Green Building Council of South Africa formally recognizes Global GreenTag

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The launch of Global GreenTag South Africa’s formal recognition at a series of CPD and manufacturer seminars last week was a great success with over 400 people attending the 4 events. The recognition was by the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA). The Cape Town events were held at the SANRAL Western Region Green Star Building (Winelands Auditorium) and the Johannesburg events at EY’s 102 Rivonia Road, Sandton Green Star Rated Building.

GreenTag was recognised as one of the third party certification schemes able to certify products in GBCSA’s new Interior v1 rating tool. GreenTag can now certify all Furniture, Assemblies, Flooring and Wall Coverings to the appropriate level to allow products to gain credit points in the new rating tool launched in February.

The speakers included Lesley Sibanda from GBCSA, David Baggs CEO and Program Director of Global GreenTag International Pty Ltd, Marloes Reinink of Solid Green Consultants and Jeremy Sumeray of Armstrong Ceilings, UK.

Armstrong Ceilings have the first 8 GreenTag Certified products in South Africa. They are rated to the top Level A. GreenTag was originally launched in Australia and has certified over 900 products in that market. Fortunately hundreds of these products are already available in the South African marketplace and will likely soon be available with GBCSA relevant GreenTag certification.

The Global GreenTag certification program certifies all products in the construction sector and has been operational in South Africa since 2013, with certified products and numerous products under certification and is already transforming the South African marketplace.

Four manufacturers that made application to GreenTag during that period have had the applications refused because of unacceptable toxic ingredients. This has prompted three of them to reformulate and resubmit. Only one has decided not to reformulate and has submitted to a local competitor ecolabel.

The GBCSA system was developed to evaluate the environmental performance of major products used in interior fitouts in any building, new or old.  Materials calculators allow credit points to be calculated as a result of various criteria including third party certification to a variety of levels A, B or C. Level A attracts 100% of the Green Star Interiors tool credits. Level B equates to 85% and Level C equates to 75%.

GreenTag is the longest established and largest ecolabel program in South Africa and has 2 related certification programs recognised in combination under GBCSA’s program. LCARate is the world’s first program that uses Life Cycle Assessment in the assessment of the products during certification.

LCARate also delivers Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum ratings, the world’s only ecolabel EcoPOINT score, and summary LCA reports called Environmental Product Declarations- all as part of the certification. The GreenRate program was designed for Green Building Council Materials Calculators and is assessed together with LCARate to Deliver GBCSA level rankings.

According to Grahame Cruickshanks, green building manager for EY’s Climate Change and Sustainability team ‘the launch of the new Green Star® Interiors Tool, is likely to stimulate rapid market growth with ratings of both new and existing building fitouts’. ‘GreenTag is set to be a key tool for the industry to save time and money in achieving Green Star ratings’