Editor’s Note

Sustainability in design isn’t just about the built environment anymore; it’s also about the lives shaped by it. Designing with community in mind means creating spaces that connect people, embrace diversity and honour cultural heritage – all of which are evident in Cape Town’s Riverlands, a mixed-use public precinct that recently achieved 5-Star Green Star accreditation. Read more on page 16.

Our second project feature on page 56, Gauteng’s Mall of Africa, stands tall as the world’s first retail development to earn EDGE Advanced certification – an achievement made possible because of a shared commitment across its stakeholders. Third in our project line-up is Country Road’s newly refreshed store at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront, which demonstrates the brand’s commitment to “being one of the world’s most responsible retailers” through considered design with minimal environmental impact (page 64).

While on the subject of retail, the MSCI Green Annual Property Index 2024 (page 26) expanded its scope to include green retail assets for the first time since its inception, and showed yet again that sustainable, resource-efficient real estate outshines non-certified assets.

The drive towards net zero is reshaping policies and economies from city halls to global summits. GBCSA’s suite of Net Zero rating tools is proudly built on African soil, for an African construction sector. Turn to page 34 for an in-depth exploration of all matters net zero.

In their thought leadership article on page 62, sustainability consultants Anelisa Keke and Natalie van der Bijl explain how real estate companies can navigate the range of reporting frameworks available to support and streamline their progress towards effective sustainability disclosure.

If you’re new to the concept of virtual wheeling, on page 46 you’ll find more about this innovative offering, which is unlocking fresh opportunities for businesses to access green energy – especially those with several small, low-voltage energy needs spread across diverse locations.

World Green Building Council CEO Cristina Gamboa made the comment that better outcomes for women mean a better future for our planet: “Diversity and equality are inextricably linked to our mission to create green buildings for everyone, everywhere.”

As this issue spans Women’s Month in August, we pay tribute to some of our inspirational female trailblazers. Learn more about the three women who claimed top honours in the 2024 IFC EDGE Women in Green Building competition, and how they are driving sustainable innovation and reshaping the future of the built environment (page 30).

A new addition this year is our series of corporate profiles on female business leaders – and their takes on sustainability, social accountability and empowering women:
For Fatima Gattoo, Director, Real Estate Law at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, women are not a “nice to have” in sustainability – they are central (page 48); Farzana Rasool, MD of SIP Project Managers, cares deeply about growing the business in a way that reflects real transformation (page 50); Vukile Property Fund’s Marijke Coetzee maintains that if she’s not playing the role of changemaker, collaborator and custodian, she’s not doing enough (page 52); and Ramielle de Jager, founder and CEO of Wolkberg Casting Studio – a women-led manufacturing business – says that with the right team around her, she can achieve anything (page 54).

Whether you’re a seasoned sustainability champion or just curious to learn more, we invite you to dive in – this quarter’s bumper issue is packed with an inspiring line-up that we hope will spark ideas, encourage conversations and empower action.

Mariola Fouché
Editor

Chair’s Corner

Issue 33 is packed with great content, and readers will note the article on virtual wheeling. Unlike traditional energy wheeling, which requires complex metering at multiple sites, virtual wheeling aggregates energy consumption data and simplifies transactions. This makes it easier for businesses to scale their renewable energy procurement. Traditional energy wheeling and virtual energy wheeling both involve transmitting electricity from a generator to an end-user via Eskom or a municipality’s grid, but they differ in their approach and flexibility.

Traditional energy wheeling typically involves a direct relationship between a generator and an off-taker, is used for large-scale transactions where electricity is wheeled across high and/or medium voltage lines, and is often limited by municipal infrastructure and regulatory constraints.

Virtual energy wheeling, on the other hand, allows multiple buyers with dispersed off-take sites to connect to generators via Eskom or a municipality’s grid, will make use of an automated process to aggregate and report time-of-use data for energy generated or consumed, and enables smaller consumers to participate in wheeling, overcoming traditional infrastructure limitations.

Importantly, as both align with ESG targets by aiding businesses to reduce their carbon footprints or make strides towards net zero carbon, there is a resulting acceleration to bringing more renewable energy online, facilitated by ever cheaper solar and wind plants. However, an overreliance on renewable energy at the expense of traditional power generation like that from coal, natural gas or nuclear needs careful consideration, as without proper grid management, it can lead to instability. Traditional power generation creates steam to drive a turbine, or, as in the case of hydropower, uses the energy of falling water to drive a water turbine. In both cases, these large rotating machines, all synchronised to the grid frequency, carry inertia, or kinetic energy, which makes them act like flywheels. This, in turn, allows the grid to ride out transients such as sudden losses of power supply, increases in power demand, and so forth – picture the tripping of multiple generating units at Eskom, or the switching on of large aluminium smelters.

Spain and Portugal recently experienced a large-scale blackout, which reports suggest was linked to an experiment testing the limits of renewable energy reliance. The Iberian Peninsula has been aggressively phasing out nuclear power while increasing its share of renewables, which accounted for nearly 60% of Spain’s electricity in 2024. However, fluctuations in renewable energy sources – especially solar and wind – can create grid instability if not properly balanced with baseload power sources like nuclear or hydro. The blackout was triggered by a sudden drop in solar power generation, which disrupted the grid’s frequency and led to cascading failures as individual generating units tripped to prevent failure as the system frequency decreased.

South Africa faces significant grid constraints that could impact energy wheeling efforts. The country’s transmission network was historically designed to transport electricity from coal fields in the northeast, rather than accommodate large-scale renewable energy projects in the Cape provinces. This mismatch has led to congestion bottlenecks and stability challenges, particularly as intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar expand. In addition, grid connection capacity in key renewable energy regions reached its maximum limit, making it difficult to integrate new projects.

In order to successfully implement energy wheeling while maintaining grid stability, the newly constituted South African National Transmission Company needs to invest in smart grid technologies to improve real-time monitoring and response to fluctuations, while the remaining Eskom generation needs to balance between renewable energy and dispatchable power sources like hydropower, natural gas and nuclear, as was already considered in the National Development Plan. While Eskom has already considered large-scale battery storage capacity to smooth out supply fluctuations, such as the recently installed pilot site at Worcester in the Western Cape, these need to be scaled up considerably. Lastly, and while limited, given our location, closer collaboration with neighbouring countries to enhance grid resilience and energy trade is important, as it was the interconnections with France that were used to import electricity and stabilise Spain and Portugal’s grid restart.

South Africa’s adoption of energy wheeling, both traditional or virtual, is a game-changer for renewable energy expansion, but we have a unique opportunity to learn from Spain and Portugal’s experience and proactively address grid constraints before scaling up energy wheeling.

André Theys
GBCSA Chairman