South African standards and bylaws around green building are rapidly gaining traction in line with the pressure created by local environmental factors, together with international policies and legislation around sustainability.

Starting from initiation, design and construction, Solid Green‘s service offerings extend right through to operation and maintenance of a project. Marloes Reinink, founder of Solid Green, says:

Ideally, green-building consultants should be involved from the initiation and design stages of a project to maximise the cost efficiency of green-building initiatives. This includes working with the client to create a green-building brief that encompasses the vision for the project. Services then extend to: green-building workshops and project-strategy sessions; setting targets for environmental performance and/or benchmarking of sustainable design, construction and operations; energy, thermal and daylight modelling; and Green Star aspiration.

Solid Green Consulting has tailored its service offerings to meet the needs of its clients in this environment, taking into account the best building practices, the long-term financial and operational benefits of going green, and the increasing demand for systems that benefit occupant health and productivity.

Solid Green is specialised and experienced in both Green Star and LEED green-building certification, offering certification for offices, multi-unit residential projects, retail centres, industrial developments, existing buildings, interiors, and public and education buildings. All team members are Green Star SA Accredited Professionals, with key team members also holding LEED AP accreditation.

Certification services

• Certification workshops, courses and education.
• Strategy and risk assessments for certification projects.
• Certification consulting and management.
• Specification and material review.
• Peer review of certification submissions.

To enhance its offerings, Solid Green has developed an innovative web app called Solid XA to take the hassle out of completing and submitting SANS10400 XA Rational Assessments. For the operational phase of a project, live-metering software has been developed to display real-time energy- and water-consumption information online.  Building user-guides are then also made available to tenants and the public via a website – ensuring that building occupants understand the importance of the green initiatives that have been implemented.