The Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA) is moving to new green offices in Cape Town at Growthpoint Properties’ River Park, Mowbray, from June 1 2022.
The GBCSA said on Wednesday that it had taken a three-year lease over around 330m2 of space at the recently refurbished multi-tenanted office building.
Growthpoint is SA’s largest listed property company. River Park recently improved its green rating to a GBCSA 5-Star Green Star SA – Existing Building Performance v1 certification. GBCSA said the building had high scores for its land use and ecology, green transport access, and energy and water savings.
Lisa Reynolds, CEO of GBCSA, said a green building rating was a prerequisite for the council’s choice of offices, but it also had several other rigorous requirements.
She said that on top of “walking the talk” by working from a certified green building, cost-effectiveness was key. The GBCSA also sought an inspiring workspace in a good location with excellent accessibility for visitors. The office is near GBCSA’s former offices so staff travel would not be affected by the move and, thus, did not increase their carbon footprint.
“River Park’s offices meet all our needs and more. We are excited to continue encouraging and enabling South Africa’s green building movement and green economy from our new green home at River Park. We couldn’t be more pleased to be taking this journey with Growthpoint, a leading advocate for green building and a founding member of GBCSA,” said Reynolds.
River Park is located on Liesbeeck Parkway, Settlers Way, making it connected to and well-served by the city’s transport networks. It offers more than 13,000m2 of upmarket office space in total.
“We are pleased to extend our long-standing relationship with the GBCSA and welcome them as a tenant in our office portfolio. No one knows better the advantages of green offices than the GBCSA,” said Timothy Irvine, Growthpoint regional asset manager for the Western Cape.
“In addition to their positive environmental impacts, they save money, increase employee productivity and are generally great places to work. Green buildings support the performance of the businesses occupying them, which is why we at Growthpoint prioritise providing green, resource-efficient workspaces,” he said .
Green building and solar energy are the two main tools that Growthpoint has identified to meet its ambitious target for all its 400-plus SA buildings to be carbon neutral by 2050, SA CEO Estienne de Klerk said.
Growthpoint started investing in green buildings and solar energy over a decade ago. It has 12.3MW of renewable energy generation capacity installed at its properties, which it aims to grow to 46MW in the next five years. Over 100 of its buildings have been certified green. Growthpoint’s ongoing investment in solar energy and green buildings reduces carbon emissions, creates energy and water efficiency, lowers tenant costs and ensures continuity of power supply, according to de Klerk.
Alistair Anderson