The moment sustainability gets tested: An open letter to the Emirates Green Building Council

In this open letter, originally published in the June edition of the Emirates Green Building Council newsletter, Mario Saab reflects why the most important sustainability decisions are often made during a project's most challenging moments. 

I sometimes think the future of our cities is decided in surprisingly small moments.  

Not at conferences. Not during launch events. Not when ambitious sustainability targets first appear on the screen. But in ordinary meeting rooms, usually late in a project.

The energy in the room has changed. Deadlines are getting tighter. Budgets are under pressure. The conversation shifts from endless possibilities to immediate priorities.

And then someone asks a question that almost everyone in our industry has heard before:

“Do we really need this?”

Maybe it is a façade performance target, or a passive design measure. Maybe it is an efficiency strategy, a resilience intervention, or a carbon reduction initiative.

Then comes the follow-up: “What’s the minimum requirement?”

On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable question. But I have learned over the years, working across a multitude of projects and communities throughout the MENA region, that this is often the exact moment sustainability gets tested.

Because sustainability rarely disappears through one major decision. It erodes quietly.

A specification changes. A target is softened. A performance threshold moves slightly. Something important gets pushed into a future phase.

Each decision in isolation feels small, but buildings stay with us for decades, and small decisions have long memories.

The UAE and our wider region have made remarkable progress. Sustainability has moved from the margins into the centre of the conversation. National agendas, climate commitments, evolving regulations, and initiatives such as the UAE Climate Law and UAE Net Zero 2050 are reshaping expectations across our industry.

The discussion today is no longer whether sustainability matters. Thankfully, we have moved beyond that.

The more difficult question now is this: How do we continue protecting ambition once projects encounter reality?

Because designing sustainably when conditions are ideal is relatively easy. Designing sustainably when commercial pressure appears - that is where discipline begins!

For developers and asset owners, this means recognising that sustainability cannot simply be a feature added onto a project narrative. The assets and communities being delivered today will operate long after current market cycles and trends have passed. Decisions around resilience, operational performance, carbon, health, and wellbeing increasingly shape not only environmental outcomes, but long-term value and risk.

For policymakers, there is an equally important challenge. Ambition matters. Vision matters. But clear, stable and practical pathways matter too. Markets accelerate when there is confidence around direction.

And for consultants, engineers and designers, there is also a big responsibility. Sometimes our role is not to say “yes” to every compromise. Sometimes our responsibility is to defend future value in rooms focused heavily on present pressures.

Throughout my own journey, and in the work we have always tried to champion as a practice across the region, I have seen the strongest outcomes emerge when sustainability is embedded early and treated as a design principle rather than an overlay. When carbon, resilience, wellbeing, and performance become part of the DNA of a project from day one, rather than a layer added later.

Because by the time sustainability reaches the value-engineering table, some of the most important decisions have often already been made.

This is also why Emirates Green Building Council continues to play such an important role. EGBC does far more than bring people together. It quietly raises expectations across the industry. It creates the space where difficult conversations happen, where experiences are shared honestly, and where today's ambitions gradually become tomorrow’s standard practice.

The next phase of sustainability in our region may not be defined by larger targets or more ambitious statements. It may simply be defined by how many times we collectively choose not to lower the standard.

Because ultimately, sustainability is not what we promise at the beginning of a project. It is what we choose to protect when things become difficult.