British Architect, Lord Norman Foster, along with Masdar, a UAE energy initiative, unveiled plans for a carbon-neutral city in the desert of Abu Dhabi last week. Foster & Partners architects will design the car-free city which will eventually house 50,000 people.

Masdar’s research institute, which was founded in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be located in the 6.5 sq km development and aims to turn the city into an alternative energy cluster for 1,500 businesses.

Sultan al-Jaber, Masdar’s chief executive, said “Masdar City will become the world’s hub for future energy - By taking sustainable development and living to a new level, it will lead the world in understanding how all future cities should be built.”

Read the rest of this entry »

A brief visit to the BP carbon footprint calculator gives our household a carbon footprint of about 7 (tonnes of CO²) compared to a national average of 9.85. We’re weak on energy saving improvements to the home but relatively strong when it comes car use. Those figures are without any foreign travel factored in. Add in three short haul flights a year to my putative second home and that footprint rises by about 0.5 of a tonne. Change that to an equally imaginary investment in Florida or the Caribbean and the total increases by 3.30 tonnes and that’s before you’ve done anything to air-condition your premises.

Despite all the talk, warnings about energy waste leading to environmental disaster are not going to make all the difference to people’s foreign travel habits, even though, second home ownership in Cyprus, for example, brings an average increase in one’s carbon footprint of 4.32 tonnes in its train. However, the likelihood that environmental awareness coupled to other factors such as security concerns, hassles with overseas property and increases in the expense of flying will bring about a change in sentiment is something that every property investor needs to be aware of.

Read the rest of this entry »