In support of the Global Coalition for Green Schools Green Apple Day of Service, Emirates Green Building Council (EmiratesGBC), an independent forum aimed at conserving the environment by strengthening and promoting green building practices; recently hosted a group of 20 young environmentalists from Green Hope UAE for an interactive three-hour workshop on Sustainable Urban Development.

Saeed Al Abbar, Chairman of EmiratesGBC, said: In order to build a country founded on sustainability, it is important that we instill the need for environmental conservation and sustainable development in the future generation. This workshop was organized with the aim of educating youth in the UAE on the career opportunities in the green sector, such as sustainable urban development or renewable energy.

We provided the students with the opportunity to envision how they would develop a sustainable city and were very impressed with the strong ideas and enthusiasm received from all of them.

During the session, the students were first taught the principles of sustainable urban planning and were then assigned to one of four stakeholder groups to tour the Al Quoz neighbourhood. The groups were then re-shuffled and the students held multi-stakeholder charrettes to agree on the development plan for an empty plot of land across the street from the EmiratesGBC office.

The Global Coalition for Green Schools consists of green building councils and other like-minded organisations from around the world working at the grass-roots level to equip communities with the resources and support they need to transform their schools. EmiratesGBC is a founding member of the Coalition.

As part of Green Apple Day of Service, projects are undertaken by parents, students, teachers and organisations globally to transform schools into healthy, safe and green learning environments.

EmiratesGBC regularly hosts and participates in multinational events, conferences and forums. It has also developed a suite of activities, inclusive of networking events, technical workshops, focus days and facilitated training based around specific issues related to the built-environment that meet the needs of its members, of the UAE community, and the wider Middle East.