Mr. Bheki Zulu CEO of CBE welcoming guests
On the 9th of March 2009, the University of Pretoria was a hype of activity as delegates covered the campus with green t-shirts with students and experts muttering about how green revolution will impact on their lives.
South Africa is slowly advancing in accepting green building principles. Many attendees however were critical of the notion of enforcing green building principles as it might jeopardize business ventures especially in the field of property.
Responding to such a climatic sentiment, Green Building South Africa (GBSA) Technical Manager Jason Buch asserted in a sanguine manner that “GBCSA supports the SA property industry by promoting, facilitating and enabling green building in SA by making knowledge and resources on green building available, educating property industry people about green building and establishing a rating systems.”
RDP houses have also been identified as a category that utilizes non-renewable energy sources which ultimately resounds in the emission of toxic fumes. Namso Baliso from the Department of Housing said that the government has identified such challenges and its addressing it through its Housing Programme with emphasis on passive design. Such design elements include applying climatic characteristics of an area and using thermally efficient building materials.
For Green Building to be enough certain considerations have to be adhered to by all in sundry. According Llewellyn Van Wyk Research Group Leader (CSIR) such considerations must include “architecture of experience that makes reference to the users and focuses on the emerging experiences.”
Erhard Visser (Researcher at CBE) presents an award to the keynote speaker Mr. Llewellyn van Wyk (CSIR)
Building materials can also add impetus towards green building initiatives. Too many building materials are inept to ecological and infrastructures collapse which in vis a vis affects our human way of living.
Representing Agrement SA, Lennox Makwedini strongly posited that the government wants to encourage innovation in the products of building and construction industry and therefore building systems need to show “thermal and energy performance, structural strength and stability, acoustic performance and weather tightness.’’ Such measures exercised on building materials come from the Batho Pele principle where as a government entity Agrement SA must protect the consumer from substandard products, Lennox said.
