1. View of the recycled stage

A reality check

Much has changed in the two years since Covid and we have seen how destructive we, as the human race, are to the planet. Floods and extreme weather events have led to increased risk in all sectors –buildings, cities, infrastructure, investments, economies and countries – nothing and no one is immune. Tessa Brunette of Arup reminded us that we only have “23 months from November 2022 for global carbon emissions to fall and keep global heating under 1.5C.” As you read this, we are designing buildings for 2030 – a year which is set as a target (by the World Green Building Council) for all new and refurbished buildings to be NET ZERO in operation and achieve 40% REDUCTION in embodied carbon in South Africa.

2. A slide from Tessa Brunette’s presentation – “no Planet B”

We have the tools, we have the materials, and we have the opportunity. One of the most charismatic and inspiring speakers, Dr Antony Wood of the Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH), offered insights on tall buildings, pointing out that “tall buildings should relate to the specific characteristics of place – physically, environmentally and culturally.” With key drivers such as population growth and shifts in demographics, perhaps the tall building even becomes a suburb, a city that is flipped from the horizontal to the vertical.

We need an urgent mindset shift

What we need is a mindset shift, a rewiring of sorts. Marc Sherratt from MSSA Architects reiterated this through an African, context specific approach to architecture, reminding us of the emotional connection we have with materials.

So, you might ask, why haven’t we changed our mindset, or better yet, are we changing fast enough? The Four Horsemen of Change, as highlighted by Andre Nel of Pick n Pay, give us an indication as to the motivation and reasons behind change (or lack thereof). These are threats that are sudden, short term, clear and something with which we feel a connection. Give something value, as Linus Naik from the Don’t Waste Group points out, then someone will do something about it.

Driving transformation

The point is, we need to act now – no more waiting. This must be the ‘decade of implementation’. It’s not all doom and gloom! Version 2 of the New Build Tool, to be released in early 2023 and sponsored by Balwin Properties, is aiming to do just that. It’s a step in helping to drive and transform the market, enabling clients and professional teams to navigate new challenges and trends. The tool has had a makeover, and incorporates eight categories – Responsible, Healthy, Resilient, Positive, Places, People, Nature and Leadership. Three of the categories were directed by none other than Adrie, Annelide and Dash, with Alex, Cebisa, Elrie and Nomamfengu also forming part of the taskforce.

6. Some of the V2 tool’s task directors and members

It wasn’t all hard work!

During the opening Plenary, a little game called ‘But first, let me take a selfie’ was announced, which was based on the tool’s categories. Test your observation skills, they said. It will be fun, they said. Well, they weren’t wrong. Marloes and I, the only eligible non-taskforce members from the team, raced around looking for the hidden posters. And while we didn’t win the coveted tickets to next year’s convention, I did win 3rd prize – an autographed copy of the book “Township Economy People, Spaces and Practices” by Charman, Petersen & Govender, which I can’t wait to start reading.

7. Marloes and I with the various hidden posters and task force directors

And when it’s time to shine, Solid Green does that too! The Gala Dinner on Thursday evening was sponsored by Stiebel Eltron and the main hall was abuzz with excitement and anticipation. Everyone looked beautiful – the ladies in their glitz and glam evening wear and the men in their formal wear, all rounded off with funky sneakers to dance the night away to the sounds of Good Luck. The GBCSA awarded some of our very own for all their hard work and effort in the year 2021-2022, and we couldn’t be prouder of them.

A lasting legacy

The final day’s sessions and plenary rounded off the convention with a reminder from Khanyi Mlambo from South African Women in Construction, “What you do in the building industry can change lives.” The legacy of building is one that is lasting, and we need to move beyond sustainability towards building regeneratively. Let’s get serious about the threat of Climate Change –adapt and change, thrive don’t just survive. Move that needle even closer towards Net Zero. Practice economic inclusion and drive the models within circular economies, so that we can transition to being the Google and Apple of the future. And share the knowledge gained as well as the failures when we meet again at next year’s Convention!

The post The RE-GENERATION – GREEN BUILDING CONVENTION 2022 appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

As Solid Green celebrates its 10^th Birthday this year, Marloes opened her talk by reflecting back on how far the green building sector has come in the last decade, with the GBCSA having significantly expanded its portfolio of certification tools, and having certified 550 buildings to date.

