Comparing Estidama’s Pearls Rating Method to LEED and BREEAM

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In 2009 the Estidama program of the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council launched a preview copy of its
anticipated rating system, The Pearls Rating Method for New Buildings. Prior to its release Estidama has
occassionally refered to the upcoming system as one that learns from its established predecessors, the
British BREEAM rating system and the American LEED rating system (BREEAM stands for British Research
Establishment Environmental Assessment Method , and LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design). The decision to learn from these rating systems was not only to learn from their
mistakes but also to help create a system whose requirements are familiar to the market. On the other
hand, the Estidama program asserted that the Pearls Rating Method would not be a direct copy of either
systems given the environmental and cultural differences of the Emirates

Given the debates that exist amongst practitioners and researchers on both sides of the Atlantic on the
merits, shortcomings, and differences between BREEAM and LEED. An analysis of Estidama’s Pearls
Rating Method in comarison to these two established rating systems was necessary.
The comparison: An Introduction

To understand the differences between the three systems one must first understand their background
and history. The Pearls Rating system is a government initiative developed by the Abu Dhabi Urban
Planning Authority and is scheduled for release late in 2010.

The British Research Estbalishment (BRE) was a government funded research body when BREEAM was
conceived in 1990. BREEAM’s Mission was to provide relevant research and information to the building
industry, about what kind of methods would best support environmental protection and sustainable
development.

FInally, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) is a national non-profit membership body, with
around 20,000 member organizations. Since its inception in 1998,LEED has sought to change the
construction market using a consensus approach. It has also adopted a commercial approach to
marketing itself, attracting paying members and bringing in $24 Million a year. LEED is a registered trade
mark and a brand name.

Estidama as a Design Guide

The first striking difference between The Pearls Rating Method on the one hand, and LEED and BREEAM
on the other, is that unlike its predecessors systems, the Pearls Rating Method is not a standalone
document, but part of the Pearls Design System, which includes a complementary design Guide and
supplementary Application Guides for public works, parks and infrastructure. Like LEED and BREEAM, the
Pearls Rating Method has a number of versions assessing New Buildings, Existing Buildings, and New
Communities.

The Pearls Rating Method is also strongly linked to the Estidama Integrative Design Process (EIDP),
which seeks to promote the new concept of Integrated Design process (IDP) as a design approach
amongst design professional. In fact, EIDP is set to become part of the The Pearls Rating Method and the
planning and code prerequisites for all projects types, requiring all projects to carry out a number of
analyses before the design process is permitted to begin. These analyses include solar and contextual
analyses, Energy efficiency design strategies including preliminary energy modeling, water budgeting,
simple material strategies, and an analysis of potential for habitat connectivity.In doing so, Estidama is
set to become one of the world’s most progressive Green Building Initiative, together with Cascadia
Green Building Council in the United States, to formally adopt the Integrated Design Process, but the first
to make it mandatory.

Estidama itself is also part of Abu Dhabi’s 20-year plan, known as Plan Abu Dhabi 2030, which attempts
to redefine how a contemporary Arab city should look, to encourage sustainable growth, to enourage
protection of the natural environment of sensitive coastal and desert ecologies, to re-emphasis the city’s
stature as a capital city of the United Arab Emirates, and to enable the urban fabric and infrastructure to
enforce the local values and culture of this Arab community. These broad goals are tied to estidama
through a number of key performance indicators measuring energy use, water use, waste generation,
carbon footprint, and biodiversity amongst others indicators.

Pearls and the Building Code

The second striking difference between the Pearls Rating Methods (refered to as Pearls henceforth) is its
anticipated integration into the Abu Dhabi development codes. Unlike the voluntary LEED and BREEAM
systems which reference existing codes and planning guides, the planning and building codes for the city
of Abu Dhabi are currently being redrafted to integrate Estidama’s goals and Pearls requirements into
them. Pearls includes requirements to comply with these new development codes which are mandatory
requirements for a development to get planning and building permits. The designers ofPearls are perhaps
making use of the fact that Abu Dhabi’s building code is still developing, to integrate green building
requirements into it. Such an integration would be more challenging in established and complex code
environments such as those of the UK or the US. However, it must be noted that this integration has
taken place in a more limited way in the case of BREEAM where some parts of BREEAM have found their
way into Part L (Energy section) of the British Building Regulations.

