Going green

Dozens of Gauteng companies in multiple sectors are exploring ways to make their buildings more efficient, their processes less wasteful and their impact less harmful to the environment.

A new source of power. Gold Fields is building a 40MW solar plant at its South Deep mine. Credit: Gold Fields

Every sector has potential for growth and innovation towards a more sustainable future and companies in Gauteng are showing the way.

The announcement in 2021 by President Cyril

Ramaphosa that the threshold for companies to produce their own electricity without a licence would be increased from 1MW to 100MW was widely welcomed. To protect the grid, generation projects are still required to obtain a grid connection permit.

Large companies had been lobbying for this change to the power landscape for a long time. Not only will the policy relieve pressure on national utility

Eskom but it will serve as a catalyst for massive new investment. Most of this new capacity will be in the form of renewable energy.

One example in Gauteng is Gold Fields, which is building a 40MW solar power station at its South

Deep mine at a cost of R660-million. Daily Maverick reports that Roger Baxter, CEO of the Minerals

Council, has said that South Africa’s mining industry is ready to build 2GW of renewable energy, valued at more than R30-billion.

South African mining companies are also looking at green hydrogen and taking advantage of the fact that many of the minerals needed to fire the new, lowcarbon economy are found in South Africa. Mines and smelters are among the most obvious big consumers of electricity, but modern technology means that data centres and even shopping malls can now produce their own energy.

One of the biggest examples of this is the Mall of Africa in Waterfall City, where most of the huge roof is covered by what is believed to be the world’s largest integrated rooftop PV/diesel hybrid project. Attacq Property Group has undertaken to build sustainably across its portfolio. The installation will save 8 034 tons of CO2 annually and will result in 157 fewer coal trucks on the road per year. The PV plant was installed by Solareff, which owns a majority stake in GridCars.

Vukile Property Fund has decided to equip all of the malls in its portfolio with rooftop solar panels. Among its properties are malls in Boksburg and Soweto. The company says that installations across the group have the capacity to generate 2 089MWh annually. Retrofitting of light fittings has also taken place to improve energy efficiency.

Absa Bank has followed up on its decision to take its central Johannesburg campus off the national electricity grid. Investments in a 6 000-panel rooftop solar system (which cost R10-million), the synchronisation of gas and diesel generators and

especially with regard to tourism and hospitality which has suffered major setbacks during the local and international lockdowns.

Overview of the province Gauteng is South Africa’s smallest province in terms of landmass but in every other respect it is a giant. The province is the nation’s key economic growth engine.

At 18 176km², the province makes up just 1.5% of South Africa’s territory. The 14.3-million people living in Gauteng in 2017 generated a gross domestic product of R1.59-trillion, about a third of South Africa’s GDP. Gauteng recorded the highest provincial growth rate in 2019. The 0.6% rise was mainly driven by finance, real estate and business services, which is the dominant industry (StatsSA).

Gauteng shares borders with four provinces, the Free State, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. The southern border of the province is the Vaal River and most of the province is located on the Highveld. The Witwatersrand, which runs through Johannesburg, marks the continental divide: rivers running to the north drain into the Indian Ocean, rivers running south drain into the Atlantic Ocean via the Vaal into the Orange River. Gauteng draws its water from a series of interconnected river transfer systems. A major source of water is the Lesotho Water Highlands Project.

The Witwatersrand was the source of the gold that drew so many thousands of people to the area in the late 19th century and was the origin of the word for South Africa’s currency, the “rand”.

Gauteng is a leader in a wide range of economic sectors: finance, manufacturing, commerce, IT and media among them. The Bureau of Market Research (BMR) has shown that Gauteng accounts for 35% of total household consumption in South Africa.

The leading economic sectors are finance, real estate and business, manufacturing, government services and wholesale, retail, motor trade and accommodation. The creative industries (including advertising and the film sector) contribute significantly to the provincial economy.

In Johannesburg, financial services and commerce predominate. The JSE, Africa’s largest stock exchange, is in Sandton and several new stock exchanges have recently received licences.

