The focus we have is about our ecological footprint in the broader context of Climate Change and how we adapt and mitigate.
This roof garden is a step in providing leadership in the overall campaign and roll-out to all government buildings. We occupy 48 buildings in the CBD of Cape Town. At our sustainable development conference, just over a year ago one of the outcomes was to looking at greening our own buildings as well as green procurement. We are finalising this with the Provincial Treasury and the department of public works. These could be seen as small shifts, but already the two proposed hospitals in Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha will have green design, using renewable energies.
This is our contribution to the overall commitment. But we are taking our first steps and leading by example, how we made our building more efficient in terms of energy and water usage, papers usage and general consumption. In just two years my department has recycled 11 tonnes of paper. That is only one department, if you look at all the other government departments and the level of paper usage, then recycling is a critical element.
2Wise2Waste is based on the triple R's - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. As soon as we have the campaign rolled-out across Government, we will also get buy-in from individuals and the private sector. This is not just because it is a morale imperative, but it also makes good business sense, there might be some initial investment required to retrofit buildings, but after that the reduction in usage will be economically beneficial.
We need to do this to ensure a sustainable future for generations to come. Climate Change is not a myth, we are experiencing in the Western Cape, whether with our water restrictions, energy crisis and from now we enter our fire season because of extended dry periods. Recently we experienced devastating floods in the Southern Cape.
The impacts are here and now. We cannot sit back and say we don't know, we have to act. 2Wise2Waste is about acting now. We, as Government, cannot preach to the world if we do not practice what we preach. What we learnt and implemented in our department now will translate into savings for Government.
Retrofitting and green procurement will mean a little extra investment, but it translates into long term saving and this translates into long term sustainability.
I am happy members of the Standing Committee are here, to see that this roof garden is not just a luxury. Imagine a CBD with many similar rooftops, celebrating our indigenous plants and flowers.
