Sustainability has become a pressing global issue, and as responsible industry leaders, it is essential for us to address the environmental, social, and economic aspects of our projects. By adopting sustainable practices, we can create lasting positive impacts on the environment, enhance the well-being of communities, and drive long term profitability.
In this special feature, we focus on sustainability in the construction industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Red Sea Global
Pioneering responsible development: Lessons from Saudi Arabia
By Raed Albasseet, Group Chief Environment and Sustainability Officer, Red Sea Global
As we jet off to exotic destinations and immerse ourselves in unfamiliar cultures, it is sometimes easy to forget that tourism is a major contributor to climate change. The tourism industry worldwide is responsible for about 8% of greenhouse gas emissions, and it plays a significant role in the degradation of natural environments.
Public pressure is growing on business leaders and governments to change this unhealthy status quo. It’s time for the development industry to re-think how it behaves, from planning and building destinations to operating and marketing them. Sustainability can no longer be an afterthought. It is now a must-have, scrutinized on the world stage and prioritized by over 90% of travellers, according to Expedia.
Yet, sustainability alone is not enough. We need to embrace a new business model of responsible development – one that goes beyond just protecting natural habitats to enhance them, for the sake of future generations.
Red Sea Global, the company I work for, is developing two ultra-luxurious and regenerative tourism destinations in Saudi Arabia called The Red Sea and Amaala. From our experience, I’d like to share three lessons with you that I think are relevant for anyone involved in construction.
Getting it right from the start
Too often, developers begin projects without thoroughly understanding their environment and thus cause a negative impact on an area’s natural features and biodiversity.
My first lesson is that rigorous analysis of the landscape and natural setting is essential before work begins. Collaborating with academic institutions and scientists can help. The Red Sea is a good example. We began with 28,000 km2 of undeveloped land and an archipelago of more than 90 pristine islands, so we felt strongly that we needed to protect and enhance these environments.
Working closely with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, we conducted a marine spatial planning simulation of a lagoon at the heart of the project site. The survey was the largest of its kind ever undertaken in the country, and it allowed us to fully comprehend our precious marine environment.
The simulation’s findings fed into Red Sea Global’s pledge to deliver a 30% net conservation benefit to our area by 2040. The findings influenced our decision to develop just 22 of our 92 islands and to designate nine of them as special conservation zones. The survey results also led us to cap our annual number or visitors to one million to protect our ecosystems from the stress of over-tourism.
To be sure, some developers won’t have the option of building on just a fraction of their project site like we did. However, our experience highlights the importance of carefully considering a development’s environmental impact long before the first shovel breaks ground.
A research study about ocean conservation that we recently participated in found that 80% of successful projects depend on active human stewardship. We should all feel energized about taking action to improve ecosystems on land as well as at sea.
Innovate to succeed
A second lesson is that harnessing technology is essential for success. A Boston Consulting Group study found that the key differentiator for top sustainability performers is “using digital capabilities and technologies…to unlock new solutions.”
Responsible development is no different. It requires organizations to embrace sustainable innovation across energy, manufacturing and materials.
Partnering with pioneers in other areas, such as sustainable building materials, can expose organizations to new ideas and reveal new possibilities. We’re collaborating to investigate new solutions and technologies, from hydrogen powered seaplanes to carbon-negative concrete. We recently agreed to a pilot project for the manufacture, delivery and installation of 11,000 carbon-negative paving stones at our landscape nursery.
Companies can also benefit by re-imagining how established processes, such as recycling, can improve a construction project. At The Red Sea, our waste disposal plants allow for us to recover recyclable materials, transfer them for further processing, or use them as fill material.
Challenges into strengths
Our third lesson is that limitations or challenges can make us rethink conventional ways of doing things and ultimately produce an even better outcome.
As a greenfield developer in a remote location, we have had to install just about every piece of infrastructure ourselves. It has been a mammoth task compared with simply building hotels. But we have tried to turn this challenge into an opportunity to minimize disruptions to local ecosystems by manufacturing materials and components off-site whenever possible.
A good example is the stainless-steel over-water villas at one of our islands, Sheybarah. We had them built at a factory in the United Arab Emirates and shipped to us ready-made for installation. We needed only to install the finished villas, thus avoiding any potential upheaval for local habitats and wildlife from building the villas on site. So far, we’ve received and installed 33 of the 38 over-water villas planned there.
Sourcing the energy to power our destinations was another major challenge. We saw an opportunity to do something special and decided to go completely off the grid with the first phases of both The Red Sea and Amaala.
The Red Sea, which will welcome its first guests this year, will be the largest destination in the world powered exclusively and around the clock by renewable energy. We partnered with a consortium led by ACWA Power to design, build, operate, and transfer this renewables network. Our five solar farms, with more than 760,000 photovoltaic panels installed, are almost complete. We will also have the world’s biggest battery storage.
By deploying renewable energy on such a large scale, we have set ourselves up as a trailblazer of regenerative tourism.
A holistic approach
Successful green construction programs tend to be those that take a holistic approach. They analyze and evaluate every aspect of a development, from the materials used to the energy sources powering it.
By reframing the idea of sustainability and thinking about how we can improve and not just protect our natural environments, we can establish tourism as a global force for good in the battle against climate change.
