Construction industry has been proven to cause
environmental problems ranging from excessive consumption of
natural resources in construction, to the pollution of the environment.
Studies on green building to minimize environmental impact are
already underway. Tools of assessment of environmental performance
of buildings are plenty. However, Middle East countries together with
Gulf region are still away from practicing the concept of mitigating
the impacts of buildings on the environment. Reasons could be relying
on the insufficient awareness of building stakeholders, or the privilege
of much fortune. The main objectives of this paper are to arouse the
people's attention to the importance of assessment of environmental
performance of buildings in KSA, and to introduce a sustainability
model for project appraisal based on a multi-dimensional approach,
that will be used for the assessment of a case study in KSA. The
approach is using the LEED (Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) rating system as a guide for the assessment.
The plan of work includes reviewing the literature on the assessment
of sustainability performance of buildings, displaying the LEED
system, and assessment of a commercial building in Dammam. The
paper uses the descriptive approach to study the problem and collect
the data, and the comparative approach to compare the obtained data
with the required standards of LEED. The case study, which is a
commercial complex in Dammam, is one of these types of buildings
widely spread in the development schemes of current real estate
investment in KSA. While the building achieved some credits and
prerequisites of LEED system, the building lacks many other points.
The overall credits achieved are 22%, and the overall prerequisites
achieved are 43%. The main problem of the building is related to
energy and atmosphere aspects.
Assessing Sustainability Indicators of a Commercial
Building: A LEED Approach