And then COVID hit and, even though the impact of COVID on our country is not to be marginalised, it did have a positive impact on our Collaborative. We were able to communicate digitally across the country and be more efficient. We decided that, even though people were quite Zoom fatigued after 9 months of COVID, we would start with a monthly webinar series. Our first event was in November 2020, followed by a webinar every month thereafter. We have covered a variety of topics ranging from Net Positive Energy and Embodied Carbon of Materials to Realigning Buildings with Nature. We are very proud of these webinars, which are CPD validated and available on the GreenED website.

This year, we changed the organisation’s name from Living Future Collaborative South Africa to Regenerative Collaborative South Africa, which allowed us to register a non-profit company to carry on the work that we are doing. The vision and mission of the ILFI and its programs remain a top priority for us, and we are now also in a position to look into other collaborations that enable regenerative design and development.

The Regenerative Collaborative South Africa (RCSA) is driven by a core committee comprising Thulani Kuzwayo (PaperThinkLAB), Adrie Fourie (Solid Green), Denise Mall (ENSO Earth) and me. Since the launch, we have gathered a formal support of about 15 people in Johannesburg and 15 people in Cape Town – who are all interested in being part of the Collaborative and volunteering some of their time to the cause. These professionals are highly qualified and motivated, and they generously share their knowledge and expertise for the advancement of this initiative. The RCSA also created subcommittees to coordinate our activities more efficiently, and we now have an Events Committee, Social Media & Marketing Committee, and an Advocacy & Education Committee.

We are excited and inspired by the uptake of our courses so far and are now working on extending the reach and influence of the RCSA. If you would like more information on our activities, please follow us here or reach out to us here.

The post Reflecting on the Regenerative Collaborative South Africa appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

The 76 Corlett Drive office development in Johannesburg is targeting an LBC Petal certification. Render credit: Daffonchio & Associates Architects

Believing in a Better World for All

The South African built environment faces numerous challenges and risks. These include cities that are still riddled with the vestiges of apartheid spatial planning; projects currently underway that inadvertently reinforce spatial injustice; scarcity and mismanagement of valuable resources such as water; cities running out of landfill space due to waste management issues; and a lack of climate resilience planning to mitigate the effects of extreme weather impacts such as drought and flooding.

This is a future that many professionals cannot accept and are actively seeking to change. The Collaborative believes in the Living Building Challenge philosophy and comprehensive approach because it holistically addresses the multiple challenges faced by cities.

As a symbol of this commitment and belief in the arrival of positive change, the Collaborative has adopted the yellow-billed hornbill as its guiding animal. A symbol of faith, belief and optimism due to his constant skyward glance, this bird is known as ‘umKholwane’ in Zulu, or ‘Little Believer’.

The Living Future Collaborative SA has adopted the yellow-billed hornbill, ‘umKholwane’, as its guiding animal as a symbol of faith, belief and optimism.

What is the Living Building Challenge?

The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, an advocacy tool and a certification tool for projects that aim to create Living Buildings. The LBC is an initiative of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), whose mission is “to lead the transformation toward a civilization that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative”; and which is “premised on the belief that providing a compelling vision for the future is a fundamental requirement for reconciling humanity’s relationship with the natural world.”

The Living Building Challenge certifies buildings that are truly regenerative and contribute positively towards the environment.

The ILFI has an Ambassador Network that spans the globe, on every continent and in every time zone – with 709 Ambassadors in 43 countries, and 89 Collaboratives in 41 countries. Marloes Reinink has been an ambassador for the ILFI since 2015 and, as part of her role, has presented the “Introduction to the Living Building Challenge 3.1” to over 600 people in South Africa. She was joined by Thulani Kuzwayo in 2017 and together they organised and facilitated a Living Future Collaborative for South Africa.

Living Building Challenge buildings can be built in any climate zone in any part of the world.

The core underlying principle of the Living Building Challenge is that buildings should mimic nature and natural systems. Living Buildings are buildings that meet the 20 stringent imperatives of the LBC standard, including being net zero energy, net zero water, using materials that are toxin free, and being beautiful and an inspiration to the surrounding community. The buildings are regenerative, contributing positively to the environment.

The Bullitt Center in Seattle was the very first FULL Living Building Challenge certified commercial building.

As of June 2019, almost 600 projects around the world were registered to pursue certification under LBC and Zero Energy (ZE). The certification is verified after the building has been in operation for a minimum of twelve months and is able to demonstrate compliance based on actual performance.

In South Africa there are already projects that are actively seeking this certification – two residential projects in Oranjezicht, Cape Town; the 76 Corlett Drive office development in Johannesburg (targeting an LBC Petal certification); the Green School in Paarl which is currently under construction and targeting a full LBC certification; and Solid Green’s new office in Parkhurst, which is pursuing the Core certification.

The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, an advocacy tool and a certification tool for projects that aim to create regenerative buildings.

Inaugural Events

On 20 and 21 November 2019, the Living Future Collaborative South Africa hosted two presentations in Johannesburg and Pretoria respectively, as part of the ‘24 Hours of Reality: Truth in Action’ daylong worldwide conversation about the climate crisis and how to solve it.

The events were held at Boogertman + Partners head office in Bryanston, and Aurecon Centre in Lynnwood, and one tree was planted for every person who attended thanks to One Tree Planted. Guest speakers were Adrie Fourie on ‘Setting the Scene – Climate Reality’, Marloes Reinink on ‘Living Buildings for a Living Future’ and Denise Mall on ‘Taking Action – from Sustainable to Regenerative’. These events, which were both extremely well-attended, set the scene for the public launch of the Collaborative.

