Green Seems to be Building's New In Colour

An Engineering News article has drawn attention to the recent trend in South Africa where property investors are set to place more emphasis on green building. This comes after the United Nations identified property development as one of the primary contributors to global warming.

According to the UN, buildings consume between 40% and 50% of the world’s energy, 30% of raw materials and 20% of its water resources. However, it has also been identified as the one sector that has the potential to make the biggest impact on reducing energy consumption.

The adoption of green building practices, such as water recycling, solar heating, more energy-efficient air conditioning systems, could reduce energy consumption from 30% up to 70%. The property development sector’s unique position to effectively reduce the effects of climate change suggests that corporate property will now come under increased scrutiny for environmental performance.

IPD Occupiers UK director, Christopher Hedley addressed delegates at the sixth annual IPD/Sapoa Property Investment Conference held in Cape Town last week and explained that not many property investors were now tackling the issue of green building, as they placed more emphasis on investment returns than environmental sustainability.

In fact, statistics revealed that just half of property investment companies in South Africa were addressing the issue of climate change and green building. However, things are soon to change, as property investors will begin to receive pressure for greener buildings from tenants, governments and stakeholders, pushing them to integrate environmental sustainability into their future investment projects.

Old Mutual Property Investments business development executive, Brent Wilshire agreed with Hedley and argued that investors should think of climate change as a market transition, rather than an environmental issue. He added that it was essential for property investors to integrate green building practices into their investment portfolios because energy and utility costs are set to “explode”, infrastructure will be scarcer and the South African government may introduce green legislation in the future.

The green building initiative has been gathering momentum around the globe for the past five years. According to Bruce Kerswill, executive chairperson of the Green Building Council of South Africa, the real impetus for this initiative has been global warming. South Africa has not received the same pressure as other world nations to tackle the issue and is thus lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of implementing green building practices.

The recent electricity supply crisis in the country has given the green building movement in South Africa a push in the right direction, as this has forced property owners to seek out new ways of conserving energy in building techniques. Another factor playing an important role is that large multinational tenants have now started to demand environmentally friendly buildings and are willing to pay a premium to lease them, said Kerswill.

Also, Kerswill explained that the growing operational costs of transitional buildings have ensured that green building continues to gain in popularity. The operational costs of green buildings are significantly less, which is due to the lower electricity and water consumption, so the construction of such buildings is increasingly being seen as a better alternative in the long term.

The information in this article is courtesy of Jade Davenport (“Property investors urged to place more emphasis on green building”, Engineering News, 8 August 2008).

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