Showcasing My Green Home Project

Energy efficiency has become a hot topic. While the driving force behind this has been nation wide load shedding, the reality is that it is import to reduce our consumption if we want to reduce our carbon emissions. The Urban LEDS Project aims to assist municipalities with the development of strategies that will reduce their carbon emissions, as well as mechanism for monitoring and reporting on this.

While the strategy is important, the practical implementation is critical. ICLEI Africa has teamed up with the Green Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) to showcase practical solutions at a household level.

My Green Home project (www.mygreenhome.org.za) was implemented by the GBCSA in 2014, with main co-funding from the German government through the South African-German Energy Programme (SAGEN) as part of the bilateral cooperation between South Africa and Germany.

The Ngewana family took on the My Green Home challenge and succeeded in reducing their electricity consumption by 53%, water by 44%, and waste to landfill by 81% in their suburban home, all in a few months. These were the effects  of no-cost, once-off actions and daily behaviour changes combined with a major retrofit that supplied the house with technology for energy and water efficiency.

Municipalities around the country are encouraged to use the resources provided in the website as part of their educational campaigns on energy efficiency. It specifically addresses the needs of middle- to high-income homes, as these are the homes with the highest consumption patterns.

The project case study can be downloaded here, while various resources are available on the website, including a range of short webisodes explaining each of the key topics.

Download a guide to My Green Home here!

11 March 2015

Showcasing My Green Home Project