Property analysts and sustainable development specialists have appealed to all South African developers and businesses to embrace green building as government actively develops legislation to enforce more sustainable construction.
Chris Allen from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) sustainable-building academic division says the government is pursuing a green building framework in line with the green star rating system of the Green Building Council of South Africa to reap the benefits which include reduced operating costs through more efficient operation in government buildings all over the country.
In line with these efforts to boost and strengthen South Africa’s significant move to using more sustainable buildings, occasioned by the energy crisis of 2008, government is offering all the necessary incentives for the private sector to follow suit.
He was speaking at a regional South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) meeting that took place in Port Elizabeth, last month, together with Brian van Niekerk , the Group Managing Director sustainable solutions company as well as Rhino Group company RhinoLighting MD Heather McEwan.
Allen, a building science lecture at NMMU at the department of construction management added that the real benefits from green buildings started to accrue in operational costs. “The commercial reality is that their running costs are 30% to 40% down on conventional developments,” he added.
He noted that there were also improvements in people’s productivity levels working in green buildings, due increased natural lighting levels, ventilation rates and even ways of commuting to green buildings.
A research dubbed ‘African Energy-Plus construction: A case study of House Rhino’ carried out by Allen and fellow NMMU academic Katharina Crafford was awarded the Chair’s Award at the Sustainable Ecological Engineering Design for Society conference in September last year.
The report was commended at the conference, that was held at Leeds Beckett University, in the United Kingdom, because of the Rhino Group’s showcase House Rhino – an energy-plus home located at Crossways Farm Village, in Port Elizabeth – which the report is based on.
Energy crisis in South Africa’s for the past seven years has challenged preconceived ideas, leading to the creation of more attractive, affordable and energy efficient structures that have become pivotal to offsetting more cost increases in electricity, according the research.
Van Niekerk added that there were several of avenues for corporate through which they can cut on their energy consumption minus implementing major or costly energy savings programs.
