The event saw the launch of the latest Green Star Tool for Public & Education Buildings, the announcement of the Green Star Leadership Awards winners and the signing of the 49M pledge being amongst the activities that took place over the three days.
To celebrate the fifth birthday of the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), and in recognition of the significant transformation that has taken place in South Africa, the GBCSA launched the 'Green Star Leadership Awards' which acknowledge green building champions who have demonstrated their unwavering commitment to the green building movement.
The winner of the award for the highest scoring Green Star SA project between 2008 - 2012, was the Vodafone Site Solution Innovation Centre, achieving the highest possible rating - a six-Star Design Rating The six-star accolade is also referred to as "World Class". The winner of the award for the best quality submission between 2008 - 2012 was the new Sisonke District Offices, submitted by PJ Carew Consulting.
In the individual categories the winner of the Rising Green Star of the first five years award was Candice Manning from Aurecon, whilst the Recognised Green Star of the first five years was awarded to Paul Carew of PJ Carew Consulting.
The GBCSA Convention and Exhibition also saw the official launch of the final version of the Green Star SA Public & Education Building Rating Tool, which enables the rating of public buildings such as community centres, libraries, education buildings, indoor sports centres, public transport terminal buildings, and convention centres. The pilot version of the tool was launched at the 2011 GBCSA convention. Over the past year, it had been assessed against a number of public and private sector projects to ensure its suitability for the South African environment, after being adapted from an Australian rating tool.
The pilot phase of the project ran until the end of September 2012 and included five projects, these being the National English Literary Museum (NELM) in Grahamstown, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) Business School in Port Elizabeth, the Cavalli Restaurant and Conference Centre in Stellenbosch, the University of South Africa (Unisa) library in Pretoria and the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).
The GBCSA signed the 49M pledge with Andrew Etzinger, general manager of Integrated Demand Management for Eskom at the close of day one of the event. The 49M initiative aims to encourage 49 million South Africans to embrace energy savings as a national culture. They do this through extensive awareness and education campaigns to encourage citizens to make small changes in their everyday lives to collectively reduce consumption by 10%.
Experts from the United States, Australia, England and the Netherlands joined local green leaders to facilitate two days of keynote speeches, panel discussions, debates, and break-away sessions. Amongst those that attended were: Dan Epstein, the director of sustainability for the 2012 London Olympics; Dr Nils Kok, an associate professor in Finance and Real Estate at Maastricht University in the Netherlands; international expert Jerry Yudelson, who has been dubbed "the Godfather of Green"; Rachel Botsman - a social innovator, (and recently lauded as 'one of the top 20 presenters to have at any conference') who writes, consults and speaks on the power of Social Collaboration and Tristram Carfrae, considered to be a global leader in building design.
The GBCSA exhibition offered an invaluable platform for over 80 businesses, involved in sustainability, who showcased their services, products and green innovations.
