The new corporate headquarters for the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) in Pretoria has been awarded a 4-star Green Star SA – Office Design v1 rating by the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), the country’s green building authority.
As the first parastatal in South Africa to achieve a Green Star SA rating for one of its buildings, SANRAL, an agency of the Department of Transport, is leading the way for government and state-owned enterprises to move towards green building standards.
Worldwide, buildings are reportedly responsible for a third of all carbon emissions. Given that SA has boldly committed to reducing its carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 and 42% by 2025, the reduction of carbon emissions via buildings and the built environment presents one of the most efficient ways of achieving these commitments.
A 4-Star rating is defined as “Best Practice” in the rating system. Brian Wilkinson, CEO of the GBCSA, explains: “Green Star SA rates buildings on nine categories – eight of them environmental, including Indoor Environmental Quality, Energy, Water, Materials and Emissions, and the ninth category is Innovation. The Green Star SA rating tools set out specific targets (credits) in each category and buildings are awarded points to the extent that they comply with each credit. The total points determine the building’s Green Star SA rating.
“Energy is a major focus,” Wilkinson says, “and points earned in this category carry significant weight in the Green Star SA rating tools. Projects are rewarded for reducing their energy consumption and there are a number of other factors that go into a rating.” Some of those at the SANRAL building include the green roof planted with water-wise succulents, solar-generated hot water for a fresh air heating system, a facade of two layers that increases natural light and views while decreasing heat build-up, and a specialised outer shading layer which provides essential sun screening. As well as assisting with interior temperature control, this innovative, vertical green walling system, together with the green roof, also have the wider environmental benefit of reducing the Urban Heat Island Effect.
The SANRAL building also scored well in the various other categories of Green Star SA rating system.
“The GBCSA offers its congratulations to SANRAL, the Department of Transport and to government for this ground-breaking achievement,” says Wilkinson.
“We also congratulate the professional team involved in the SANRAL building which included Activate Architecture, Koor Dindar Mothei Quantity Surveyors, Plantech Electrical and Mechanical Consulting Engineers, Civil Concepts, and the project manager and principal agent, Rouillard Consulting.”
Other exciting ‘green’ initiatives from government include the announcement at COP17 by the Department of Public Works (DPW) that it plans to launch a National Green Building Framework that will align its green building initiatives and will see various national green building policies being developed to ensure that South Africa’s built environment is developed in a more sustainable manner. The Construction Industry Development Board (cidb), an agency of the DPW, has sponsored the development of the Green Star SA ratings tool for Public & Education Buildings. Another state-owned enterprise, Eskom, represented by its Integrated Demand Management department (IDM), has become a Platinum founding member of the GBCSA. Eskom has also contributed significant sponsorship and technical input in the development of the Energy and Water Benchmarking tool currently being developed by the GBCSA.
