As the Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA) achieves a milestone of 200 Green Star South Africa certifications, the now ten-year-old organisation is targeting 2 500 commercial green building certifications and 10 000 residential green building certified homes by 2020.

Currently, green building certifications in South Africa cover some 2.8-million square metres of space – the equivalent of 400 rugby fields – with ambitions of increasing this to around ten-million square metres of gross building area in the next few years, mostly expected from existing buildings and interiors.

GBCSA, which was established in 2007, awarded the first green certification in 2009.

Six years later, the 100 mark for Green Star SA ratings was achieved, before doubling a year later to 200, GBCSA chairperson and World Green Building Council director Rudolf Pienaar told a media roundtable in Sandton on Wednesday.

“The increase in pace in green building in South Africa has been phenomenal,” GBCSA CEO Brian Wilkinson enthused.

With ambitions of introducing a “net zero building certification scheme”, GBCSA is ramping up efforts to bring about awareness of how green buildings are “the most effective means of achieving a range of environmental, social and economic goals”.

He described net zero as the “next frontier” where there was generation and harvesting within a building’s ecosystem that was equal to its consumption.

The council aims to reach out to the leading and largest organisations for commitment to the net zero challenge.

“We have a very ambitious drive ahead,” Wilkinson noted.

However, much had already been achieved in the past decade, Pienaar said.

“We are really starting to make a big impact on the South African scene,” he noted, citing the “meaningful and significant” positive impacts on the environment, particularly as the built environment currently accounted for 20% of the world’s water use and 40% of its electricity.

In its tenth year of operation, the council reported that the 200 certifications under its wing had produced savings of 260-million litres of water and 280-million kilowatt-hours of electricity.

Overall, green buildings consume around 35% less electricity and 42% less water per square metre of occupied space.

Some 336-million kilogrammes of carbon emissions have also been saved, representing the equivalent of removing around 84 000 cars from South Africa’s roads.

In addition to the compelling environmental and financial benefits and the higher returns resulting from owning and operating green buildings, the productivity gains in a company’s staff levels are said to be exceptional.

Wilkinson cited some studies revealing a 280% improvement in the cognitive ability of workers in high-performance buildings.

Meanwhile, Pienaar believed there was no end to the uptake of green building in South Africa, pointing to the adoption of the principles by several leading property companies in respect of their existing portfolios and new developments, as well as the spike in interest from the public sector.