By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter
The hospitality sector in Qatar stands to benefit from an initiative geared towards making hotels and other buildings sustainable by studying their ‘indoor environmental quality.’
“The pilot project highlights the advantages of green buildings, besides applying the old idea of conserving water and saving electricity,” Qatar Green Building Council (QGBC) managing director Meshal al-Shamari said yesterday.
“The objective is to scale and identify the minimum requirements with regards to air quality, noise levels, energy and water consumption, recycling, facility management and other factors that should be in a hotel,” he added.
Al-Shamari stressed that the new generation of green buildings should focus on the well-being of its users or tenants, providing them a healthy indoor environment.
QGBC, a member of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, hosted an event yesterday aimed at evaluating sustainability in Qatar’s hospitality industry.
Some of the leading indoor air quality experts and hotel senior officials in the country discussed case studies on sustainability in the hospitality sector.
Many of the topics centred on acoustics, indoor air quality, filtration systems, foundations used, lighting and natural ventilation, and a number of elements affecting the health and well-being of buildings tenants.
“The project initially focused on the hospitality sector but it can be scaled or applied to other buildings either it is a government or private building, home, hospital or school,” al-Shamari said.
He added that the outcome of the study will be shared with Qatar Tourism Authority (QTA) which also supports sustainability efforts. “It is a shared benefit between QTA and QGBC.”
“We are ready to help any hotel willing to do similar experiments with the experts that we have,” al-Shamari said.
QGBC, a non-profit, membership-driven organisation established in 2009, has been collaborating with various agencies in conducting environmentally sustainable practices for green building design and development in Qatar.
Al-Shamari also pointed out that it is a must for green buildings to have dedicated areas for smoking. “By law, hotels should be a public area and smoking is prohibited in non-specified area,” he noted.
The Qatar Passivhaus, Project Baytna, a first-of-its-kind sustainable housing in Qatar, is one of popular projects of QGBC aimed at helping the country reduce residential energy use by 50%.