The Arab region has strong threats towards its communities from environmental stresses. The threats result from population and demographic pressures, the overexploitation of land, scarcity of water, desertification, pollution, and climatic changes. The Arab region is of the least responsible for the production of the greenhouse gases. The region’s share of carbon dioxide emissions was no more than 4.7 per cent in 2007. However, the region is the nearest to be a victim of climatic change, which will have effects of water shortages; reduced agricultural production; large population transfers to foreign countries; lower levels of economic activity and threats to national security. Recently, there has been an increase in Arab concern about environmental issues. Institutions, strategies, and NGOs have been set up. Although there has been a trend to coordinate environmental policies with the UNEP, the Arabs view environmental issues as left over issues compared to power issues. This results in limited resource allocations to environmental issues and limited regulations to protect the environment. As building industry has the largest share of carbon dioxide emission, the study focuses on building regulations and sustainability practice in the Arab world. The paper aims to find out whether sustainability issues are addressed within the practice of building and architectural professions in Arab states, whether there are any rules or regulations to direct these professions towards sustainability, and if not, what regulations should be implanted in the building processes to achieve sustainability in this industry. To achieve these objectives, the plan of work includes reviewing policies and regulations related to the issuance of building permits and carrying out a survey among architects; engineers; real estate developers and consulting offices.
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