Globally, during construction and life-cycle, buildings consumed between 40% and 50% of the world’s energy produced, about 30% of resources, 20% of available water, and emitted about 23% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – more than any other single sector.

Buildings also produced about 30% of the world’s waste.

This was why the impact of implementing green building practices, could make a significant positive difference on resource consumption and combating global warming.

Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) CEO Nicola Douglas emphasised that, in this resource strained environment, green building was becoming a mainstream global norm.

Speaking at a French South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry energy forum breakfast in Johannesburg, Douglas added that since its establishment in 2007, the GBCSA was encouraging property developers to make the mind-shift to design buildings for conservation, and focus on technological advances that can increase efficiency of buildings.

Douglas added that green buildings had the potential to reduce a building’s consumption, on all levels, including energy, water, resources and so on, by between 30% and 70%. Green buildings could look like any other commercial property, “but they perform differently”, said Douglas.

The establishment of the GBCSA came at a particularly appropriate time, as South Africa struggled with the power crisis, as well as the local authority issues of water, sewerage and solid waste.

“Many multinationals now require green buildings,” added Douglas, indicating that many companies thought of green building as ‘future-proofing’ a building, as constructing a ‘non-green’ building could be viewed as a risk management issue.

It has become evident in countries where green building was more established, such as the UK, US, and Australia, that tenants were willing to pay premium rentals for green buildings, particularly because productivity of employees increased by up to 20% in some cases.

The GBCSA’s objectives were to: promote green building in the commercial property industry; to facilitate implementation of green building practices through acting as a resource centre, to improve the skills base of green building in the industry by offering training and education; and, importantly, by enabling the measurement of green building practices by developing the green building rating system.

The GBCSA launched the Green Star South Africa rating tool for office developments in November 2008, and Douglas noted that the interest in the rating tool was a good indication of the keenness on the concept in South Africa. The rating tool was freely available on the council’s website.

Still in its infancy, there was no Green Star certified building in South Africa to date, but Douglas noted that there were five projects registered to be rated. Industry role players waited anxiously to see which project would be the first Green Star certified building in South Africa.

The council also ran the Green Star accredited professional course, which was a one-day training course focusing particularly on the rating tool, and already about 600 professionals in South Africa had been on this course. Participants ranged from property developers to architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and contractors.

GBCSA’s flagship educational and information sharing event is its yearly convention and exhibition, which will take place in October this year, at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.