Green construction in South Africa has started to pay off after a new research positioned it as a front runner in the adoption of green building. It further says if the current effort to embrace green activity in south Africa continues, the country will no doubt become a leader in the global green market come the next few years.
According to Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), South Africa ranked high with the highest proportion of green building projects currently under construction, and a big improvement expected over the next few years.
South Africa initially had one GBCSA green-certified project in 2009 but has since grown to 167 currently making it a country with a well-established commercial green building market. A record 310 certified projects will be under its umbrella by the end of 2016.
According to a report by the Dodge & Analytics and United Technologies’ World Building Trends, local market respondents said that 41% of their work was currently green. This is way beyond the global average of 24%.
The survey noted that South Africa is one among a few African countries to undertake a remarkable number of “retrofitting” projects. Of the respondents interviewed, 46% of them said they are expecting to undertake on green retrofits to existing building in the next three years.
40% and 31% of respondents expected to undertake commercial and low –raise residential projects respectively. The force behind this initiative of African nations’ green building was not mandatory or binding pressure but purely voluntary in the spirit of “doing the right thing”
The survey showed acceleration in the global green market rating growth, and predicted that green building activities would double globally by 2018. “There is a wealth of local and international research that shows green buildings contribute to environmental sustainability, health and productivity, and are also cost-efficient to operate and a good investment,” GBCSA said at a media lunch.
According to the report, South African respondents believed the green activity undertaken up to today, is not sufficient for an “overall shift in the market”, 60% saying that they expected over 60% of their projects to be green come 2018. A total of 1000 people across 69 countries participated in the survey.
