Upper Eastside Hotel’s Green Transformation
Misplon
Cape Town’s Upper Eastside Hotel, owned by Spear Properties has achieved a 5-Star Existing Building Performance (EPB) Green Star SA rating.
Always striving for exceptionality, Upper Eastside, which is a franchised Hilton Hotel and the first DoubleTree in South Africa, started implementing greener policies over the last six years. This made for a relatively smooth Green Star SA submission process and although originally targeting a 4-Star EBP rating, achieved a 5-Star rating straight out of the starting blocks.
Management centric
EBP is designed to reward facility management practices, ensuring that a building operates optimally. Where projects have achieved a base building rating it recognises management actions that ensure the building operates as intended by the design. For all projects targeting EBP, the main actions require auditing installed performance, monitoring on-going usage and taking corrective steps to remedy inefficiencies. In essence, it rewards best business practice on an on-going operational basis and the certification is renewable every three years.
Sally Misplon, green building consultant appointed to execute the Green Star SA certification submission, agrees with hotel general manager Francois Steyn that for buildings that pre-date the current trend in green infrastructure, “achieving EBP certification can be a greater challenge”. Older existing buildings are coming off a lower performance base, which can limit the opportunity for effective intervention and make achieving that targeted star rating a costly exercise.
In the case of the Cape Town Upper Eastside Hotel, Misplon conducted audits of lighting lux levels, carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO1) and thermal comfort in each and every room, and facilitated audits of green cleaning products and transport usage. Consequently, management plans were established for maintenance, landscaping, cleaning product procurement and alternative transportation – and the effects of implementation are noticeable.