Expo City Dubai is growing with sustainability at its heart, introducing walkable spaces, green certifications, and low-carbon operations to build a healthier, future-ready urban community
Expo City Dubai is continuing its expansion, driven by a commitment to sustainability. An Expo City official stated that the city is expanding sustainably in response to the demand for a sustainable and accessible urban environment.
Speaking at a KT Events conference, The Journey to Net Zero, Yianni Spanos, Vice President of Sustainability at Expo City Dubai, said, “[Expo] City is expanding sustainably because we see more and more people interested in the sustainable city, a city that people actually can walk around. That’s why it’s a free-moving city with all the amenities.”
He spoke of how there are lots of lessons to learn from Expo 2020, highlighting how some of those lessons are currently demanded as part of Expo City’s expansion. “One is that certifications can support the overall thinking of how to achieve sustainability,” he said. Building certifications are rating systems which determine the status of a building’s sustainable, environmental, health and operational performance.
Yianni Spanos, VP Sustainability, Expo City Dubai , during the panel discussion at the Journey to Net Zero – UAE 2025. KT Photo: Shihab. Photo: Shihab
“During the Expo 2020, we received the ISO certifications for 2020-2021, which is for events. Now we’re taking it to the next stage,” he said. “Instead of having sustainability event management for just the event, we do it for our venues, and are certified by the city, and that gives us a lot of power to start measuring what the carbon emissions are, and assessing what the carbon emissions are for operations,” the VP said.
Jaydeep Anand, co-founder and chief development and sustainability officer at FIVE Holdings, was also speaking at the event. He shared his business’ success with incorporating sustainability into its philosophy, earning it as one of the most sustainable property development companies. In 2023, the company received the world’s highest ‘A’ ESG rating from International Shareholder Services (ISS), which assesses the sustainability performance of companies.
Jaydeep Anand, Co-Founder, Chief Development and Sustainability Officer, FIVE Holdings. KT Photo: Shihab. Photo: Shihab
“We use five times less power than any other five-star hotel in the region based on the design. We use three times less water because we recycle all the water. We have massive recycling plants that we’ve installed in all our hotels, but we recycle all of it,” he said.
Source: Khaleej Times
Published: 17 September 2025