Tshwane (which includes Pretoria) is home to many government services and is the base of the automotive industry and many research institutions. The Ekurhuleni metropole has the largest concentration of manufacturing concerns, ranging from heavy to light industry, in the country. The western part of the province is concerned mainly with mining and agriculture, while the south has a combination of maize farming, tobacco production and the heavy industrial work associated with steel and iron-ore workings.

Individually, the biggest Gauteng cities contribute to the national GDP as follows: Johannesburg (15%), Tshwane (9%) and Ekurhuleni (7%).

Gauteng is not just an important centre of economic activity, it is also an important launching pad for local and international businesses to enter the African market. The country’s biggest airport, OR Tambo International Airport, is at the core of the province’s logistical network. Other airports include Rand Airport (Germiston), Wonderboom (Pretoria), Lanseria and Grand Central (Midrand).

The Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa (which has seats in Pretoria and Johannesburg) is a superior court with general jurisdiction over the province. Johannesburg is also home to the Constitutional Court, South Africa’s highest court, and to a branch of the Labour Court and the Labour Appeal Court.

The province has several outstanding universities, and the majority of South Africa’s research takes place at well-regarded institutions such as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), Mintek, the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA), the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and several sites where the work of the Agricultural Research Council is done. ■

Gauteng Premier David Makhura visited the Rosslyn plant of the Nissan Group of Africa to inspect the protocols that had been put in place to ensure the safety of works during the Covid-19 epidemic. Credit: Nissan

sophisticated water and underfloor heating systems have all contributed to massive energy savings. The bank estimates that the power it generates is 70% cleaner than that provided by the national grid.

The rooftop solar installation at Absa’s Pretoria office provides 17% of its electricity needs and the bank intends to continue rolling out solar solutions in addition to investigating battery solutions in pursuit of what it calls “net zero offices”.

Many energy-intensive companies and institutions are generating their own power. In Johannesburg, the Northern Wastewater Treatment Works, the largest of six wastewater plants serving the city, has its own electricity source in a 1.1MW biogas plant. It produces electricity using cogeneration (combined heat and power) and is helping the city to reduce expenditure on its water treatment works, which used to run to R100-million per year.

A landfill site at Robinson Deep in Johannesburg has started generating 3MW of gas. This is one of five renewable energy projects that Energy Systems SA is running in Johannesburg and is the first landfill gas generation project to fall under the REIPPPP.

In agriculture, there is urban and hydroponic farming, improved soil maintenance, better use of water and recycling and organic methods. The agricultural sector is also another source of organic waste which is being used to provide power. With thousands of cattle farmed near big cities to provide beef and dairy products, biogas is a useful byproduct. The Bronkhorstspruit Biogas Plant, run by Bio2Watt, has an installed capacity of 4.6MW which it produces from annual feedstock of about 120 000 tons of organic waste.

The plant is located in the Tshwane Metropolitan area on the premises of Beefcor, one of South Africa’s largest feedlots. The company has plans to roll out small plants for farmers or agriprocessors who want to produce power for themselves.

At the Cavalier abattoir in Cullinan, biowaste conversion company ibert provides about a quarter of the power that the abattoir needs to function, at a competitive rate. In the process, all of the facility’s biowaste is disposed of. In construction and property, the green movement is growing apace. Apart from green building certification (administered by the Green Building Council of SA), there is now an even higher standard which developers and architects are striving for, Living Building Challenge, in which a building goes beyond being net zero to being regenerative (ie, producing more water and power than it uses). A recent headline, “Govt launches drive to green state properties” indicates that the state is moving in the green direction too. The Department of Public Works and Infrastructure recently launched an Integrated Renewable Energy and Resource Efficiency Programme (iREREP). Transport and logistics Eskom has announced that all staff cars will be EV in future. Companies in the transport and logistics sectors are moving quickly to prepare for a greener future. Another recent headline announced, “Sasol and Imperial logistics partner to reduce carbon footprint”. In this regard, gas is seen as important in helping South Africa transition to renewables The solar PV rooftop system at the Mall of Africa was the largest in the southern hemisphere when it was installed. Credit: Waterfall City

Recycling is a big part of the circular economy. Credit: PAMSA

and away from carbon fuels. Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA) and Sasol and organisations like the Council for Geoscience are working in these areas and logistics fleets are looking to use gas as well. Gauteng fleet entities such as Bulk Hauliers International Transport (BHIT) and SAB (which runs a massive national fleet of trucks) have signed agreements for gas suppliers from Renergen, the company running a big gas project in the Free State. Glass manufacturer Consol has also signed with them and TotalEnergies will establish a national distribution network.

