The new, the old and the green-urbanism
Sustainability has become integral in the design and construction of buildings in many parts of the world and in South Africa. Over the last six years, in particular, there has been significant uptake of green buildings. In fact,“ building green” or building for sustainability and climate change mitigation is becoming an industry standard in the local commercial market. The industry’ s shift to embrace sustainable practices has a proven and significant economic business case, which largely is being driven by continuous and growing pressure being placed on the‘ built’ space to address inadequate energy resources, carbon reduction targets and, revised building energy efficiency standards for the country.
In line with this, there are three notable trends in the green building space. These include:
# 1 Expect a big drive towards“ building green” In the commercial property market – particularly- smart developers have begun to realise that“ building green” and building for sustainability not only better enables the development to leverage on the power and water resources that are available, but it makes good business sense. Previously it may have been thought costly to make the upfront capital investments to go green, however, volatility in both the cost and availability of power and water is influencing a mind-set change; in that savvier consumers are realising the benefits of being more“ green” and, for example, offsetting as much of their energy consumption as possible.
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In the long-term, not only do green buildings enable the consumer to reduce their consumption, but building green also increases the propensity to reduce the carbon emissions emitted by these developments and provides increased resilience to uncertain service delivery. These are significant value adds to the consumer – and what benefits the consumer also benefits the developer / owner. As a result, we can expect that architects and consulting engineers will continue to be tasked with coming up with alternative and cost-efficient building designs to offset energy consumption, reduce carbon emissions and improve the overall operational efficiencies of new building projects.
# 2 Growing business opportunity in urban renewal While demand for green buildings continues to grow, these will not replace the importance of our existing urban and city centres. In fact, new building projects possibly represent about 5 % of the entire built stock from 2010, which means there is an even greater opportunity in refurbishing the existing built stock with green principles – keeping energy efficiency top of mind. This form of urban renewal can take place in different forms such as – but not excluded to- corporates establishing campuses around their head offices, or retro-future proofing old city centres – and through the inclusion of renewable energies and biological processes.
Some cynics might argue that refurbishments are costly and do not make economic sense. Yet, there is actually a strong business case for implementing energy efficiency measures. It is important to evaluate the full life cycle costs of any intervention. If specified and installed correctly, systems and structures can produce a sustainable return on investment( ROI) that can amount to between 20 %- 70 % of energy and gain revenue through this investment.
# 3 Green urbanism- a global driver towards smarter, greener precincts and cities Out of the box, a green city is a complex undertaking for any economy – whether developed or emerging. In fact, we can expect that the urban form will not rapidly and materially transform itself towards more efficient and compact cities, as this is a serious ambition and may take the better
“ The industry’ s shift to embrace sustainable practices has a proven and significant economic business case”