It’s late November and 36 degrees outside, yet yards away, kids are skiing and throwing snowballs. I am in Dubai, to be precise The Mall of the Emirates, the city’s largest shopping centre, and if rumour is to be believed, can be seen glowing from space.

 The reputation of Dubai is one of a gas-guzzling and energy-profligate society, the epitome of unsustainable living. Large indigenous oil reserves mean oil is cheap and energy is worth little. Dubai citizens are among those generating the largest amount of waste per head in the world. So consider my surprise when I discovered that some of the major mall owners in Dubai have been started on ways to respond to environmental and sustainability challenges.

The key challenge is public education. Take plastic bags as an example. Given that Dubai is a car-born society, plastic bags could be an area targeted for reduction. Mall owners accept that they struggle to challenge the mentality of many retailers, whose staff unthinkingly push them to shoppers for even the smallest purchases. Some retailers though are now looking at replacing plastic with jute in moves that echo the UK. 

However, changing attitudes also requires making change accessible. In the UK, Tesco or Sainsbury’s, or the average high street, will boast facilities to recycle glass, paper, cardboard, plastic. However, in Dubai recycling facilities are few on the ground. Those that are available are geared towards cans and plastic. The net result is that Emiratis are not in the habit of separating their waste, nor easily capable of recycling it.

The Dubai Municipality is determined to educate people about ways they can improve the environment. Its Target 555 initiative has made some efforts by encouraging citizens to cut average waste per capita from 1000 kg by nearly 50 per cent. And in terms of on-the-ground action initiatives, mall owners are committed to doing their bit to educate too. Involving children and schools is uppermost, with management staff working with teachers on ways to inspire children on environmentally-friendly initiatives that they can also take home to engage their families. The malls for their part see community action as key.

For a city that has virtually no public transport system (a Metro system is currently being built, while the bus network is sporadic), taxis are inexpensive and oil is cheap, so car usage is high. The municipality is attempting to cut car travel and ease congestion, which is crippling during rush hours, in a number of ways. These include new hybrid buses, encouraging car-sharing, disallowing the registration of vehicles over a certain age (due to their higher CO2 emissions) and offering businesses incentives.

While most mall owners would protest that a green transport policy for their shoppers is unattainable due to the lack of alternatives to the car, they can reduce congestion and carbon emissions by bussing in their staff from the camps and compounds which house their workforce. They would do well to consider the UK phenomenon of high end ‘shopping tours’ and other organised shopping experiences to cut the number of vehicles arriving. This would reduce the cost of running so many air-conditioned car parks while improving the consumer experience. This is a real opportunity for Dubai – to take sustainability at heart as an aspirational, lifestyle option for the future.

With year-round sunshine and summer temperatures averaging 40 – 50 degrees centigrade, keeping the malls cool is fundamental to the shopping experience. Air conditioning systems draw vast amounts of energy. Artificial lighting – particularly to generate ambient lighting – is enormously popular. Ironically, older malls made better use of the ample natural daylight than some of the newer builds. Perhaps future mall design could take inspiration from recent examples in the region where buildings have been constructed to take the best of local traditional construction ideas to create modern, low energy and iconic architecture fit for the climate. Of course, water is a rarer and far more expensive commodity. The key issues are how to both conserve and recycle it, and everywhere in Dubai this is a challenge waiting to be tackled with the urgency it deserves.

With the number of malls in the ground, it is easy to forget that retail is still fairly nascent to Dubai – at most twenty years. If the UK experience is a fair barometer, major retailers and major mall owners now have an opportunity to lead change for sustainability in a fast developing retail world. Crucially, both they and the municipality must work to help business and simultaneously engage citizens, in order to challenge its unsustainable image.

So, which shopping centres demonstrate best practice?

Energy Excellence

Wafi is almost a city within Dubai city, boasting luxury residential, office, leisure, entertainment, hotel and shopping, the latter centred on a mall that is home to approximately 350 stores and Khan Murjan, a soon –to-be-open underground Arabesque souk.

Wafi built its own district cooling plant to improve its energy efficiency and utilise less resources. It is the first building in the UAE to receive a Gold Leadership award in Energy Environmental Design (LEED) certification, as well the first in the Middle East to earn a Gold rating under the USA Green Building Council’s award scheme. There are only two utility buildings in the world to achieve the rating.

The district cooling plant features some of the most energy efficient equipment available. It already serves several areas of Wafi, including the shopping mall and the new Raffles Hotel. Energy use has been reduced by a third to date. With further development, it will provide for Wafi as a whole.

Wafi Mall

Integrated approach

Sustainability has been integral to the BurJuman Centre’s operational detail since it opened in 1992. The centre may house more luxury brands per square metre than any mall in the Middle East, yet as it expands the focus is on improving operational efficiencies and the environmental footprint of the shopping experience for customers.

Recent upgrading of its building management system for temperature control has enabled BurJuman to reduce its energy use by an average of 10 per cent despite construction work to extend the mall. Water and lighting operates as far as possible on-demand. Natural lighting is used during daylight hours. Sophisticated programmable lighting controls minimise energy use by ensuring ambient lighting is available only when required. Hand operated sensors minimise bathroom water use and approximately 15,000 gallons of grey water from the likes of wash basins and showers is captured and recycled on-site This water supports the entire demand for landscaping, which includes 500 year old olive trees and 100 year old Bonsais that contribute to the ambiance and quality of air in the malls.

Carbon footprinting enables BurJuman to measure and monitor strategies to meet its own reduction targets and those set by the Municipality.  New detection and air control systems have enabled BurJuman to reduce CO2 levels to half that of the Municipality’s target for commercial organisations. A green transport plan minimises carbon emissions by transporting staff to and from home to the centre daily.

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