VODACOM has completed its newly refurbished Century City building in Cape Town. The building has just been accredited with a five Star Existing Building Performance (EPB), Version 1 Certification by the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA).
The Vodacom Century City offices consist of three floors of office space, with an external open and basement parking. The refurbished building which was originally constructed in 2000, adopts green cleaning principles, indoor air quality management and a rigorous occupant feedback process. Furthermore, the building consumes even lower resources when compared to the national GBCSA benchmark building standards.
“In addition to reducing Vodacom’s direct environmental impacts, we are also helping our customers to reduce their carbon emissions through the use of our Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, big data and digital products and services which are enabling access to information and communication and replacing traditional ways of doing business”, says Vodacom Managing Executive, Carol Hall.
Consulting company WSP Africa oversaw the design and implementation of a number of environmentally sustainable design features in the Vodacom Century City building, including the construction of a 542 kWp single-roof photovoltaic solar array on the building. The installation comprised of about 2 000 mono crystalline solar panels onto Solar World Sundeck roof sheets and 100% recycled Suntabs over a 3 600 m² area.
“The thinking behind the refurbishments was in recognition of the fact that green buildings are not solely about reducing energy, but are also about consuming less water, using more sustainable materials, reducing waste, improving air and light quality, the restoration of habitat and reducing dependency on vehicles,” concludes Hall.
