Green building is set to get easier, and cheaper, as the South African building industry gains experience and becomes increasingly geared to deliver more environmentally sustainable commercial developments, says the team involved in the first certified green building in South Africa.

Early adopters of green building are pushing the transformation of the industry, and, importantly, the materials supply chain.

Speaking at the roof wetting ceremony of the Nedbank phase two office building in Sandton, which is the first building in South Africa to be certified under the Green Star rating tool, GLH & Associates Architects senior executive partner Xavier Huyberechts tells Engineering News Online that on the Nedbank project, “everything had to be invented, negotiated, and found overseas”.

“Being the first in line, you need to negotiate with the main contractor, find the ways how we are going to do the waste separation, and all those points that you need to pay attention to - and also to find the materials,” explains Huyberechts of the process of working on the groundbreaking development.

He further explains that the Nedbank phase two building is the first building in South Africa to use low volatile organic compound (VOC) paint. “It’s a small item, but we had to put pressure on the local paint manufacturers and suppliers to give us that product. At the start they said: we are going to fly it in and its going to be difficult. But, with the pressure of this project and some others, they realise that the green is something that they need to buy into.”

Also important in terms of materials for a green building is the use of concrete that has a certain fly-ash content, or recycled content. The same applies for steel, and use of recycled steel is encouraged.

The cost of designing and constructing a green building is often a deterrent for developers and building owners, however, practitioners are convinced that as green building becomes more mainstream, the costs will come down.

“There is a significant cost in going green, especially when you are the guinea pig like we have been, being the first building to be rated. I think going forward the costs will be less, but on this building, with construction costs in the order of just over R600-million, the additional cost has probably been in the region of R20-million,” explains Nedbank project manager Ken Reynolds.

“The outgoings on a green building are less than what they are on a conventional building, so there is a payback period, and with the price of water and electricity going up at the rate they are, those payback periods will just get shorter and shorter,” Reynolds emphasises.

In addition, research has shown that staff productivity is increased in a green building, and staff are less likely to suffer from what is known as sick-building syndrome.

“Green is not new,” stresses Huyberechts. “Green has been around for a long time, but the green rules are new, so although a lot of the green principles were already there in phase one [of the Nedbank head office], the green rules are new, and they push you to do it better, further, differently.”

“The industry is discovering the whole process and is adapting to it,” he says.

One of the major challenges of working on the Nedbank phase two project, was that the building had to conform with the style of the first phase, and had been designed before the Green Star rating tool existed.

“When we embarked on this project, there was no rating tool in the country, so we utilised the Australian model to see what they did and how they did it, but obviously it was designed for Australian conditions and not South African conditions, so we designed what was a best practice building, and then we had to convert it to a four star building in South Africa,” says Reynolds.

“We had to do a lot of re-planning and moving in different directions in order to get the rating, so there was a big challenge for us. But as I said, the guys that go and do it next time will find it a lot easier than we have done,” he adds.

Huyberechts affirms that the first phase of the office building already had many good green building design principles in it, for example, the orientation was correct, the depth of the footprint was not too wide, the atrium, as a buffer space, allowed for a lot of space and light in the structure.

The basement for the second phase was designed seven years ago, and one of the challenges was to bring in services that conform to the whole green environment, as well as the finishes, which had to be changed and incorporated.

“We had to adapt the facades a little bit for the new air conditioning system which is completely different to the other phase. But because of the basis of the building being right, I think it went relatively easily,” he notes.

Other projects that have declared their intent to pursue formal certification with the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), and have started the process, are the Pegasus Building, the Bartholomew building and the Falcon building – all three of which for part of the Menlyn Maine development in Tshwane. The Lincoln on the Lake development in Durban is also registered with the GBCSA to be certified.