Chairman of the Jordan Green Building Council Mohammad Asfour (left) and his Saudi counterpart Abdul-Elah Al Muhanna shake hands after signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on green building applications. AMMAN – The Jordanian and Saudi Green Building councils Sunday signed a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation between the two councils in the field of green building applications, Petra news agency said. The MoU also aims to improve technical capacity in the management of green building projects and in regulating work on joint initiatives. The agreement was sealed by chairman of the Jordan Green Building Council Mohammad Asfour and his Saudi counterpart Abdul-Elah Al Muhanna. Green building is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction. This practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort (US EPA). The Jordanian council launched a service program to support members' business in order to promote their products and services by the council's website and enhance the exchange of services between the members. The Jordan GBC aims to introduce and promote appropriate green building concepts and practices in the Jordanian and construction sector. Saudi Green Building Council (SGBC), with headquarters in Riyadh, aims to transform the way buildings are designed, built and maintained by leading the way in promoting, advising and educating all stake holders to implement best practices to achieve environmental sustainability. Its objective is to create awareness, support the understanding and implementation of green building practice in Saudi Arabia – including providing training & education, helping the construction industry transform to the green building requirements, encouraging building materials manufactures and suppliers to produce and supply environmentally responsible products and promoting green labeling. There are various voluntary green building rating and certification systems, programs and tools developed and applied around the world, such as LEED and BREEAM. LEED is an internationally recognized green building voluntary certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. Developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions. LEED is flexible enough to apply to all building types – commercial as well as residential. It works throughout the building lifecycle – design and construction, operations and maintenance, tenant fitout, and significant retrofit. And LEED for Neighborhood Development extends the benefits of LEED beyond the building footprint into the neighborhood it serves. BREEAM is also a voluntary environmental assessment method for buildings. It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure used to describe a building's environmental performance in the UK and many countries around the world. BREEAM provides clients, developers, designers and others with market recognition for low environmental impact buildings, assurance that best environmental practice is incorporated into a building, inspiration to find innovative solutions that minimize the environmental impact, a benchmark that is higher than regulation, a tool to help reduce running costs, improve working and living environments, and a standard that demonstrates progress towards corporate and organizational environmental objectives. BREEAM addresses wide-ranging environmental and sustainability issues.