Energy efficiency is a growing interest for government and the private sector. The Department of Energy has an Energy Efficiency Directorate and there are other organisations such as Southern African Energy Efficiency Confederation (SAEEC); South African National Energy Development Institute (SANEDI); Productivity SA and the National Cleaner Production Centre (NCPC).

Water is one of the key sectors where saving, reuse, recycling, filtration, storage, efficiency (nonleaking pipes) and new solutions are vital to progress towards a greener future. Rand Water’s environmental brand, “Water Wise”, attempts to make users aware of the need to value water and to use it wisely.

In terms of recycling and reuse, the packaging sector and many companies and industry associations connected to plastics, rubber and paper are trying to mitigate harmful side-effects arising from the manufacture and use of their products. One of the supporters of CleanCitySA, an organisation aiming to clean up Johannesburg, is Plastics SA.

Fibre Circle (the producer responsibility organisation for the South African paper and paper packaging sector) is working on compliance with national government’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Fibre Circle aims to improve the recovery and recycling of paper and paper packaging and to develop products from recycled paper fibre that are commercially viable in their own right. It wants to get packaging products off the streets and away from landfills. The organisation reports that 46% of locally-produced paper products contain sustainably-sourced virgin fibre and that 54% of local paper products contain recycled fibre.

The Paper Manufacturers Association of South Africa (PAMSA) reports that many paper and pulp mills are using byproducts from the chemical pulping process as a biomass fuel to drive the mills. Examples include tree residue and “black liquor”. ■

Controlled Marketing model encourages close relationships with customers

Old Mutual Provincial General Manager: Sales and Distribution, Mathapelo Sipamla, discusses some of the challenges facing business in Gauteng.

Mathapelo Sipamla

BIOGRAPHY

Mathapelo Sipamla has been with Old Mutual for the past 18 years, advancing through the ranks from being a financial adviser when she first joined in March 2004. She is a driven and results-orientated sales leader who has a proven record of accomplishment in all the roles she has held within the organisation. She has an MBA from Henley Business School. In April 2021 she was appointed as the Provincial General Manager: Sales and Distribution for Gauteng. How many branches does Old Mutual have in Gauteng? There are 31 branches, of which 29 are field branches and two are in-house. We have a staff complement of 494, which includes advisers, junior and senior management and admin staff.

How can customers stay in touch or transact remotely? Our Controlled Marketing model encourages close relationships with customers. Advisers need to ensure they are their customers’ go-to person. Our advisers own cellphones and laptops that assist them. During lockdown, we rolled out remote selling that allows the customer to accept a sale remotely though USSD.

How has your business been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and what have you noticed about the businesses that you serve? We have been affected immensely as we could not make our targets, but also our staff’s earning potential was affected because they could not get to enough customers in order to make their targets.

Two things are noticeable about businesses in the area: many businesses could not cope with the strain imposed by the various lockdowns and had either to close shop or retrench employees. Some businesses lost employees who died from Covid-19.

All of this ultimately means the market potential has decreased significantly. It remains a problem, as most companies are not willing to hire and replace the staff they lost to Covid-19.

What are your main offerings to customers? We are in the long-term insurance space so we offer life cover, funeral plans, investments and retirement annuities.

What processes are followed in supporting CSI projects? We encourage our advisers to adopt community projects and submit an application for which we can provide finance of up to R20 000. They must also submit proof that they take the time to be there physically to assist with whatever project they are driving. We are engaged in a large number of projects across the province. ■

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