Meet FM’s new ‘Green Star’
Tsebo Solutions Group moves to the fore of the fast-growing green building sector, with Kathy Myhill-Muller’s accreditation from the GBCSA.
SA now has the fastest growing green building market in the world, with over half of local firms surveyed reporting future green commercial retrofits by 2015. According to the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA), it has become common practice for new buildings to be built ‘green’.
For companies, having their buildings ‘Green Star-rated’ by the GBCSA is the ideal testament to their social responsibility – given that the built environment is responsible for 40% of all solid waste generated, 12% of water consumption and 40% of end-use energy consumption. Greener buildings are also more cost-effective to supply and run – and there is little difference between the cost of building a green building as compared to a conventional building.
Tsebo Solutions Group, as a sustainability-driven FM provider, leverages every opportunity to implement or advance environmentally-friendly solutions and processes in our clients’ buildings. This enables our clients to maintain or level-up their buildings’ Green Star ratings.
Green certification, to be maintained, requires a building to stay green. Once a GBCSA-rated building has been operational for 12 months, it is recommended that it be assessed under the recently launched Green Star SA Existing Building Performance tool, which addresses the performance of the building as it moves into its operational phase. This is where Tsebo Solutions Group is a strategic partner to our clients, in operating their buildings according to best practice and greater resource efficiency – thus helping them to retain or advance their green certification.
Now Tsebo Solutions Group is also positioned to manage the transformation of older, non-green infrastructure (98% of the built environment) into Green Star-worthy buildings. This is enabled by the achievements of Kathy Myhill-Muller, who recently qualified as an Accredited Professional for Green Star SA Existing Building Performance – making her the first Tsebo Solutions Group FM to do so and among the first in SA. Having attended a GBCSA programme and successfully completed the examination, Kathy is accredited to project manage the compilation of documentation for clients’ submissions, to the GBCSA, for Green Star building ratings. The process is aided by Tsebo Solutions Group, as FM provider, already having in-depth knowledge and data of our clients’ buildings’ water usage, procurement processes, carbon footprints, etc.
Kathy previously contributed significantly to the Sustainability and Integrated Reporting Handbook 2014, which led to her interest in pursuing the accreditation. Clients can now depend on Tsebo Solutions Group – through both its efficiency-driven FM implementations and its Green Star application management capabilities – to make more of their buildings more sustainable into the future, thereby helping them to build a green legacy.
