Over 2,400 projects in Qatar are GSAS certified: Gord chairman

Qatar has more than 2,400 projects registered with the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS), making it one of the highest performing countries in the Middle East in GSAS certification, Gulf Organisation for Research and Development (Gord) founding chairman Dr Yousef Alhorr told Gulf Times.

GSAS is the Middle East’s first performance-based green buildings certification system. “We have more than 200mn sft of GSAS certified buildings in Qatar," Dr Alhorr explained while pointing out that all the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 stadiums are 100% GSAS-certified.

"Qatar’s iconic projects within Lusail City, Qatar Foundation’s Education City and Lekhwiya City are all GSAS-certified,” he stated. GSAS is the first integrated and performance-based system in the Middle East and North Africa region (Mena) for assessing and rating buildings and infrastructure for their sustainability impacts.

The unique green building framework has been developed by Gord in collaboration with TC Chan Centre at the University of Pennsylvania, and School of Architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, US, and other reputable houses of expertise.

“On the master plan level, we have almost 1bn sft of GSAS-certified master plans. With its widespread adoption in Kuwait, GSAS is now the fastest growing green building rating system for new projects in the Gulf region,” said, Dr Alhorr.

The official noted that GSAS is aimed at improving the design, construction and operations of buildings while also identifying sustainability challenges specific to Mena’s built environment.

“Representing green building regulations within Qatar construction specifications, GSAS is mandatory for all government projects within Qatar and all private and government projects in Lusail City. All the museums under Qatar Museums are going through GSAS certifications.

"Similarly, in Qatar Foundation’s Education City, all the buildings are going through GSAS certifications along with many more entities like Qatar Energy projects,” explained the founding chairman of Gord.

The core philosophy behind GSAS is to create a sustainable built environment that minimises ecological impact while addressing the specific social and cultural needs and environment of the Mena region.

GSAS’ key objective is to create and promote sustainable built environment through a three-pronged approach that focuses on protecting the environment, conserving earthly resources and improving human wellbeing, all the while addressing the needs and concerns unique to the Mena region.

GSAS framework draws best practices adopted from 40 different rating systems known regionally and internationally. Over the years, GSAS has made a visible difference in the way buildings are designed, constructed and operated in the region.

Dr Alhorr also stated that over the years, there has been tremendous interest in the private sector to implement GSAS certification in their projects.

“ We see that the private developers are very keen towards implementing sustainability as they frequently approach us to implement green building practices,” he added.