“Following the initial years of the green building movement in South Africa, it became apparent that there was a huge need for operational guidelines on going green, as our existing building stock is much larger than our new building stock,” she observed.

This was addressed with the Existing Building Performance (EBP) tool. The number of existing buildings certified has quickly increased, because some developers have had their portfolios certified in batches of 30 at the time.

The EBP tool doesn’t only apply to buildings under renovation. It focusses on the operation and maintenance of any existing building. After the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe that this will definitely form a large part of industry activity, as we have realised that we do not need MORE office space but rather better-organised space planning. Indoor Air Quality is also becoming more important – and that is also covered by the EBP tool. I also think that the Green Star Interiors tool will receive more attention, as there will be a larger focus on Health & Wellbeing in tenanted spaces.

Another factor that has positively influenced the sector is the understanding that green buildings do not have to cost more. According to research conducted by the University of Pretoria in collaboration with the GBCSA and Association of South African Quantity Surveyors (ASAQS), the cost premium on going green has diminished progressively over the last few years, and Green Star buildings can now be delivered for a premium of only 1%.

According to the GBCSA article, ‘Certified green offices hold value in tough rental market’, the latest MSCI South Africa Green Annual Property Index reinforced the benefits of green buildings for developers: “Certified green buildings showed a 34% higher capital value per square metre, more resilient capital growth and a higher net operating income per square metre compared to non-certified office buildings.” This means that the sector’s early adopters can finally see the benefits of their investments made real.

The GBCSA’s launch of its Net Zero Tools in Carbon, Water, Waste and Ecology has been a major advancement for the sector. “We have the perfect climate to generate Net Zero Carbon buildings,” Marloes comments. “I really believe that we need to fundamentally change our design thinking to align our designs with our climate. This will enable us to generate zero energy buildings without breaking the bank.

Image credit World Green Building Council.

“Over the years, I have learned that crises are often necessary to change people’s mindset and behaviour. We needed Eskom to deny us electricity and implement loadshedding to increase interest in energy security. We needed Cape Town to run dry to increase people’s awareness of how precious water is, and to realise how efficient we can be with water.

“And the most recent crisis – the Covid-19 pandemic – has forced us to rethink a larger diversity of office space types in future and whether office expansions are necessary at all.”

This new paradigm has made working from home more acceptable; and has significantly reduced the amount of time spent on commuting. Importantly, while there was already a growing emphasis on Health & Wellbeing in the green building industry, the pandemic has been a catalyst to really emphasise these issues. These crises have resulted in sustainability being high on the agendas of government and corporates.

Marloes feels that we should be making bigger strides to tackle building sustainability, and that climate change and global warming should receive the same urgent attention as the pandemic. She suggests the following actions in advancing these goals:

• Education – integrating a locally appropriate Green Building curriculum into university programmes; and expanding accessible education for building professionals, clients and the broader public through initiatives like GreenED.
• Challenging Targets – with a view to creating regenerative buildings and urban environments that are ‘socially just, culturally rich and ecologically restorative’, as per the Living Building Challenge goals.
• Unlocking the Sun – in a country with an abundance of sunlight, ‘energy budgets’ should be created for each project, driven by the available solar power in order to maximise energy efficiency. The recent announcement by government giving municipalities the go ahead to directly purchase energy from Independent Power Producers is a major step in the right direction.
• Integrated Design – green measures must become an integrated part of the design and construction process. Integrated design prioritises cost effectiveness over a building’s lifecycle, and engages all project team members in identifying useful interrelationships between systems.
• Finance – this involves firstly changing the perception that green buildings are expensive; secondly, applying lifecycle analysis; thirdly, developing innovative financing structures; and fourthly, incentivising professionals to design the most efficient high-performance buildings.
• Embodied Carbon – this is the amount of carbon released by the sourcing, manufacture and transport of building materials, and is rapidly gaining relevance globally with building certification tools and material calculators to calculate embodied energy becoming more advanced.

Image credit Skanska AB.

“We should not wait until climate change hits home hard before we act,” Marloes concludes.

We need to treat climate change as a crisis NOW so that it gets the attention and treatment it deserves. We need to challenge our vision and start setting more challenging targets for our buildings if we want to make a meaningful impact that ensures a sustainable world for future generations.

