Saudi Arabia vision 2030 adopts comprehensive development standards in all fields of Saudi society. To achieve such standards, many initiatives and programs have been launched to achieve sustainable goals while meeting the needs of the present without compromising the requirements of future generations. Sustainable buildings are highly important in achieving sustainable development goals due to their excellent ability to reduce energy consumption, increase building efficiency, and reduce harmful emissions of greenhouse gases. The Kingdom aims to be the largest investor in the world in the sustainable buildings sector. To this end, the “Mostadam” evaluation service was recently launched in order to assist existing and new buildings in achieving sustainable building standards in a way that is in keeping with the privacy and principles of Saudi society. The present paper presents an extensive investigation to assess the current state of sustainable buildings in Saudi cities. Moreover, the main categories of sustainable residential buildings according to the “Mostadam” rating systems are discussed, and the potential of such categories in Saudi Arabia is explored. Finally, suggestions are given for some practical strategies and future policies targeting the total transformation towards sustainable buildings and, consequently, towards sustainable cities. This will have a great impact on achieving comprehensive sustainable development in Saudi Arabia in line with vision 2030.

This paper discusses in detail the current level of awareness of the Saudi Arabia stakeholders regarding the use and application of green building rating systems. The paper used a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods through an exploratory method that utilized an online survey targeting experts and construction stakeholders to fill the gap of previous research papers and support the argument of the increase in the level of the awareness of stakeholders in the use and application of green building rating systems in Saudi Arabia. This research aims to focus on the level of awareness of the Saudi construction market stakeholders on green building rating systems in Saudi Arabia with focus on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design system LEED and Mostadam. It also investigated which rating system responds to the need of the Saudi construction market with regard to energy conservation and water consumption more effectively. The methodology utilized in this research used a combination of primary and secondary data where the primary data were a survey sent to Saudi construction stakeholders where a total of 1320 respondents participated in the survey. Results from this research showed a promising number of agreements between the participating stakeholders to the level of awareness of green building rating systems in Saudi Arabia and to the willingness to use internationally recognized rating systems such as LEED and the use of locally recognized systems such as Mostadam. Furthermore, the research aims to link the results with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a focus on SDGs 6 and 7. The results show a high level of appreciation and agreement to the importance of energy and water conservation in green buildings that will be using either LEED or Mostadam in Saudi Arabia and accomplish the targets outlined under the SDGs.

The study investigated the level of thermal comfort in historical buildings located at a relatively high altitude in the Arabian Desert of Saudi Arabia. The study focused on the impact of the use of thermal mass and orientation on the level of thermal performance at Shubra and Boqri Palaces. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were used in this study, including a questionnaire interview with architecture experts living at the relatively high altitude of Taif city, to obtain data and information from local experts. The computer software TAS EDSL was used along with on-site equipment, such as thermal imaging cameras and data loggers, to observe the physical conditions of the building in terms of its thermal performance. The study revealed that the experts’ age and years of experience were important aspects while collecting data from them during the survey. The use of thermal mass had a slight impact on the indoor air temperature as well as the energy consumption, but it helped in providing thermal comfort. Use of ventilation can improve thermal comfort level. Evaporative cooling technique has a considerable impact on reducing indoor air temperature with 4 °C drop, improving the thermal comfort sensation level. The novelty of this work is that, it links the outcomes of qualitative results of experts with field monitoring as well as computer modelling. This can contribute as method to accurately collect data in similar case studies.

Saudi Arabia vision 2030 emphasizes the applications of sustainability concepts in all aspects of life in Saudi society. Accordingly, the Mostadam rating system for existing and new buildings was recently launched to achieve appropriate, sustainable building standards. In the medical field, sustainable healthcare facilities are an extension of the concept of sustainable buildings in terms of important sustainable healthcare parameters. Therefore, the sustainable development of healthcare facilities has great impacts on growing economic, social and environmental issues, which, in turn, improve Saudi society’s public health. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the urgent need for sustainable healthcare facilities to control the outbreak of such dangerous pandemics. Accordingly, the retrofitting of the existing healthcare facilities and the shift toward new sustainable ones have become an important objective of many countries worldwide. Currently, the concepts related to sustainable healthcare facilities are rapidly varying their scopes toward wider perspectives. Therefore, a new local rating system for healthcare facilities based on the potential and resources of sustainable healthcare facilities in Saudi Arabia should be developed. The present paper investigates the development of a new version of the Mostadam rating system, known here as “Mostadam-HCF”, in relation to the local Mostadam rating system and in accordance with the LEED version 4.1 (BD + C: Health-care). This important step can help the existing and the new healthcare facilities in Saudi Arabia to obtain, firstly, national accreditation and, consequently, to be internationally accredited. Moreover, the initiative of sustainable healthcare facilities can also help in fighting the current COVID-19 pandemic and the other possible future viruses in Saudi Arabia.

Improving building performance through reducing negative environmental impacts can be achieved by greening existing buildings (GEB), which is considered a very important sustainability process. Due to the risky and uncertain nature of the process of GEB, a growing amount of attention should be given to eliminating the effects of risks on GEB. This research aims to identify most expected risk factors related to GEB, as well as to evaluate their effects through calculating risk factor characteristics, such as risk factor presence (RFP), impact on the GEB process (IGEB), and impact on building performance in the long run (IBP), as new indices describe these risks. Sixty-six risk factors were categorized in seven risk groups related to the economic aspect, social aspect, environmental aspect, managerial aspect, sustainability operation, sustainable design, and renovation. Moreover, a fuzzy model for risk analysis was developed to combine the multi-effects of the aforementioned three risk factor characteristics in one index representing the risk factors’ overall importance. The model was applied and verified for data collected in Saudi Arabia. The results of this study showed that the most important risk group is the greening process of environmental control, while the least important is the greening process of renovation and construction. Using the proposed model improved the results of evaluating risks affecting GEB through merging the multi-effects of risk factor characteristics. The results and analysis proved that the most important key risk factors were environmental in nature. An intricate relationship of the impacts on the GEB process and building performance with the overall importance of the risk factors was clearly found. The decision makers who deal with greening projects in Saudi Arabia should be aware of the key risks identified in this study. The proposed methodology and model can be easily applied to other countries to help decision makers in evaluating their GEB projects, as well as comparing more greening projects based on risk analysis.