Deloitte has made strides in ensuring its new Waterfall headquarters is sustainable as a green building with a low impact on the environment.
The building, which was designed and constructed with an emphasis on creating a sustainable, healthy, safe and productive environment, complies with a Silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Rating.
“Our impact on the environment was a key consideration throughout the building project and water savings, due to the scarcity of the resource, was top of the list,” said Deloitte Africa operations leader and Waterfall building project lead Wayne Megaw.
The new offices have an integrated rain and grey water harvesting system that collects and filters rain and sub-soil drainage water, which is used to irrigate the gardens around the exterior of the building and also for flushing the toilets, which eliminates the wastage of potable water within these areas.
The building has an underground basement parking, with an influx of groundwater into basements sumps.
“In the past, this water would typically have been pumped out into the stormwater system to avoid flooding but was identified as a useful water source to augment aspects of the building’s overall water demand,” he said.
Between 40 kilolitres and 50 kilolitres of groundwater is collected daily in the basement sumps and then pumped to a central raw water holding tank, which also holds rainwater collected from a 7 500 m2 catchment area on the building’s roof.
“Green buildings are cost effective and have meaningful impacts in mitigating climate change. In this way, our new Africa headquarters support our purpose to make an impact that matters,” concluded Megaw.