ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 184

1. Introduction
Sustainability has been defined as “The needs of present without compromising the ability of
future generation to meet their own needs”. In 1992, these principles were backdrop in Rio Earth
Summit, the major concern in economic and environmental issues was the s ustainability in addition to other topics such as poverty, peace. These classic archives are very important to recognize
the sustainability development in the world. (Blackburn 2007).The rapid growth in economic and
population associated with the sprawl of the cities and the affluence of the industrialization to
distributed several kind of pollution such as air pollutions, water pollutions, in addition to the
changing in climate, health problems, sick cities, depletion of the resources, natural hazardous.
Early twentieth century the deterioration of urban condition need to draw attention globally, the
professions of city planning, architects, landscape designers, are worried about the expansion
of the industrial cities. (Wheeler & Beatley 2009).The Kyoto Protocol adopted in 1997 and implemented in on February 2005, which address the global warming and stabilization of greenhouse
gases as major issues by UNFCCC (United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change). A
consequence of these sustainability developments, in November 2009 187 states have signed and
ratified the protocol including the United Arab Emirates which was ratify the protocol on 26 January 2005. (Salama & Hana 2010).The unique location associated with natural resource such as Oil,
rich natural gas, fishing, pearling to create significant importance for U.A.E. since the discover of
oil which exploited in 1960, U.A.E became an open economy with high per capita income.
It has transfer form an impoverish region of small desert to a modern state with high level of lifestyle. Further U.A.E becomes as centre of business, trading, banking, financial services, and tourism for the Gulf countries and for the entire world. (Carter 2006).In Europe, over 40% of energy
consumption has related to building industry, 50% of natural resources have used as a materials
related to constructions sector, 50% of national waste produced by building field. In fact, these
percentages are even higher in U.A.E in way that it should be attract more attention from the
government. In order to align the construction sector with sustainability development approach,
the major attention should direct towards establishing a new regulation in addition to sustainable guideline (AboulNaga & Elshehtawy 2001). According Asif (2015) GCC countries facing many
challenges in terms of energy and environment, the GCC countries considered as the highest in
the world in terms of energy consumptions. The average figure of GCC is more than seven times
than global average, meanwhile Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates are amongst the top
six countries in world in terms of per capita Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission.

2. Aim of the study:
The study aims to examining the current practices of buildings constructions in United Arab
Emirates and their impact on the environment, the study will investigate the level of sustainable
implementation in U.A.E especially in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, and Ajman, which witnessed a
huge constructions projects. This data will help to assess the buildings performance in U.A.E and
highlighted the main obstacles to achieve sustainability in constructions field. The main motivation of the study is about U.A.E is a developing country that represents a motivating case study
because of the rapid growth in economic and the booming in construction projects.

3. Methodology
In order to evaluate the sustainability practices in U.A.E, a survey structured to look in the following key area:

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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy