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Johannesburg - Growthpoint Properties’ Greenovate Awards Programme has claimed the SA Property Owners Association (Sapoa) Excellence Award for Innovation.
The Sapoa Innovative Excellence Awards recognise significant contributions made through innovation and excellence within the property sector.
The Greenovate Awards Programme, launched by Growthpoint in partnership with the Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA), is designed to inspire and encourage students of the built environment to discover, explore and invent ways to live more sustainably.
Piloted at the University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand and University of Pretoria last year, the programme challenged students to come up with ideas for research projects that promote a more sustainable built environment – anything from building design to development, planning, construction and materials.
The Greenovate Awards are also intended to act as a feeder programme for potential Growthpoint graduates and internships, allowing Growthpoint to recruit students who have a good understanding on the subject of sustainability - a focus area of major importance to Growthpoint.
“Working with the GBCSA, we saw a gap in the market with regards to green building education and took it upon ourselves to assist in creating future industry leaders who understand not only the importance of preserving the natural environment but are also capable of finding innovative ways of addressing sustainability in the industry,” said programme director and head of sustainability at Growthpoint, Werner van Antwerpen.
Rowan McKenzie, Dijon Ross and Miekie van der Merwe of the University of Cape Town walked away with the first-ever first prize in the Greenovate Awards.
The success of last year’s Greenovate competition has seen it grow to include the University of the Free State and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2016. The intention is to take the awards programme to all South African universities with the appropriate built environment faculties.
Last week Growthpoint Properties CEO Norbert Sasse was presented with the inaugural Sapoa Lifetime Achievement Award. This first-ever award was announced at the milestone 50th Anniversary Convention of Sapoa, held in Sandton Central.
The new accolade recognises and celebrates the exceptional contributions made by an individual who has changed the face of the SA property sector.
The winners of the other Sapoa awards were:
- Ridgeway Office Development won the award for commercial office developments;
- Multichoice City won for corporate office developments;
- The Mall of the South won for retail developments;
- Frank's Place won for residential developments;
- The Four Seasons The Westcliff and Lion Match Company (which was also the overall winner at the awards this year) were joint winners of the refurbishment developments award;
- The Mirage won for mixed-use developments;
- The Mitchels Plain Hospital won the award for "other" developments and also the award for overall transformation;
- Anew development for Hilti won for industrial developments; the Matola Raid Monument and Interpretive Centre won for international developments; the Google head office in SA won for interiors as well as the overall green award.
