Doha: Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards have become increasingly vital to real estate investors as they shape and influence real estate evaluation and investments. Qatar has made significant strides in ESG with the real estate industry being on track to reduce its carbon footprint according to a recent report by IPA Qatar and EY.
The report entitled ‘Qatar’s Real Estate Market Outlook - Building the Future’ underlines the growth prospects of different sectors. “ESG, aside from fostering eco-friendly buildings, has a social impact on public space. Qatar is playing an active role in transforming its building standards towards higher sustainability levels by adopting the Global Sustainability Assessment System (GSAS) standards, which is a performance-based rating system developed for assessing and rating buildings and infrastructure for their sustainability impacts. The number of projects registered for GSAS certifications rapidly increased, facilitating the transition towards green buildings,” said the report.
As host of the FIFA World Cup 2022, Qatar is actively working to build a positive environmental and social legacy from the global event, evidenced by its efforts to host a carbon-neutral tournament and expand access to sporting opportunities for people at home and abroad. The adoption of circular economy principles is central to the country’s goal of achieving a more sustainable economic model, with waste materials from production and distribution across a broad range of activities being collected, treated and recycled back into the value chain as cleanly as possible.
The Ministry of Municipality’s Climate Change Strategy aims to guide urban planning adoption of GSAS standards in buildings. Qatar will host the first carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup 2022.
In January 2020, the Education City Stadium became the first World Cup venue to get a five-star rating from the GSAS, Al Bayt Stadium followed suit in July 2020 and Lusail Stadium in August 2021.
Two important landmarks in sustainable planning have been the Lusail and Msheireb Downtown development. Lusail includes all the features of a sustainable city – pneumatic waste collection, sewage treatment plant, district cooling, centralised facilities and GSAS, while Msheireb is the world’s first sustainable downtown regeneration project and has a 32 percent energy reduction goal.
