Environment & Energy | Monday 27 April, 2015 1:50 pm |

His Royal Highness Prince Faisal bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, Governor of Riyadh region, received in his office at Qaser Alhokum on Thursday, 23 April, 2015 His Excellency Engineer Faisal Saleh Al-Fadl, Secretary General of the Saudi Green Building Forum (SGBF)

At the beginning of the reception a "Lifetime Green Leadership" award presented to His Royal Highness Governor of Riyadh for the support and encouragement of SGBF activities an achievement earned by the initiative of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz King for Green Building, since 2010.

The Governor listen to a detailed explanation of SGBF mission and objectives to promote employment and investment opportunities in the construction sector for Green projects. Al-Fadl explain the needs to strengthen the balance of planet, people and profit issues by developed technical standards that maintain the heritage of the urban and natural resources of Saudi Arabia, for the benefit of health, safety and security of its habitat as to develop urban environmental strategies.

Alfadl noted, the royal instruction allowed SGBF contribution to the growth of the knowledge economic base industry as the first professional trust foundation in the history of the Kingdom and the Gulf states. SGBF is a catalyst for change an independent Shariah law trust and one of the most prominent institutions for civil society in Saudi Arabia serving Architecture, Engineering & Construction sector setting standards for green services and products.

SGBF Trust Foundation promoting green buildings practice licensed by Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Commerel and Industry, as a Non-Governmental, Non-Profit Organization supported by Ministry of Municipality and Urban Affairs as well many other local and international NGO affiliations such as US Green Building Council (USGBC), Building Research Establishment (BRE), Underwriters Laboratory (UL) and International Construction Code (ICC).

SGBF recorded more than 400 green building project in Saudi with more than 30 million buildup square meters, pointing out the green building global movement in the construction sector as fruitful, in facing the world challenges on energy and water consumption. SGBF responding to the need for growing demand in reducing operating and maintenance costs ensuring the health, safety and security of human and the environment.

The Saudi Green Building Forum presented five consecutive conference urged the adoption of its recommendations, initiatives and signed many agreements that have contributed joined by more than 3,000 specialized delegations between speaker and participants came to KSA from 10 countries from GCC and the Middle East.

With repeated environmental risk and rising greenhouse gas index and aspects of reducing the negative effects on local climate change it becomes evident that the quality make namely "SAAF" a fronds by SGBF to record and document the building materials and systems quality assurance using cradle-to-cradle assessment tools empowered by Underwriter Laboratories (UL) out of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia presented as an eco-label by "Saudi Green" to set the standards as one of the major tools to improve performance and mitigate the impacts of urban growth of buildings on human and the environment.

SAAF by SGBF will join its green assysments tools BREAM by BRE from Britain and LEED by USGBC from America as newly adopted credit tool for the Gulf States building sector for construction technology and sustainability performance awards.

Alfadl predicted a noticeable change in performance of engineering and major contracting companies in Saudi Arabia and GCC as they join the SGBF growing member's list. The changes will seek its strategy towards construction services and product that already started with more than 30 companies recorded proactive members since the start of the trust foundation by SGBF to review its business strategies to comply with green building standards by investing in clean energy systems, water recycling and the use of eco friendly building materials to benefits humans and the environment.