It is high time there was a unified standard for green buildings — structures designed, constructed, and operated to minimise environmental impacts — in the UAE, an expert said during the Performance of Green Buildings Focus Day at the Sheraton Hotel on Monday.

Organised by the Emirates Green Building Council (Emirates GBC), the conference discussed the gaps between design, construction, operations, and maintenance of green buildings in the country and how to address them. Among the gaps identified was the existence of various standards in sustainable buildings.

“We have different green building standards and each one of them has its pros and cons. It will be easier for us if we have a unified green building standard from the region. I think we should push for such codes to be implemented in a more popular way — or on a nation-wide scale — as with the global standard,” Ebrahim Al Zu’bi, head of corporate social responsibility of Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Properties and speaker at the conference, told Gulf News.

Currently, Abu Dhabi is the only emirate that mandates that new buildings, communities, and villas should be built based on sustainability principles through the Estidama (Arabic for ‘sustainable’) programme. Dubai, on the other hand, has enforced that all government buildings have to start adapting environmentally sustainable measures by 2014, but it is optional for private buildings.