Masdar to monitor emissions on website

Vesela Todorova

• Last Updated: May 15. 2008 8:57PM UAE / May 15. 2008 4:57PM GMT

ABU DHABI // A record of the emissions released during the building of Masdar City, the world’s first carbon-neutral city, will be calculated and posted on a website for the public to follow.

The Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, the project’s developer, has hired a consultant to track how activities related to the design and construction of the city are affecting its carbon footprint – a term that measures the amount of carbon dioxide (CO²), methane and other gases that contribute to climate change.

The developer is hoping this will encourage other companies to measure their own greenhouse emissions and be transparent about the results.

“We developed the Masdar carbon dashboard – a system which allows us to track down every tonne or kilogram of greenhouse gases emitted,” Khaled Awad, the director of Masdar’s property development unit, said yesterday.

Mr Awad, who was addressing an audience of architects, consultants and engineers at a sustainability conference held in conjunction with Cityscape Abu Dhabi, said calculating the carbon footprint was a complicated process.

“We went into the life cycle of carbon,” Mr Awad said.

He added that some materials, such as cement, required a lot of energy to be produced and were responsible for larger emission amounts. Cement manufacturing is responsible for five per cent of CO² released worldwide. “One major problem around the world is how to educate the supply chain, especially in a place like Abu Dhabi where people are so busy.”

But he said Masdar’s initiative represented an opportunity for suppliers to shift towards sustainable practices. Calculating the CO² footprint is likely to become even more complex as people begin to live in Masdar.

The plan envisions 40,000 residents, while 50,000 more will be commuting to offices in Masdar’s green technology free zone, or to the light industry and research facilities also located within the development. “We had to define our carbon boundaries,” said Mr Awad.

The first tier of responsibility lies with emissions during building. Later, when the city is in operation, the developer has to take measures to ensure that any CO² released directly would be offset. “These we do not have control of, so we decided to keep them out of the calculations,” he said.

The developer will be producing regular updates about its carbon footprint during building for the website, which will also feature live cameras allowing viewers to monitor the progress of the project. Developing Masdar City will cost US$22 billion (Dh80.8bn) over the next seven years.

A city of the same size designed and built in the business-as-usual scenario would generate 1.1 million tonnes of CO². The 6.5 square kilometre development will benefit from revolutionary design and technology, some that has not been tested on such a large scale anywhere else in the world.

One example is Masdar’s personal rapid transit system, which is the first city-wide application of this technology in the world. The futuristic concept offers significant benefits over traditional mass transit systems: it is available on demand around the clock, provides point-to-point travel and features small carriages for four to six people.

London’s Heathrow Terminal 5, where a small network is expected to start operating later this year, will be the first public test for the concept. Masdar’s driverless vehicles will move along specially designated concrete tracks at ground level, below the elevated city.

Walking will be encouraged throughout the development, which is why transportation has been separated from pedestrian traffic. Buildings will have a raised first floor so pedestrians can use the space underneath to protect them from the harsh desert sun.

The development will harness solar energy by placing photovoltaic panels on the roof of buildings, a process that will meet 52 per cent of the city’s energy requirements. Seven per cent of the city’s energy will be produced by burning garbage generated by residents, with those greenhouse emissions to be captured and reused, Mr Awad said.

The rest of the energy will be provided from concentrated solar power and thermal applications and wind turbines.

The city also strives to be one of the most water-efficient communities in the industrialised world, with each resident using as little as 80 litres per day by 2016, when the development is to be fully inhabited. This is a fraction of the 550 litres per capita used daily in Abu Dhabi.