sustainability

Environmental Initiatives

As an established property owner and manager in South Africa, Growthpoint is expanding as a developer of green properties, to best accommodate clients’ needs.

As the leading listed property company on the JSE, we offer clients extensive asset and property management experience, a sound development track record and customised space. Now, we’re also emerging as a leading property developer with a focus on sustainable development, with achievements such as:
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A leading position in carbon disclosure: African real estate leader in Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), with score of 83%

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Two Green Star certified developments - Lincoln on the Lake and Mayfair on the Lake in KwaZulu-Natal. Green Star developments in the pipeline include Sandhurst Office Park and Rosebank Office Park in Johannesburg, the Grundfos head office in Meadowdale and the Meerlus re-development in Centurion

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Energy efficiency projects across our portfolio. We do research to make sure that green technology is effective before using it in our buildings. We have built a working facility to test green innovations (a guardhouse for HP in Rivonia, Johannesburg) and also use our own regional office buildings for this purpose

As part of our commitment to furthering green building in South Africa, we’re also partnering with the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), of which we are a Platinum founding member. We participate in various GBCSA task teams, including that developing a green lease and energy benchmarking tool.

Staff support sustainability

Our staff are also supporting the integration of sustainability within Growthpoint. This is shown in two successful employee engagement initiatives, both funded through our participation in the Eskom Integrated Demand Management programme:


A LED lighting drive, in which staff exchanged their household Halogen downlights for energy efficient LED downlights. About 3 181 downlights were exchanged, with an energy saving of 220 934 kWh a year
A GreenTap water and energy saving drive, in which staff received a GreenTap gift kit for the purposes of household retrofits. This will save 120 593 litres of water a year and 2 524 591 kWh of energy a year

Green addendum debuts in Growthpoint buildings

Clients can get premium space at a lower operating cost, thanks to our green addendum, a drive to make our properties more energy and water efficient.

 

Traditionally, the landlord has incurred the expense of installing energy saving equipment, with the tenant enjoying the savings. The green lease (or green addendum) resolves this problem, as it regulates the sharing of these benefits, and allows the landlord to participate in the savings.

 

We’re working with the Green Building Council of South Africa to develop a green leasing framework for broader use in the country. Our own green lease initiative is already under way. This followed a study trip to Australia, where members of our Office team visited green lease practitioners with a view to developing South Africa’s first green lease. This has seen its first incarnation in the green lease addendum introduced at select Office and Industrial properties. Through this arrangement:
Growthpoint (subsidised by Eskom) pays for installing energy efficient equipment and enters into an “energy saving performance contract” agreement with the tenant
Phase 1 of this rollout involves installing energy efficient lighting at 30 of our Office buildings in Johannesburg
Implementation in the rest of the portfolio, to include Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, will take place over the rest of the year
A lighting and air conditioning project is piloting at Grayston Office Park in Sandton. The air conditioning revamp is anticipated to save 389 988kWh a year, and the energy efficient lighting 48 048kWh a year. The Conair-conditioning update is being used to develop a partnership with Eskom, to allow for further roll out across the portfolio
Within the Industrial portfolio, a green addendum research lighting pilot project has been completed at Dominic Corner on the East Rand
“Green project agreements” (rather than green addendums), for 18 Industrial buildings, involve implementation of energy efficient lighting. This is anticipated to save 3 683 253kWh a year. The second phase of this project is planned for April through to July 2012

Helping Eskom keep South Africa’s lights on

In a separate initiative to the green addendum, we’re reducing energy consumption in the common areas of our buildings through energy efficient lighting projects, to reduce utility bills for tenants.

 

For our Office team, the lighting project forms part of a unique four-pronged approach to sustainability that covers waste management, lighting, energy efficiency and water saving. Energy efficient lighting has been installed in the basement parking in 16 multi-tenant Office properties in Johannesburg, Subsidised by Eskom, the project will cut energy consumption by 499 200kWh a year and save tenants some R449 280 a year in electricity bills.

 

We’ve followed suit in the basement parking lighting of 11 Retail properties and a similar project for 23 Cape Town Office properties will take place later this year.

 

Research is also being done on mechanisms to decrease water consumption in our buildings. And because we want our research to go as far as possible, our Utilities team is compiling an electronic library of sustainability data that will be available to all Growthpoint staff on the intranet.