POST-EVENT REPORT
SIDE EVENTS AND SEMINARS Green Building Conference 2017
This year’s conference was structured around the theme of Changing Climate: Changing Cities, in recognition of the impacts of climate change on South African cities. The conference structure was based on spatial and temporal scales, commencing with the long-term temporal scale of climate change, and the impacts at a national spatial scale. From here, the programme progressively drilled down in both temporal and spatial scale through structural elements of the city including the natural environment and the constructed environment, illustrating that, ultimately, the two structural elements will need to become one. Following the introductions and welcomes by stakeholders, the conference theme was introduced by Prof. Francois Engelbrecht from the CSIR who shared the latest climate change projections for South Africa and what these mean for human settlements, especially with regard to a hotter and drier climate. He was supported by Dr Dirk Conradie, also from the CSIR, who indicated how buildings could respond to a hotter climate utilising passive design measures. These measures include effective solar shading and insulation from radiant heat. After morning tea, the focus shifted to greening the city through various measures. Claire Janisch from Biomimicry South Africa provided examples of how adopting strategies employed by nature could assist cities in both adapting to while also mitigating climate change. Examples included green infrastructure such as constructed wetlands and sustainable urban drainage. Dr Piet Vosloo from the University of Pretoria provided a case study review of a green wall implemented at the university, and the benefits and risks associated with artificially created green walls. Graham Young, also from the University of Pretoria, discussed the emerging field of landscape ecology, recognising that increasingly, the boundary between landscape and building is rapidly disappearing. He provided case studies of projects implemented in Johannesburg where this new approach has been followed. This session concluded with a presentation from Yolandi Schoeman on the advantages of constructed wetlands as a green infrastructure tool, and the risks associated with its design and construction. After lunch, the focus shifted to the built environment, with a keynote presentation by the international speaker Marcelo Ignatios, who shared
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Dorah Modise the work they are doing in the city of Sao Paulo. The presentation showed the many ways that South African cities could learn from approaches being adopted in international cities. This presentation was followed by a review of the South African Institute of Architects/Afrisam Sustainability Awards by Dr Daniel Ururah from the University of the Witwatersrand. The award is one of the most rigorous and, thus, prestigious sustainability awards on the continent, and the review showed the progress that has been made in the implementation of green design in projects over the lifespan of the award programme. Following tea, Mfundo Xulu from the National Department of Public Works shared the green building vision that the department has developed and the programmes that will be implemented going forward, including the adoption of green building norms and standards for new government projects. This session was supported by a presentation by Henk Boogertman, an architect and Project Manager for the new Menlyn Maine Precinct in Pretoria. This precinct demonstrates how people and the planet can be included in new precinct planning for South African cities.
The conference ended with a summary and conclusion by the conference chair, Llewellyn van Wyk, using The Lord of the Rings as a metaphor for the choices facing environmental design professionals as they grapple with changing cities in the face of a changing climate.
Sustainable Agriculture And Food Security Seminar 2017 Towards a truly sustainable agricultural system Hendrik Smith, Conservation Agriculture Facilitator, Grain SA The need for a (more) sustainable agriculture system is predicated on the major problems and threats faced and caused by agriculture. These include serious levels of water erosion, wind erosion, declining biodiversity exacerbated by the use of hazardous agricultural chemicals, and especially climate change. Now an established fact, climate change will test all agricultural systems to the limit. In the face of declining agricultural yields worldwide, conservation agriculture (CA) promises to be a solution. A modelling case study showed a very large monetary benefit of adopting commercial CA systems, illustrating improved viability of maize production, as a result of cost reduction owing to
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