Regional roadmap for a low-carbon and resilient buildings and construction sector

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Policy approach(es) used to catalyse investment: 1) Development of a national, regional, or sectoral InfraTech strategy, 2) a change in procurement policy, 3) a change in regulation, and 4) a government-sponsored innovation sandbox

Arab Roadmap Towards a zero-emission, efficient, and resilient buildings and construction sector

This roadmap aims to attract investment towards decarbonising the construction sector, with a view to achieve Paris Agreement goals by 2050.  The Arab Roadmap acts as a blueprint for the Arab countries, supporting the initiation of each country’s national roadmap by addressing countries’ diverse conditions, including climatic, economic, demographic, energy emissions, and urbanisation patterns. Furthermore, the roadmap takes into consideration the diversity of the building sector in each country and accordingly provides three sub-roadmaps distinguishing between decarbonisation transition needs of various Arab countries.

The Roadmap covers eight activities within the construction sector:

• Activity 1: Urban planning. This activity covers land use, zoning, and other planning associated with how buildings, transport, and energy systems interact.
• Activity 2: New buildings. This activity covers all aspects of new buildings, including the design process, design strategies, codes, and labels.
• Activity 3: Existing buildings. This activity covers all aspects of the improvements of existing buildings.
• Activity 4: Building operations. This activity covers all aspects of building operations and management.
• Activity 5: Appliances and systems. This activity covers lighting, appliance, and equipment systems that are used in new and existing buildings.
• Activity 6: Materials. This activity covers envelope, structural, and product materials used in buildings.
• Activity 7: Resilience. This activity covers all aspects of building resilience that enables increased capacity to adapt to and mitigate the effects of changing climates and other natural disasters.
• Activity 8: Clean energy. This activity covers the clean energy transition away from carbon-intensive fuels to renewable energy resources.

 The policy approaches adopted through the Arab Roadmap include:

1. A change in procurement policy
   1. Promote green procurement activities – sustainable materials, low embodied carbon materials, recycled materials…
   2. Promote bulk procurement
   3. Capacity building on procurement models
2. A change in regulation
   1. Appliances min performance regulations
   2. Reforming the planning and building regulation to Integrate considerations of embodied carbon
   3. Developing green procurement regulations
   4. Regulations to improve buildings resilience to climate change
   5. Revising renewable energy regulations
3. Development of a national, regional, or sectoral InfraTech strategy 
   1. This drives the adoption of technologies for: Urban Planning, New Buildings, Existing Buildings, Sustainable Buildings’ Operations, Sustainable Appliances, Low Carbon Materials, Resilience, Clean Energy
4. Availability of a government-sponsored innovation sandbox
   1. Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure (MoEI) is developing an R&D virtual hub

Note: This case study and all information within was submitted to the GI Hub by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure (MoEI) of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in response to our global call for InfraTech case studies.