Deloitte Africa makes an impact with water conservation

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — As the world celebrated World Water Day this week, under the theme “valuing water”, Deloitte is pleased of the strides it has taken in ensuring that its new HQ building in Waterfall was built with sustainability principles in mind. “Our impact on the environment was a key consideration throughout the building project and water savings, due to the scarcity of the resource, was top of the list,” says Wayne Megaw, Deloitte Africa Operations Leader and Waterfall Building Project Lead.

The building complies with a Silver Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Rating, creating a sustainable, healthy, safe and productive environment. During the design and construction, emphasis was placed on implementing sustainable practices to create a building with a low impact on the environment. “Our new office has an integrated rain and grey water harvesting system that collects and filters rain and sub-soil drainage water. This water is then used to irrigate the gardens around the exterior of the building and also for flushing the toilets which eliminates the wastage of potable water within these areas,” continues Megaw.

The building has an underground basement parking, with an influx of groundwater into basements sumps. In the past, this water would typically have been pumped out into the stormwater system to avoid flooding but was identified as a useful water source to augment aspects of the building’s overall water demand.

Between 40kl and 50kl of groundwater is collected daily in the basement sumps and then pumped to a central raw water holding tank. Rainwater collected from a 7 500m2 catchment area on the building’s roof is also added to this holding tank

“Green buildings are cost effective and have meaningful impacts in mitigating climate change. In this way, our new Africa headquarters support our Purpose to make an impact that matters,” concludes Megaw.”