Since last year, there has been an increasing number of green buildings in the country, including warehouses, residential apartments, homes and offices.
Data from Kenya Green Building Society shows there were 48 certified and registered buildings in the year to March 2022 from 25 buildings recorded in the same period to March 2021.
“This is almost double growth. Others have chosen not to be registered,” says Louis Kariuki, monitoring and evaluation officer at Kenya Green Building Society (KGBS).
“We are seeing a couple of people coming to us asking to give them direction on building green. Most people have also been building green it’s only that they don’t know they are.”
As the need to cut carbon emissions emitted by businesses rise, real estate developers are increasingly positioning their buildings as green in the fight for environment-conscious buyer.
Belva Home Limited, for instance, is building a green project, 3408 Belva, a luxury residential property in the Parklands area in Nairobi.
It will have three-bedroom, five-bedroom simplex and five-bedroom duplex apartments and amenities like a spa, salon and gym area, business meetings rooms, expresso bar and lounge and kids’ indoor play area.
The building is designed to conserve energy and water through apartments and common areas. It is designed to allow natural lighting with floor-to-ceiling windows to minimize the consumption of energy.
Every room will be independent of the others with balconies for enough lighting. They are also putting up solar PV panels to heat swimming pools and light common areas and hallways. It will also have a cascading waterfall and live plants for greenery.
The developer will also install rainwater harvest structures for watering the plants and cleaning parking and common facilities.
The Kenyan real estate firm under AMCO Group will be its first green project under the company.
“There is a lot of green aspect in the design. The building is targeting everybody concerned about the environment,” said Belva Homes managing director Mohammed Dahir. Read more…
