When summers hit Qatar, most people retreat indoors during the heat of the day, sheltering at home or work with the air conditioning cranked high or visiting super-cooled shopping malls — and driving between them in cars chilled to refrigerator temperatures.
Being out in the open is something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
Until now. On Gewan Island – the latest addition to a man-made archipelago off the coast of the capital city Doha — visitors can comfortably stroll outside in the middle of a summer's day thanks to a surprising innovation: an air-conditioned "forest."
Stretching along the island's central axis is a 450-meter-long — roughly one-third of a mile — promenade known as the Crystal Walk. Despite being open to the elements, its temperature is artificially regulated.
The walkway is covered by a canopy of tree-like structures that offer shelter from direct sunlight while helping trap cooled air blowing from vents below.
Read more at the link in @cnntravel's bio.
📸: mohamed abdelrazek/Alamy Stock Photo; Ulrike Lemmin-Woolfrey
A tightening regulatory and technical landscape is redefining sustainable construction across the UK and beyond. The Building Safety Act is reshaping project governance by requiring transparent reporting and accountability that link safety with environmental sustainability in construction. Compliance processes are driving a shift toward whole life carbon assessment, embedding sustainable building design principles at the earliest design stage and quantifying both operational and embodied carbon.
Digital systems such as the government’s waste‑tracking initiative are enabling circular economy in construction practices, mandating traceable material flows and revealing the carbon footprint of construction through verified lifecycle assessment. These data‑driven mechanisms enhance resource efficiency in construction and reinforce the wider transition to low embodied carbon materials and eco‑friendly construction.
Investment is converging on decarbonisation at scale. A new £120 million waste‑to‑hydrogen facility is designed to transform residual waste into clean fuel, supporting low carbon design and resilient net zero carbon buildings. Growth in grid‑balancing storage improves the stability of renewable‑powered operations, a prerequisite for energy‑efficient buildings and low carbon building performance across portfolios.
Governance frameworks are also advancing. The creation of a dedicated leadership structure for the Greenhouse Gas Protocol elevates global consistency in measuring whole life carbon and encourages transparent benchmarking using environmental product declarations (EPDs). This maturity strengthens sustainable building practices, fosters green construction aligned with BREEAM v7 standards, and supports decarbonising the built environment through life cycle cost and performance management.
The cumulative effect signals a transition to net zero whole life carbon imperatives governed by robust data, certified materials, and measurable outcomes. The progress may appear administrative, yet it represents the essential infrastructure of sustainable material specification, circular construction strategies, and long‑term green infrastructure supporting a truly carbon neutral construction sector.
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