Green Buildings Council, UN Habitat in US$6m deal

THE Green Buildings Council of Zimbabwe (GBCZ) yesterday sealed a US$6 million partnership deal with the United Nations (UN) Habitat to support energy and resource efficiency in the built environment in Zimbabwe.

The initiative is intended to promote sustainable, low-cost and pro-poor waste management practices in the urban and peri-urban areas.

Green building, or sustainable design, is the practice of increasing the energy, water, and material efficiency of buildings and their sites. It benefits communities by reducing impacts on human health and the environment.

The growth and development of communities has a large impact on the natural environment. Manufacturing, design, construction and operation of buildings are responsible for the consumption of many natural resources, so maximising efficiency and sustainability in this industry is essential to the community's well-being.

GBCZ’ partnership with UN-Habitat, which is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), is also aimed at increasing access to clean energy by urban and peri-urban dwellers.

Under the four-year collaboration, GBCZ and the UN-Habitat will explore financial mechanisms to accelerate the uptake of energy and resource-efficient solutions in the built environment.

They will also work with all stakeholders in the built sector including the City of Harare, the Government and communities, developers, and academia for capacity building, policy advocacy and knowledge exchange, to initiate the transition towards a sustainable built environment in the country.

Under this collaboration, the funding will mainly be directed at capacity-building initiatives that include developing a green building rating and certification system for Zimbabwe.

It will also focus on the review of the national building codes with recommendations for the integration of energy and resource efficiency measures and retrofitting solutions for old buildings.

According to UN-Habitat, the money will go towards the construction of integrated waste recovery facilities in Epworth, Tafara, Mabvuku and Mbare.

Some of the funds will be directed towards the construction of a biogas facility in Mbare as well strengthen existing biogas facilities.

“Allow me to acknowledge SIDA for availing these resources to start this project, which we believe is a transformative project because it's setting the stage.

“It is not going to help only local government, but it will also be a demonstration project for other cities in the sub-region. So, the infrastructure we are putting in will be used as demonstration infrastructure for people to learn from,” said Dr Vincent Kitio, UN-Habitat chief, urban energy unit.

He said the project would be provided with 50 kilowatts of solar panels and 100-kilowatt hours of storage capacity domiciled in about six places around Harare.

This will include four multifunctional clean energy centres run with the solar system in chosen areas. According to UN-Habitat, the partnership with GBCZ would focus on developing green building standards that are appropriate to Zimbabwe's climate zones, exploring and promoting the production of low-carbon building materials and developing green building typologies.

GBCZ chairman Mr Mike Juru said the built environment had been identified as one of the key contributors of greenhouse gas emissions contributing heavily to climate change thus the need to reduce the carbon food print through the promotion of sustainable practices.

“We are now trying to stop wasting unwanted matter you know, rather than just dumping waste we would want to create power out of it. This initiative is important to drive Green Building as you know we were established in 2015, and we are still trying to find our feet and taking our partnership with those we have been through the journey with, UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) has led seven African countries to have rating and certification tools for their countries.

“So, this helps in bringing in capacity building to Green Building Council for us to be competent at the global level,” said Mr Juru.

He said most of the global carbon emissions were still coming from fossil fuels hence the need to find environmentally friendly alternatives.