BREEAM, the Building Research Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method was created in 1990, to cover the United Kingdom, but subsequently expanding to include several countries around the globe, and was last updated significantly in the year 2008. This building standard requires itself to actively train assessors whose job it is to assess new buildings, refurbished buildings, and new attachments to buildings, and make a conclusion as to its sustainability. The assessor's evaluation is then sent over to the BRE's offices, who then give the final certification. In 2008, a post-construction review was added to the evaluation so that a completion test can determine the efficacy of the green construction, in part because of pressure from LEED's post-construction requirement. In 1998, sustainable design came to the United States with the LEED...
LEED differs from BREEAM in that it is the green building council itself, which makes all assessments to the quality of building sustainability. Accredited Professionals may advise the construction, however they do not make any of the evaluations themselves. These two standards represent the majority of sustainable design development in the world, however a third standard, ESTIDAMA, will be considered as well.
According to Eszter Gulacsy, a sustainability consultant from MTT/Sustain, BREEAM is more academic and rigorous, and more relevant in the UK, however LEED can sit alongside as part of global corporate policy." [footnoteRef:1] This means that LEED has an edge in corporate business, because most corporations work out of several countries, and therefore to show prestige in new construction, LEED is a tool that is understood among many CEOs and governments worldwide, and is not limited in its reach, as the BREEAM standard has been. BREEAM does have an international wing to it, but it is still tied to the requirements of the UK itself. BREEAM does have an advantage of being able to adapt to a local community, as the assessors will understand the local environment and the standards are not placed on an international basis. LEED has the trouble of being the same all over the world, and therefore it is not flexible to extreme environments such as Dubai or Moscow, which experience very different weather patterns throughout the year. Another example of differences between the two standards is in car parking spaces. In the LEED standard, buildings are awarded credits for having a certain number of parking spaces available for the building, whereas BREEAM awards credits for reducing the number of parking spaces available in an effort to motivate companies to encourage their employees to use car pooling or mass transit. [1: "BREEAM or LEED - Strengths and Weaknesses…
ESTIDAMA, the word meaning 'sustainability' in Arabic, is the green design standard for the city of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, ESTIDAMA, and particularly the Pearl Rating System used to rate sustainability in ESTIDAMA, was created in advance of Abu Dhabi's 2030 vision for the creation of a modern global capitol city. Although a similar system to the other two, there are a few major differences. ESTIDAMA places far more emphasis of its credit distribution on water usage, and less on energy usage, as this is a critical part of Abu Dhabi's development and need for clean water to be recycled as efficiently as possible. Energy is plentiful in the Middle East, and much of the development built in this region is a result of its fortunate energy supply.[footnoteRef:2] This problem of water usage, however, is not applicable to the rest of the world, and therefore shows why ESTIDAMA was created in the first place, because LEED and BREEAM simply could not readily adapt themselves to the particular conditions of Abu Dhabi. [2: "Comparing Estidama's Pearls Rating Method to LEED and BREEAM." Carboun. Web. 19 May 2011. <http://www.carboun.com/sustainable-development/sustainable-design/comparing-estidama%E2%80%99s-pearls-rating-method-to-leed-and-breeam/>.]
As far as accreditation is concerned, ESTIDAMA takes a hybrid approach between BREEAM and LEED, urging the use of a dedicated professional onsite to evaluate as progress moves, as BREEAM does, but also requiring the oversight of a "Pearl Qualified Professional" to complete the final inspection. This process is extremely thorough in its approach, and to have two checks is a valuable tool against cheating and corruption, which may seep into the competitive world of construction in the other two standards. This method of double checks however could be prohibitively bureaucratic in a democracy setting, which ESTIDAMA does not operate in currently. ESTIDAMA is certainly just as important to the field of sustainable design as the larger rating systems are, as it brings much of the same professionalism to the task, ESTIDAMA is however tinkered to appeal to its local market in the Middle East, and this is apparent in the breakdown of the evaluation process.
In conclusion, it is foreseeable that buildings will reach a near-zero release of carbon during their complete phase, and a lot less energy will be used during the buildings construction. In this way, all three sustainable standards will play their part, and will have brought good policy to a controllable environment of office space and residential construction. I, however, believe that the LEED standard is the best standard to follow, as it is best understand around the world and by architects, does not require specialization within countries, which would only dilute the strength of LEED's simplicity, and does not allow any individual to make evaluations, only the Green Building Council itself. This disallows cheating and presents a balanced and expert opinion of what LEED's standards ought to be. ESTIDAMA uses both practices in its methods, but is not as appealing as LEED because of how it looks at water resources far more than innovative design or efficient energy use. Energy is not a big problem in the Middle East, ESTIDAMA's market, however water is. This is antithesis to the majority of the rest of the world, which has been able to secure its own water supply but still requires energy to be brought in from abroad. ESTIDAMA is simply too much of a niche to be able to compete with the global design of the LEED design.
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