Telecommunications group Vodacom South Africa has been awarded 5-Star existing building performance (EPB) certifications for two of its buildings, Vodacom’s Business Park and Corporate Park, at its Midrand headquarters.

The Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) accreditations, signifying excellence in sustainable building operations and management, follow Vodacom’s long- standing, responsible business practices over a sustained period.

The GBCSA certified the company’s Innovation Centre with a 6-Star rating for building design in 2011, achieving the first 6-Star rating awarded in the southern hemisphere.

In 2020, the company’s refurbished Century City building, in Cape Town, received a 5-Star EPB certification, after the implementation of various sustainable interventions.

“Resource efficiency, especially with respect to energy, water and waste management, are some of the important features that the GBCSA interrogates when awarding the certification,” explains Vodacom South Africa CEO Sitho Mdlalose, adding that Vodacom has also adopted green cleaning principles, indoor air quality management and occupancy feedback.

“By leveraging a passive building design review, a building optimisation review, and rigorous certification compliance monitoring, WSP ensured that Vodacom’s Business and Corporate Parks not only met but exceeded environmental performance standards,” says WSP in Africa regional director Alison Groves.

WSP, which provided sustainability consulting services through its WSP built ecology team, implemented sustainability solutions at Vodacom’s buildings, including advanced energy efficiency measures, water conservation strategies and the integration of renewable energy systems.

At the campus, Vodacom has installed an extensive on-site solar farm and an electric vehicle charging station, which also boasts a recycling pod for staff and customers to drop off their recyclable items.

“Our eco-village provides both staff and Vodacom customers with easy access to the resources they need to make green choices. The eco-village project is also a first step towards our plan to migrate 20% of our fleet to electric vehicles by 2030, further accelerating us towards a net-zero future,” Mdlalose says.

As part of the company’s sustainable strategy around energy management, the 6.2 MW solar installation enables Vodacom to generate about 10.8 GWh – 25% of the headquarters’ power consumption – of clean power every year, reducing its reliance on coal-generated electricity from the national grid.

This will effectively result in the reduction of about 11 000 t of greenhouse-gas emissions each year.