The Red Sea Project

The Red Sea Project is Saudi Arabia's flagship luxury-tourism giga-project — a regenerative development across 50+ islands, 22 hotels, and an archipelago of pristine reefs and mangrove ecosystems on the Kingdom's western coast. Unlike conventional coastal resorts, the Red Sea brief is built on a regenerative-tourism premise: leave the destination ecologically richer than it was found. ISG delivered a Sustainability Implementation Plan during the design phase, contributing to the framework that operationalises that brief.

Regenerative tourism — what the brief actually demands

Most large hospitality developments aim for "low impact." The Red Sea Project's brief raises the bar: by 2040, Red Sea Global has committed to a 30% net conservation benefit over the baseline ecological state of the destination. That commitment isn't marketing — it's an operational target that has to be traced back through every design decision: building footprint, marine engineering, energy systems, water sourcing, supply chains, and operations.

A Sustainability Implementation Plan is the document that anchors those decisions. It sets the targets, the verification methodology, and the governance for a project where construction and operations are spread across dozens of islands and multiple operators. Without a SIP, regenerative ambitions stay at the marketing layer.

Why luxury hospitality is harder than office or residential

Hospitality projects have a different sustainability profile than office buildings: huge transient guest populations, intense water and energy peaks, complex supply chains, and a brand-promise dimension that means every operational decision is also a guest-experience decision. Five-star resorts can't hide energy retrofits behind back-of-house — the systems have to be designed in from day one.

Working at giga-project scale on a hospitality brief gives ISG a portfolio position few sustainability consultancies in the region hold: credentials that translate directly to luxury-tourism developers across the Gulf, not just office-tower or financial-district projects. For developers planning resort, island, or coastal-hospitality assets, that's the relevant precedent.

Saudi giga-project credentials

The Red Sea Project and NEOM are the two most ambitious developments in the Saudi pipeline, and ISG has delivered SIP work on both. The two engagements together place ISG in a small group of consultancies with active design-phase exposure to the most strategic developments of the Vision 2030 era — across both new-city and tourism-led typologies.

Related certifications & markets