British developers should stop complaining, says sultan

British developers need to stop complaining about climate change and start doing something about it.

That was the message from the man behind Abu Dhabi’s ambitious zero carbon city Masdar to industry bosses and policy makers at today’s Living in a Low Carbon World conference in London.

Chief executive of Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber is driving the promotion of Masdar, a planned car-free zero carbon community for 40,000 residents to be completed by 2015 outside Abu Dhabi.

He hopes it will become a model for other countries to follow, but warned the UK construction industry it was too negative about solving climate change problems.

He said: “Stop talking about it and do it. I’ve been to many of these conferences and all I hear is complaining. I don’t hear any solutions.”

British Property Federation chief executive Liz Peace pointed the finger at the government for failing to adequately debate the issues coherently.

She said: “The government needs to work out who is leading the debate. It needs to agree on what zero carbon means.”

She called for the government to back off developers and let them make their own decisions on how to reach zero carbon.

“We want output based targets, not detailed instructions. Don’t tell developers exactly how to get there; they will work out the best ways themselves.”

SMC Alsop Architects founder William Alsop said energy savings were easy but technology was making achieving them look hard.

Alsop said: “80% savings can be made by orienting a building the right way.”

Hosted by the Sustainable Environment Foundation, the conference also tackled problems around planning, infrastructure and retail’s contribution to sustainable development.