Gulf Construction Online - Spark wins top green building rating

Saudi Focus

Spark ... to be home to over 300 industrial, technology and service facilities.

Spark wins top green building rating

01 November 2020

King Salman Energy Park (Spark) in Al Khobar has become the first industrial city in the world to receive Silver level accreditation for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).

The LEED programme is an internationally-recognised green building certification system, which verifies that buildings are designed to improve performance across key sustainability metrics such as energy savings, water efficiency, carbon dioxide emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impact.

The top energy park said this certification strengthens Spark’s ability to support future tenants and investors on their own journey towards LEED certification of their own facilities, as part of a fully-integrated energy community. It also affirms the city’s integrated sustainability practices, which are at the heart of the community’s planning.

On the key milestone, President and CEO Saif S Al Qahtani said: “Spark is distinguishing itself as a leading global energy, industrial and technology hub, cementing Saudi Arabia’s position as a progressive innovator in these fields on the international stage.”

“The certification reaffirms our commitment to reducing the city’s carbon footprint. LEED communities are in high global demand, as they offer better rates of profitability, productivity and quality of workplace. Our goal is to create an ecosystem for energy-related companies to grow with minimum environmental impact, and we encourage other industrial cities to follow our lead,” he noted.

Strategically located at the heart of the Eastern Province, Spark’s vision is to be the primary gateway to the regional energy sector. Its technologically-advanced ecosystem offers investors unmatched supply-chain efficiency and has been designed to provide an ultramodern “plug and play” infrastructure, stated Al Qahtani.

As well as targeting large corporations, the industrial city also caters to the small and medium-sized enterprises and provides support through its Spark SME Hub, creating a tailored microcosm for the sector. This allows streamlined and cost-effective operations near major workforce providers and close to highway and railway networks. At maturity, it will be home to over 300 industrial, technology and service facilities focused on meeting demand for energy goods and services across the entire value chain, he added.