Vision and Mission

At a meeting of like-minded professionals in the Magaliesberg just outside Johannesburg on 18 January 2020, the Living Future Collaborative formalised its ‘raison d’être’ and set itself an ambitious set of tasks.

With the vision of bringing change beyond individual buildings, integrating urban systems and communities with nature, and creating a coherent future for South Africa’s built environment, the Collaborative aims to organise quarterly events centred around showcasing examples, workshopping what it means to go Net Zero Water/Energy, introducing the concepts of sustainability at schools, and advocating to bring transformation in policy.

The mission is:

• To advocate for a regenerative future by providing a platform for thought leadership in the area of regenerative design principles and application;
• To transform the building value and supply chain for a living future;
• To promote projects that move beyond sustainability and demonstrate strength in ecological restoration, social justice and cultural richness.

The Collaborative is currently active in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and relies on the collaboration of people that volunteer their time and energy to implement its goals. For more information, please reach out to lbc.collaborative.rsa@gmail.com.

Solid Green’s new office in Parkhurst, Johannesburg, is targeting the LBC Core certification. Render credit: Activate Architecture.

Additional resource:
Living Building Challenge 4.0 Standard

The post Living Future Collaborative in South Africa appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

The ‘24 Hours of Reality: Truth in Action’ events were held at Boogertman + Partners head office in Bryanston, and Aurecon Centre in Lynnwood, and one tree was planted for every person who attended thanks to our friends at One Tree Planted. Guest speakers were Adrie Fourie on ‘Setting the Scene – Climate Reality’, Marloes Reinink on ‘Living Buildings for a Living Future’ and Denise Mall on ‘Taking Action – from Sustainable to Regenerative’.

“Both events were very well-attended,” says Marloes. “62 people participated in the Johannesburg event; with 82 attending the Pretoria event.”

Setting the Scene – Climate Reality

Adrie contextualised the current climate crisis by pointing out that the largest source of global warming is still the burning of Fossil Fuels, which supplies 80 percent of all the energy the world economy needs. The world’s oceans absorb the vast majority of the extra accumulated heat energy resulting from higher greenhouse gas levels – resulting in sea level rise, changes in salinity and ecosystems, changes to ocean current, and natural hazards and extreme weather events like typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes that result in flooding. And, as the climate changes, precipitation patterns also change, leaving some places with less rainfall than before resulting in droughts and wildfires.

Climate change also causes increased health risks, as it affects everything from air quality to water and food security. Risks include malnutrition, the spread of malaria and other mosquito-borne viruses, heat exhaustion, and waterborne diseases such as cholera. The indirect cost of these factors includes political instability, famine and climate refugees.

The good news is the significant growth in recent years of the renewables sector including wind energy, which has the potential to supply 40 times more electricity than the entire world currently uses; and solar energy, enough of which reaches Earth every hour to fill all the world’s energy needs for a full year. These industries are now also opening up new opportunities like pay-as-you-go solar, and the emerging Global Cumulative Storage sector.

Living Buildings for a Living Future

Marloes introduced the work of the Collaborative by explaining that the mission of ILFI (International Living Future Institute) is to catalyse the transformation toward communities that are socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative. Launched about 10 years ago, their first programme was the Living Building Challenge, followed by the Living Community Challenge and Living Product Challenge. Other ILFI initiatives now include the Zero Carbon Certification, Zero Energy Certification, and Core Green Building Certification; together with the Declare, Just, and Reveal transparency reporting tools for building product ingredient disclosure, organisational social justice and equity initiatives, and building energy use disclosure.

As of June 2019, there were over 113 certified LBC and Zero Energy projects around the world, and almost 600 projects were registered to pursue certification under LBC and ZE. The ILFI has an Ambassador Network that spans the globe, on every continent and in every time zone – with 709 Ambassadors in 43 countries, and 89 Collaboratives in 41 countries.

Taking Action – from Sustainable to Regenerative

Denise then spoke about biomimicry and how nature and business should support each other towards the triple bottom line of Environment, Society and Economy – where the economy is the means to an end, the end being environmental and social sustainability.

She observed that the most powerful designs incorporate the 3 basic levels of innovation that we can learn from nature – imitating nature’s form, learning her recipes, and mimicking her systems. This is because nature has the ability to create the illusion of infinity with finite resources by effectively upcycling and recycling. We therefore need to start treating our resources as finite elements; and focus on valuing them and creating a regenerative world.

Denise concluded with a well-known quote from Buckminster Fuller on changing a system that no longer works:

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

For more information on how to become involved with the Living Future Collaborative South Africa, reach out to us here.

The post Living Future Collaborative SA’s Inaugural Events appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

Guest speakers are:

• Climate Reality Leader: Adrie Fourie on ‘Setting the Scene – Climate Reality’
• Living Building Challenge Ambassador: Marloes Reinink on ‘Living Buildings for a Living Future’
• Denise Mall ‘Taking Action – from Sustainable to Regenerative’.

There will be three short presentations, 3x 20min and an hour discussion time afterwards. Drinks and snacks will be provided and the event is for free.  One tree will be planted for every person who attends these events, with thanks to our friends at One Tree Planted.

Please extend the invite to your colleagues or anyone that would be interested to have a discussion on how climate change is affecting our industry and what we can do to change.

The event is free, and CPD available for SACAP & ECSA.

Register here.

The post 24 Hours of Reality: Truth in Action appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.