SA launches R720m green building funding package as climate fears escalate

JOHANNESBURG - A R720-million funding pack age to help make more buildings “green” in South Africa is just one step to wards reducing weather catastrophes such as dev astating floods and run away fires, which have had a disastrous impact on the country.

On Tuesday, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Business Partners Limited launched the multi-mil lion rand Green Building Financing programme. The IFC is providing a R600 mil lion loan package to Business

Partners.

But with rebates and grants that Business Partners will give SMEs to finance the cer tification of their buildings as green, more than R720 mil lion in funding will be made available over the next five years. The two companies have calculated that this will be enough to “green” about 100 to 120 buildings.

Greening by installing solar panels, water conservation systems and other technolo gies, Business Partners esti mates that each building will reduce its electricity and wa ter consumption by at least 20 percent.

Industrial buildings, mixed- use developments, shopping centres, residential proper ties, offices, hospitals, schools and hotels can apply for this funding, as long as they don’t serve the luxury market.

Coincidentally, the launch of this funding package took place while South Africa is still tallying the damage caused by KZN floods and battling fre quent load shedding.

The two – a consequence of climate change on one hand and its cause on the other – are part of what the IFC and Business Partners hope to address by expanding green building financing in SA.

“If we look at the tragic events that unfolded in KZN two weeks ago…the effect of climate change is real, it’s here, and we need to start do ing something,” said Business Partners’ MD Ben Bierman.

– FIN24.