Estidama is the route by which indoor air quality enters Abu Dhabi construction compliance, and it does so as one subject inside a broad sustainability rating rather than as a standalone testing requirement. Abu Dhabi City Municipality states that the Pearl Rating System is a tiered evaluation system ranging from one to five pearls, that government-funded projects must achieve a minimum two-pearl rating while privately funded projects must achieve at least a one-pearl rating, and that meeting these requirements is essential for obtaining a building permit. The system contains mandatory and optional credits, and indoor air quality sits within its indoor and outdoor livability credit category. This page sets out the process: the tiers, the minimums, the credit structure, the professional role that carries applications, and the bodies that govern and implement the system.
The Pearl Rating System is a tiered evaluation system ranging from one to five pearls. The tier achieved reflects performance across the system's credits rather than performance on any single subject.
Abu Dhabi City Municipality states that government-funded projects must achieve a minimum two-pearl rating, while privately funded projects must achieve at least a one-pearl rating. The applicable minimum therefore turns on how a project is funded rather than on its size, type or location.
Because the minimum differs by funding source, a project's Estidama position cannot be described accurately without first identifying which minimum applies to it. A privately funded project meeting one pearl has met its minimum; the same performance on a government-funded project has not.
Abu Dhabi City Municipality states that meeting these requirements is essential for obtaining a building permit. The rating requirement is therefore tied to permitting rather than existing as a parallel voluntary badge.
The tie is to the requirement rather than to any particular sequence of documents, and this page makes no claim about a rating having to be obtained at a defined moment relative to the issue of the permit. What is stated by the Municipality is the connection between meeting the requirements and obtaining the permit.
That connection is what distinguishes Estidama from a rating system that a developer may simply decline to enter. Where the minimum applies, the project cannot proceed through permitting on the footing that the rating is optional.
The system has mandatory and optional credits. That two-part structure means a project is not free to compose its rating purely from whichever subjects suit it: some credits must be satisfied whatever tier is targeted, and others contribute to performance above the mandatory floor.
Indoor air quality sits within the indoor and outdoor livability credit category. It is therefore a subject inside the rating rather than a standalone testing obligation, and its treatment is determined by the credits in that category as applied to the project.
No credit code or point value is published on this page. Identifying which specific credits apply to a given project, and what each requires, is work carried out within the Estidama submission process itself rather than something that can be read off a general description of the system.
Pearl Qualified Professionals prepare and submit Estidama compliance applications. The role is a defined one within the system, so the submission route runs through a qualified professional rather than through any party a project chooses to appoint for the purpose.
The Department of Municipalities and Transport governs the system's policies. Policy questions about the system therefore sit at that level rather than with the implementing body.
Abu Dhabi City Municipality's Sustainable Buildings Section implements the system during the design and construction phases. Implementation across those two phases means the rating is engaged while the project is being designed and built rather than only at completion.
The separation of roles is worth holding onto. One body governs the policies, another implements them, and a qualified professional carries the application. No party outside that structure awards or confirms a rating.
Estidama reaches projects through permitting during design and construction. The Abu Dhabi Public Health Centre's ADOSH-SF framework reaches entities as workplaces in operation, with Codes of Practice mandatory to all entities regardless of risk classification and indoor-environment duties inside Code of Practice 8.0, General Workplace Amenities, Version 4.0 of 15 July 2024, at section 3.7 on HVAC.
The two therefore operate at different points and on different subjects. A completed project that satisfied its Estidama minimum is still an operating workplace subject to the Code of Practice layer, and satisfying that layer does not answer a permitting requirement that arises at design stage.
There is also no Abu Dhabi Code of Practice dedicated to indoor air quality, so Estidama is the instrument in the emirate through which indoor air quality is named as a subject in its own right, albeit as a credit category rather than as a table of values.
Dubai's route is expressed in measured values with averaging periods. The Technical Guidelines for Indoor Air Quality for Healthy Life, reference DM-HSD-GU119-IAQ, Version 4, issued 11 December 2024, set Table 1 for new buildings under clause 9-8-3, which describes a certificate awarded by Dubai Municipality to buildings that optionally apply the procedures, and Table 2 for existing buildings under clause 9-8-4, which states that testing must be carried out. Al Sa'fat separately carries mandatory requirements for all new buildings to obtain the Silver Sa'fa, with Golden and Platinum optional.
Estidama does not present indoor air quality that way. It presents it as a subject inside a credit category within a tiered rating tied to permitting, so a comparison between the two emirates that lines up numbers against numbers has no material to work with on the Abu Dhabi side.
The correct comparison is structural: Dubai administers indoor air through values and clauses in dedicated instruments, and Abu Dhabi administers it through a rating tied to permitting alongside a mandatory workplace Code that sets ventilation design rates.
The Pearl Rating System is a tiered evaluation system ranging from one to five pearls.
Government-funded projects must achieve a minimum two-pearl rating; privately funded projects at least one pearl.
Abu Dhabi City Municipality states that meeting these requirements is essential for obtaining a building permit.
Indoor air quality sits within the indoor and outdoor livability credit category, among mandatory and optional credits.
Abu Dhabi City Municipality states that the Estidama Pearl Rating System is a tiered evaluation system ranging from one to five pearls, that government-funded projects must achieve a minimum two-pearl rating and privately funded projects at least a one-pearl rating, and that meeting these requirements is essential for obtaining a building permit. The Department of Municipalities and Transport governs the system's policies and the Sustainable Buildings Section of Abu Dhabi City Municipality implements it during the design and construction phases.
Pearl Qualified Professionals prepare and submit Estidama compliance applications. No credit code or point value is reproduced here.
Abu Dhabi City Municipality states that government-funded projects must achieve a minimum two-pearl rating while privately funded projects must achieve at least a one-pearl rating, within a tiered system ranging from one to five pearls. The applicable minimum depends on how the project is funded rather than on its size or type.
Abu Dhabi City Municipality states that meeting these requirements is essential for obtaining a building permit, so the rating requirement is tied to permitting rather than offered as an optional badge. The system is implemented by the Municipality's Sustainable Buildings Section during the design and construction phases.
Indoor air quality sits within the indoor and outdoor livability credit category. The system contains mandatory and optional credits, so indoor air quality is addressed as a subject inside a rating rather than as a standalone testing duty with published values and averaging periods.
Pearl Qualified Professionals prepare and submit Estidama compliance applications. The Department of Municipalities and Transport governs the system's policies, and Abu Dhabi City Municipality's Sustainable Buildings Section implements the system during the design and construction phases.