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Masdar City - Abu Dhabi’s $22bn Carbon Neutral City

Monday, February 18th, 2008    Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Abu Dhabi Property, Green Property, UAE Property

Masdar City, Abu Dhabi’s Carbon Neutral City

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.”

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Calculating the Carbon Footprint of Your Second Home Abroad

Thursday, September 13th, 2007    Posted by Overseas Property Mall in Green Property, Overseas Property Trends, Travel

Carbon Footprint

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.

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