The guidelines are mandatory for all new developments serving 5,000 or more people and optional for smaller municipalities. They provide culturally and climactically appropriate standards for density, diversity, land use, transport, design for the public realm, district cooling, and high-level building energy and water criteria for appropriate sizing of infrastructure.

As part of the Saudi Energy Efficiency Program, the guidelines will be phased in across the country between 2014 and 2040 and become increasingly stringent over time.

To quantify the expected impact of the guidelines, HOK created a “business as usual” (BAU) case and multiple design cases. BAU assumes building projects are code compliant, legal and well-maintained.

HOK’s analysis revealed that applying the guidelines to all the new developments required to accommodate Saudi Arabia’s expected population growth of 30 million people by 2040 would cut energy use by at least 50 percent.