SA Affordable Housing January / February 2018 // Issue: 68 | Page 26

FEATURES
Edge certified Tygerberg 3, student residence developed by STAG African.
ADOPTING GREEN STANDARDS
The greatest barrier that they’ve had to overcome is the
cost perception of going green. Introducing the idea to
developers hasn’t been a difficult task as they have
experienced early adopters of the initiative, Cairncross
says that this is because they can see the returns when
using the app. “What has been interesting is there have
been developers who have been keen to go green, but
what has helped to increase market awareness as well as
early adoption is financiers who decide to go the Edge
route,” she says.
Some of these market leading institutions include
International Housing Solutions (IHS) and Old Mutual
Alternative Investments. Many of the development
financial institutions are seeking to see a climate
mitigation as well as green developments. Cairncross
shares that sourcing funding from these institutions may
be difficult if the project isn’t green, commercial
institutions are also jumping on the bandwagon. She adds
that because multi-lateral institutions require green
buildings this additionally incentivises the implementation
of Edge.
Currently, the IHS has registered about 3 000 housing
units with the potential to register 7 000 more units. Old
Mutual has a pipeline of 6 000 units with the first few 100
registered and a little under
1 000 pending. “Balwin has
an estimated 1 500 already registered units and a further 7
000 are pending,” says Cairncross.
Overall the IFC has about 5 000 housing units that are
already Edge registered. “We have about 16 500
pending registrations. “As more developers see that this is
the way for new developments we believe that there’ll be
a much bigger uptake,” she predicts.
There are benefits of going green for tenants,
homeowners and developers. The end-user gets to save on
utility bills.
“We know that, especially in the affordable housing
market, people will move for the difference of two or three
hundred rands. It means it’s actually a significant impact on
their income and disposable household income,” she says.
Because green homes are gaining so much traction,
Cairncross says that this opens opportunity for a potential
development of green mortgages or bonds, “where banks
could consider those additional savings and then structure
a green mortgage bond that could perhaps change the
affordability criteria allowing the client to afford a slightly
bigger home,” she says.
Financial institutions that invest in a portfolio of Edge
certified housing units have the benefit of operational
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JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2018
AFFORDABLE
SA HOUSING
savings in the long term.
“They also have a
differentiator in the market
as the home will be cost-
effective for the end-user. It
does give them a unique
selling point to say that the
home is green as well as
being able to access funding
that would be otherwis