The post Next Level Green: Sustainability Leapfrogging appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

At the Awards, South Africa’s top-rated Green Star projects were announced, with Solid Green as the accredited professional on 78 Corlett Drive (owned by Legaro Properties), which received a Net Zero Carbon Pilot Rating at the end of November 2017 and won the Highest Rated Building category; and Linden Vleihuis in Johannesburg (owned by Marc Sherratt Sustainability Architects), which was the runner-up in the Net Zero Innovative Project Award.

Solid Green was also EDGE Auditor on Belhar Gardens Rental Estate (owned by the Madulammoho Housing Association), which won the EDGE Innovative Housing Project Award.

We are especially proud of two of the dedicated, powerful women in our team who brought home Green Building Council Leadership Awards – Annelide Sherratt, who was named Established Green Star Runner-up, and Jesse Hamman, who is the Rising Green Star Winner!

We participated in kicking off the Green Building Convention on 3 October with Chilufya Lombe talking about Net Zero Energy in the #RaceToZero as part of the Green Café, which was facilitated by the Green Building Design Group’s (GreenBDG) Songo Didiza and C40 Cities’ Paul Cartwright.

This year’s conference conveyed a noticeable change in the way we are approaching climate change in South Africa,” says Lombe. “The idea of reversing effects rather than building ‘less bad’ was discussed several times. A number of consultants and clients seem up for the challenge, and hopefully there will be more success stories for the next conference.

Lombe presented together with Marloes Reinink on 5 October with ‘A Bird’s Eye View on Using the Scale of a Precinct to Contribute to Net Zero’. The session offered delegates access to the expertise of those who are leading the way with Sustainable Precincts; and demonstrated how tackling site-wide issues related to the overall urban plan, rather than just those of specific buildings, enables a broader approach and makes a significant contribution towards achieving Net Zero.

Reinink was impressed with the calibre of the Convention and says:

The 2018 convention exceeded expectations once again, from a super-inspiring talk by Paul Hawken, who presented a list of actions to be taken towards combating climate change, to a closing presentation on the Bullit Centre, a Living Building Challenge project. The convention this year had a great mix of international and local speakers, and it was encouraging to see such good attendance from the sector.

“It was an engaging and inspirational convention,” Dash Coville observes.

Presentations ranged from international case studies on new housing designs to deal with the high cost of housing in Hong Kong to creating vertical forests in new commercial buildings; and included discussions around what is happening in South Africa from government and commercial perspectives.

The convention is always a good time to catch up with friends in the industry and gain insights into trends and challenges that are featuring in the Green Building movement from around the world. The speaker line-up provided engaging and thought-provoking content and the break-away sessions enabled a more personal interaction with speakers.

“It was incredible to see that our projects are leading by example in the Race towards Net Zero,” comments Annelide Sherratt.

We were excited to have both 78 Corlett and Linden Vleihuis presented as case studies by their respective project architects in the session ‘Positioning the business case for Net Zero: new building projects’. Another highlight was when Paul Hawken introduced his book ‘Drawdown’ which announced Project Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming. We are thrilled to be one of the first South African project teams to take these steps towards reversing global warming.

We are tremendously proud of the excellent contribution that our team is making towards taking the #RaceToZero further and are looking forward to participating again at the Green Building Convention 2019.

The post Green Building Convention & Awards 2018 appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

Electric vehicles (EVs) promise to be an integral part of the future of transport and energy in the green built environment – specifically with deployment of charging stations in residential, commercial and retail developments – which may offer vehicle-to-grid (V2G) virtual storage for renewable energy. Demand for batteries for EVs is also driving their price down and this promises to result in a market for repurposed EV batteries for use in the storage of solar energy in buildings.

Green Building Convention goers trying out Solid Green’s electric vehicles

Using a Nissan Leaf as the company pool car, Solid Green is able to save around R3 000 in fuel cost per month and eliminate harmful emissions in the city. The car is charged with the Solid Green rooftop solar panel installation, thus significantly reducing the carbon emissions associated with driving.

Earlier in the year, Solid Green’s Warren Gary and Dash Coville took six matric learners from Beaulieu College who are interested in engineering on a drive in the electric cars. The outing included a visit to the Corner Main Office Park solar installation facilitated by Emergent Energy, a tour of the Solid Green offices and a short presentation on building simulation.

The post Test Driving our Electric Cars appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.