Under this arrangement between Pearls and the development codes -which will remain two separate
processes- fulfilling the mandatory planning and building code submission requirements will include a
number of prerequisites of Pearls, which satisfy the requirements for Pearls’s lowest rating level of One
Pearl. Consequently, the lowest rating of One Pearl simply denoites that a building is legal and complies
with the statutory development codes, but on the other hand it could be argued that under this
arrangementevery project in Abu Dhabi would have to have an element of sustainability simply by
complying with development codes. In addition, the coordination of these documents also helps simplify
the process of achieving a higher Pearls rating andpaves the way for a smoother transition of the rating
system from a voluntary rating system to an enforceable building requirement.

Credits and Requirements

As noted above, Pearls includes a number of code requirements which have been rewritten specifically for
Pearls, and the satisfation of these code requirements awards a project the lowest Pearls rating of One
Pearl. This arrangemnt does not exist in eitherLEED and BREEAM.

In addition to these requirements, Pearls also includes requirements similar to LEED’s Prerequisites and
BREEAM’s Mandatory Credits which do not award points but are mandatory for certification.

The Pearls Rating Method, Like LEED and BREEAM,is also a point-based system that awards projects
points for different credits that are grouped under a number of general categories. Points are added up
to a final rating which ranges from One Pearl to Five Pearls. These 5 levels of certfiction compare to
LEED’s 4 levels ( Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum) and BREEAM’s 5 levels (Pass, Good, Very Good,
Excellent, and outstanding).It is expected that a very small number of buildings would achieve the
highest rating of Five Pearls, whose bar is set intentionally high at 90% above benchmark compared to
BREEAM’s 85% for outstanding, and LEED’s 73% for Platinum. The highest rating of Five Pearls requires
a restorative, or a net positive, contribution to the environment in terms of energy, water, and improving
diversity and health of living systems. Such requirements are much like – if not more challenging than-
the progressive Living Building Challenge developed by the Cascadia Green Building Council.

Like LEED and BREEAM,Pearls is also designed as a weighted system, where the different credits have
relative weights depending on their relative importance. This relative importance is understood differently
between different rating system.For example, LEED is strong on occupant comfort, internal pollution
issues (off-gassing etc), and heat island effects. LEED is also geared towards climates which use
mechanical ventilation and air conditioning and where existing infrastructure promotes the use of cars as
is the case in much of the United States whereas BREEAM responds to a built environment where natural
ventilation is more prevalent and where a strong public transportation infrastructure exists. LEED also
covers some areas not found in BREEAM where UK legislation takes over, for example environmental
tobacco smoke control. BREEAM on the other hand is strong on pedestrian and cyclist safety, with much
higher targets for cyclist spaces. It is also stronger than LEED on the social aspects of sustainability, and
on acoustics.

The table below (Figure 1)demonstrates the general emphasis of the major categories of Pearls,
BREEAM, and LEED and their relative weights in each rating system. It also shows that there is
considerable overlap between the three systems with each system having its on particularities. One can
clearly notice an emphasis on water conservation and Indoor Environmental Quality in Pearls that far
exceeds LEED and BREEAM. This comes at the expense of energy credits which represent a much smaller
proportion of the rating system than they do in LEED and BREEAM ( 40% less). Innovation also
represents a smaller percentage in Pearls than it does in BREEAM and LEED, and categories such as living
systems are only available in Pearls but are matched by Ecology credits in BREEAM

Figure 1. Rating systems comparison table. The table is for general comparison purposes only as it does
not take into account point-less prerequisites. The names of some categories have been adjusted and
some credits have been moved across categories to simplify the comparison.

