The Department of Public Works on Tuesday said that it has completed the energy-efficiency retrofit of some 4 000 public buildings in South Africa, and was also taking seriously the challenge of water efficiency and recycling.

Addressing delegates at a green building convention in Sandton, Deputy Minister of Public Works, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu, noted that the department needed assistance from green building professionals so that it could do more in this regard.

Integrating green building into the rehabilitation projects of public buildings, and facilities management thereof, was said to be a priority.

“We are in an era of renewal,” she said, referring to the new government administration, and added that this included the built environment, as the government sought to provide green and sustainable cities, human settlements and amenities.

She further noted that participating in green building, and making use of innovative green technologies would hopefully have the added benefit of creating so-called ‘green jobs’.

The South African government has indicated the need to create some 500 000 jobs. It was expected that about 10% of these jobs could be ‘green jobs’.

Bogopane-Zulu noted the difficulties of pursuing green building in a developing country and questioned whether or not built environment professionals were rising to the specific challenges faced in South Africa.

She said that some of the challenges to consider were to renovate buildings to make them cost effective; to use new technologies; to find new waste management solutions; to make greener homes; to build cities independent of the traditional electricity grid; and to find alternatives to traditional sewerage systems.

The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) built environment researcher Nosizo Sebake assured the Deputy Minister that the built environment professionals gathered at the convention were committed to rising to these challenges.

CSIR research group leader Llewllyn van Wyk further emphasised the ability of green building to act as an instrument of transformation, stressing the importance of exercising opportunities to encourage human interaction with the environment.

Van Wyk said that the message from Bogopane-Zulu was encouraging, and added that in order to get established institutions to do more to deliver on their mandate, it would take leadership, as well as understanding and appreciation of the challenges. Built environment professionals would need to create awareness and make leaders mindful of the needs of the society, which they sought to cater for.