Status of the Public Building Sustainability in Lebanon: A Case Study on Fares Library

In recent years, green buildings have become particularly vital for development of commercial buildings around the world. Some of the benefits of sustainable buildings can be listed as; lowering the usage of water, energy and the overall negative effects to the occupant’s health and the environment. Green building concept is currently may not be the priority for Lebanon, who faced many crises over the last forty years, which resulted in serious damages to its environment, infrastructure and structures. However, the need for re-building Lebanon urges this to be in a sustainable manner. The objective of this research is to find out how ready Lebanon is to implement green building concept, particularly for public buildings. This aim was achieved through; seeking information from authorities, local associations and citizens; a survey distributed to general public, engineers and architects to identify their knowledge and motivation; a case study was conducted on a Library building where some of the green features are present. Furthermore, this building was evaluated using Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification system to show the benefits of the application of green building concept. It was found that currently Lebanon does not have green building policies in place. But, younger age group seems to have awareness, will to learn, use and apply such concepts. Furthermore, non-government organizations (NGO) appear to have joined forces and giving strong support towards this matter being seriously handled by the authorities. Keywords: green buildings, LEED, library building, build capacity