Green Building Design Group delivered energy efficiency training for municipal officials in the capital city of Tshwane, South Africa. The training was implemented in partnership with the USAID South Africa Low Emission Development Program.

Understanding the Current Challenges

While the National Energy Building Efficiency Standard has been in place for 9 years, it has been applied to varying degrees of success across the country. The reality of this is that most of the cities have a below par level of compliance to the National Building Regulation and to the supporting standard SANS 10400-XA. From these it was identified that the levels of understanding the national energy efficiency standard stood at less than 50% on average across these cities. In some cities this was estimated to be as low as 33%.

In addressing this challenge Green Building Design Group identified that one cause of this low level of compliance is the lack of understanding of the Energy Efficiency Building Regulation and related Deemed-to-satisfy standard following a pilot workshop that was conducted at Tshwane House on 13-14 March 2018 that we had conducted in partnership with USAID South Africa Low Emissions Development Program (SA-LED). The pilot workshop identified that this knowledge gap in the understanding of SANS 10400-XA at the city level could be remedied by tailor-made training sessions on the subject.

This training was later adapted for a national rollout featuring 8 other major municipalities with the support of other international funding partners. This led to over 560 building control officers being trained on the national building energy efficiency standard and on international green building certification system, IFC’s EDGE Expert program (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies).