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Proptech report

Seeing the Green Connections: Why Partnerships Within and Beyond a Green Certified Building Matter

Announcing the ESG Proptech Report – Building the Future 2024

By Lisa Reynolds, CEO of GBCSA

In January this year, Guy Grainger, Head of Sustainability Services and ESG within Real Estate advisor JLL, predicted that 2024 would be a tipping point year for green property and construction. Specifically, according to Grainger, 2024 was the year in which going green with design, construction and existing assets, changed from defining the sector’s leaders, to being a requirement for doing business within the sector.

We in South Africa have always been quite strong-minded about doing things in our time, and in ways that make sense to us. Our built environment sector doesn’t reflect the same urgency or ubiquity in its current attitudes towards green. At least, not yet.

Conditions are starting to emerge within the market that might change that. We’re seeing this through a combination of environmental carrots (and a growing desire from investors for seeing some climate awareness within the companies they choose to support), and regulatory sticks, from the Carbon Tax Act, through EPCS, to the JSE’s ESG reporting guidelines.

The future that we at GBCSA hope to see (and motivate, fight for, pull, push, partner or drag into being), is one where the merits of green building draw the market into being one step ahead of any green government regulation. Increased asset performance, climate resilience and green earnings premium on investments are just some of these merits.

South Africans are also quite strong minded about being told what to do, especially when we’re not completely sure of why we’re being told to do it. Sharing that ‘why’ of green building, in terms of benefits to businesses, people, and planet, is part of our core mission at GBCSA.

The future that we are working towards is one where the local built environment looks at greening as an opportunity to build more resilient and responsible business models. These are business models that are better suited to a changing world, and where compliance with regulation becomes easy because the core work of greening asset portfolios and business plans has already been done.

We have no illusions about the fact that it takes more than one voice to move a market, and especially more than one kind of voice. It takes partnerships, forged around the meeting of many schools of expertise around a common message.

The Building the Future Report represents such a partnership. GBCSA is proud to partner with REdimension Capital and Rand Merchant Bank in producing this important piece of research, which will be published in the coming month.

The report is REdimension Capital’s ongoing project to demystify and make accessible the wondrous world of innovation, smart design, and smarter management that is proptech. Now in its second iteration, it is more comprehensive than before, and aims to offer a specific set of integrated green content to the market.

This has been achieved by widening the circle of expert inputs to include GBCSA, discussing green building certification and its implications, and Rand Merchant Bank, unpacking the complex world of sustainable finance and its emergent trends.

This report presents a holistic view of critical green partnerships. It connects the techniques and technologies of high-performance proptech solutions with the green certified buildings that support, and are supported by them. And to close the partnership loop, it links these buildings with sustainability-driven funding and funders.

This report also serves as a clear and accessible primer on green building certification, green proptech, and green finance for the built environment, within the overall lens of ESG in South Africa.

It is intended as both a point of departure for those grappling with green for the first time as well as a platform to bring together experts across industry silos. Many of us specialise in one of the three report facets but may not have realised the depth of the connections between our fields of expertise, and the opportunities this holds.

For those new to green building, the report includes comprehensive references and resources within each of the report partner organisations.

You could look at this report as something of a compass: necessary to start a green journey well, and helpful to return to along the way to refine direction and route.

It has been a privilege to be a partner in the process of its creation.

Markets are not very responsive to lone voices in the wilderness, and the South African construction sector can sometimes feel a little resistant to change.

But the South African construction sector is, simply, a collection of individual business owners, who have braved a tough environment, and hostile and unforgiving conditions to create their enterprises, and found the grit, skill, and smarts to keep them going in the face of intense challenge.

I’m willing to bank on their collective wisdom. Once the arguments are clear, the data available, and the benefits obvious, I believe that we’ll reach our own tipping point for green property and construction. Maybe we’ll need an extra year or two, maybe we’ll need more partnerships that produce more accessible and integrated resources like this one, maybe we’ll need juicier carrots, more solid sticks, and louder celebratory tambourines.

What I don’t doubt is that we will, in the South African construction sector, achieve a green business model that centres sustainability and allows businesses, people, and planet to thrive.

Download the full report here

Individual Membership

Designed for professionals acting in their individual capacity, including single consultant-businesses.

Organisational Membership

Ideal for companies, government departments, and organisations.

  • Total Employees: 1 - 5 Employees - R 4080.00
  • Total Employees: 6 - 20 Employees - R 12570.00
  • Total Employees: 21 - 50 Employees - R 24690.00
  • Total Employees: 51 Plus Employees - R 43840.00

Lisa Reynolds

Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director

Lisa Reynolds is the CEO of the Green Building Council South Africa.

Lisa was the driver for the drafting of Energy Efficiency Standards and Regulations for Buildings and has been involved in Energy Efficiency since 2003. She serves on many committees in the SABS and within the energy management professionals’ space. She was President of the SAEEC from 2016 to 2019 and was the previous President of the ESCo (Energy Services Companies) Association. Lisa was instrumental in the formation of SAFEE (Southern African Females in Energy Efficiency) within SAEEC.

She has assisted the South African Government with its Green Building Framework policies, Energy Efficiency Tax Incentives and Energy Efficiency Strategies

Her passion for the “Green space” started with the birth of the Green Building Council in 2007. Lisa served on the Board and the Technical Committee of the GBCSA, as well as on several Technical Working Groups for Rating Tools and Criteria. Lisa. became CEO in June 2020.

Lisa has a BSc, an MBA and a CEM. Lisa’s awards include the 2007 ETA Award for Women, 2008 Individual Energy (SAEE), 2012 SABS Standards Writer Award; the 2014 Women in Energy (SAWIEN); and the 2016 Ian Lane Hall of Fame award.

Lisa is committed to growing the Green Economy within a Green Recovery.

Organisational categories

As an organisational member, you will fall into one of the below categories, and be charged according to specific size indicators. Please reach out to us for any further clarity on which category is best for your organisation

Property Developers

Annual Turnover

Investors, Owners, Property Managers

Total Asset Value

Major Corporate Tenants & Retail

Annual Gross Rentals

Building Contractors

Annual Turnover

Building Product Manufacturers & Distributors

Annual Turnover

Professional Services: Architects, Designers, Engineers, Quantity Surveyors, PM’s, Consultants, Legal

Number of employees

Research, Higher Education, NGO’S & Regulators

NGO or Research/Higher Education/ Regulators

Related Interests: Utilities, Financial, Insurance, etc.

Annual Turnover

Government

Local/ municipal/ provincial/ state 
Contact GBCSA to confirm your category