Assessment and Certification

Like BREEAM and unlike LEED, Pearls adopted the use of a dedicated assessor for each project in its
attempts to emphasize dialogue and an iterative design process. The Pearls Assessment process is very
similar to the BREEAM Assessment process which depends on a competent assessor to issue the
certification, but is very different from the web-based LEED Online system which reduces interaction and
dialogue between building professionals and the USGBC to a minimum (mostly through online
submissions of Credit Interpretation Requests). To compensate for this, the United States Green Building
Council has chosen to encourage building professionals to obtain training on how to use LEED and to
become accredited professionals in the use of the rating system. While this accreditation is not
mandatory for a project to be LEED certified, American building professionals have embraced it with tens
of thousands becoming LEED Accredited Professionals.

The Process

The general perception of LEED is that its requirements are generally less onerous than BREEAM. The
targets set in BREEAM are perceived as exact, prescriptive, and linked to specific solutions, whereas in
LEED it is more common to state the intention and leave it up to designers’ discretion as how best to
comply.This meant that the LEED calculations methods and documentation became more rigorous, and
consequently LEED requires more work to prove accreditation. This has led to the perception that LEED
projects need to provide more extensive documentation than BREEAM.

In terms of documentation and tolerance, Pearls seems more in line with LEED than the stricter BREEAM.
However, taken into consideration that the actual certification only takes place after a post-occupancy
assessment, it appears that Pearls would be much more onerous than LEED since any alternative
compliance path adopted by the designers must be demonstrated to work after occupancy, which is not
the case with LEED.

Estidama also seems to have adopted parts of both of BREEAM in the design of the certification process
of Pearls (Figure 2.)

Figure 2. Certification Processes of Pearls, BREEAM, and LEED

Pearls has a two stages of rating, both of which must be completed. The first stage is during the design
and construction phases. A ‘Pearls Design Target Rating‘ can be used to confirm that the proposed
project design is consistent with the goals of Estidama. Once construction is complete, the final certificate
for this stage, the ‘Pearls Certified Rating‘, will be provided. While these design and construction rating
certificates can be used for marketing purposes, they do not constitute the final Pearls certificate. The
second and final stage of rating, the ‘Pearls Living Rating‘, is only awarded after 2 years of at least 80%
occupancy. The post-construction assessment, is designed to validate the ‘Pearls Certified Rating’, but it
also has the powers to reduce or increase the rating.

BREEAM also has a two stage certification system which includes a design stage and a post-construction
stage, but unlike Pearls, BREEAM does not require a post occupancy assessment except for its highest
rating, BREEAM Outstanding, which has a mandatory requirement for a ‘BREEAM In Use’ certification
within the first 3 years of operation.
LEED on the other hand, has an optional design submission at which no certificates are issued, and is
theleast of all three systems in terms of its post occupancy assessment. The new changes in LEED 2009
show a slow shift in the direction of post-occupancy assessment with the new requirement that the
USGBC has access to projects’ Whole-Building Energy and Water Usage Data. However, the projects’
LEED ratings will not be tied to the information they provided, and the requirement is simply an
authorization for the USGBC to access the usage data.

Conclusion

From the comparison above, it appears that while the Pearls Rating Method is an independent rating
system, it has many similarities with the LEED and BREEAM rating systems. Estidama appears to have
picked certain elements from these two systems amongst other sources of inspiration, but still developed
a system that is quite progressive and distinctly local. The degree to which market will embrace a system
with such a high bar is yet to be determined as project teams engage with the system.

The Pearls Rating Method’s emphasis on post-occupancy assessment indicates that it has learned lessons
from other rating systems in designing a system that assesses results rather than intentions, and while
performance assessment rating systems exists in the US and in the UK (for example, the Energy
Performance Certificates in the UK), their scope is limited to energy and are independent from the Green
Buildings Rating systems.

Finally, the combination of enforceability of parts of Pearls and the incorporation of Pearls within
Estidama’s larger development framework, together with Estidama’s efforts to promote an Integrative
Design Process and the efforts by the market-driven Emirates Green Building Council, all have the
potential to hasten the market’s adoption of green building practices at a faster rate than perhaps seen in
the United States and the United Kingdom over the last 20 years.