Education City Golf Club Earns Certification for Sustainable Golf Development

DOHA, Qatar (11^th July 2024)

Education City Golf Club (ECGC) has attained GEO Certified^® Development status. The Sustainable Golf Development criteria, offered and administered by GEO Sustainable Golf Foundation (GEO), is the most widely regarded and credible sustainability distinction in golf development, awarded to projects around the world that both seek and meet the highest international standards of sustainable development.

Once met, those standards provide the foundations to develop on the properties’ best practices going forward. In this way, according to Developments Director Sam Thomas, GEO Certified Developments have demonstrated a commitment to a sustainable golf journey, and are looking to create ever more social and environmental value through ongoing efforts.

“Sustainability sits at the core of our whole operation today,” says Education City GC General Manager Anthony Caira, “which means so many things. Today, we closely monitor our water consumptions and the efficient management of our resources — as a matter of course. It means providing sanctuary for more than 100 species of birds that thrive today amid the course’s natural landscapes, specifically the surrounding trees, plants, and lakes.

“The team here at ECGC have built in these sustainable standards and enjoy the challenge of demonstrating exactly how a golf club can — here, in this specific climate — operate in an eco-efficient manner. It’s been great to watch this golf course come to life, and I am proud of what has been created. Working alongside GEO, since 2011, has helped to drive our already inspired team even further, to make sure we delivered the best and most sustainable golf course we could. It’s fantastic coming into work every day and hearing birdsong that wasn’t here a few years ago.”

ECGC opened in 2019 under the patronage of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. Caira added that, “In alignment with Qatar Foundation’s exemplary sustainability standards, the certification affirms ECGC’s dedication to creating a safe and environmentally friendly environment for golfers of all ages within the community of Qatar.”

Based in North Berwick, Scotland, The GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf partners with more than 2,500 golf properties on six continents. GEO also works with professional tours, national golf federation, golf-centred corporations and individuals to create, implement and inspire sustainable practices across the international golf community.

In everything it does, from administering its certification to fostering efforts toward carbon neutrality, The Foundation seeks positive, sustainable results in three core areas: environment, resources and local community. As such, the Education City GC example is instructive: The club’s journey began over 12 years ago; indeed, it was a pioneer when first engaged in GEO’s Sustainable Golf Development process from the project planning phase.

“GEO is keen to engage with courses and projects in every conceivable form, at every stage of development,” says Thomas. “But working with a club like Education City from the very beginning requires and enables a particular brand of commitment. Via collaboration, conversations and on-site visits, along with regular crosschecking with the project’s Sustainable Golf Blueprint targets, sustainability quickly becomes a way of doing business, a core mission across the organization.”

The results of such commitment, here in Doha, have produced myriad results, after nearly six years of partnership. Highlights include:

• The wadi system across and around which the Education City course plays has been entirely restored and improved. Fully 600 meters of wadi wall were carefully and faithfully restored — a boon to stormwater management capabilities on the course, but in the adjoining community, as well.
• The restored wadi wall has become a community golf education hub for the teaching of sustainable course construction and maintenance. Development of the club itself created many local jobs, naturally, but new connections to the local university have led to specialized curricula in greenkeeping, a growing career opportunity in the Gulf region.
• 5 percent of the golf course footprint at Education City has been deployed as open water that cleans and collects any surface or treated water. By design, these lakes also serve as strategic hazards on the golf course, designed by Jose Maria Olazabal (Olazabal Design). Yet they also create, by design, a safe haven for migratory bird species in an arid region without many such safe havens.
• One hundred percent of the green waste generated on site at Education City GC is composted then reused, on site. Between 95-97 percent of all waste is diverted from landfill.
• Early in the design phase, all parties agreed that only drought-tolerant turfgrass would be deployed (Platinum TE Paspalum) and no potable water would be used for course irrigation, but rather treated sewage effluent. All natural precipitation would be captured, stored and used on site. To further foster water efficiencies, a state-of-the-art irrigation system was installed across the property, including soil moisture sensors and a weather station — ensuring that no irrigation is carried out when not required.

It's important to note that while GEO organizes certification and all sustainability targets, in coordination with any partner property, meeting those requirements and attaining/retaining certification is judged entirely by the independent sustainability verifiers at key moments during the design and construction process.

“This has been the longest project I have been involved in certifying,” says Alexandra Almeida, the independent verifier assigned to Education City, and a environmental engineer by trade. “Given the desert location and arid climate we wanted to ensure that everything was designed and constructed just right. And so it has been. The efforts from the project and construction teams have been great to see, even when construction was completed, the team continued to make improvements to the landscape areas to ensure they are as authentic as possible.”

Added Thomas, “This project also well illustrates that sustainable golf is different, can be approached differently, and demands different responses in most every situation around the world. Here in Doha we were able to see the creation of a golf facility that caters to a demographically diverse set of golfers while respecting natural habitats and creating space for native fauna to thrive. The results are the culmination of a lot of hard work but the long-term commitment to sustainable golf, inclusion and education shown has been wonderful to see.”

Located in Education City, ECGC opened in 2019 under the patronage of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The club aims to develop the abilities of individuals through its state-of-the-art facilities and its partnerships with elite organisations. As well as a centre for health and recreation, ECGC offers a serene and sustainable natural environment for visitors to enjoy.

For more information about Education City Golf Club and its sustainability initiatives, please visit https://www.ecgolf.com.