The Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) plans to have piloted 100 properties using its existing building performance (EBP) tool by the end of April.

“The EBP tool illustrates the value-add for owners and investors of commercial property,” Nedbank Property Finance executive head Robin Lockhart-Ross said during a panel discussion on ‘Greening Existing Buildings’ in Hyde Park last week.

Sponsored by Nedbank Property Finance, he added, the EBP tool was expected to deliver environ- mental and financial savings for property owners who use it to incorporate green features in their existing buildings. This might range from increasing energy efficiency, improving design elements to educating tenants on green practices.

Alluding to this, GBCSA CEO Brian Wilkinson noted during the discussion that, currently, the GBCSA’s suite of Green Star SA rating tools focused largely on the design and construction of new buildings and major refurbishments, which made up about 2% of building stock. Nedbank’s sponsorship of the EBP tool allowed for operational and management performance of buildings making up the remaining 98% of stock to be assessed on an ongoing basis.

“Corporate commitment plays a crucial role in greening existing building portfolios. The GBCSA assists by providing tools like the EBP tool and the Energy and Water Benchmarking tool, which facilitate an intimate understanding of a building’s consumption and overall performance so that stakeholders are able to manage more efficient portfolios and reduce operating costs,” he pointed out, adding that, with the current energy crisis and the significant focus on environmental sustainability, it was time for everyone to make a change.

Wilkinson said that property developments such as V&A Waterfront, in Cape Town, had seen significant environmental and financial improvements since their adoption of the EBP tool, which was launched in 2013.

leven of the 50 projects currently being piloted by the GBCSA EPB tool, are Nedbank buildings. Measured by the GBCSA’s Energy and Water Benchmarking tool, which is a component of the EBP tool both Nedbank’s Menlyn and Ridgeside buildings have already achieved 40% lower water consumption than average nongreen buildings of similar size, and 11% and 20% lower energy consumption respectively than the SANS 204 benchmark.

A key success story of the pilot phase, highlighted at the panel discussion, is the V&A Waterfront, jointly owned by Growthpoint Property Holdings and the Public Investment Corporation. Also, the Victoria Wharf Shopping Centre – which contributed R33.4-billion to South Africa’s gross domestic product in 2014 – and BP Building are currently being rated using the GBCSA EBP tool.

Some of the measures that the Waterfront has implemented include installing eight solar rooftops with solar panels for solar energy savings, and drip-feed irrigation that has resulted in 60% less water used than the previous system.

“As one of the top financiers of green buildings in South Africa, we want to ensure that buildings are designed, built and operated in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Lockhart-Ross.

Achieving this was central to Nedbank’s Fair Share 2030 approach to ensure that economic, social and environmental challenges that threatened society’s long-term success were addressed through goals that encompassed affordable energy services while containing carbon emissions, amongst others.