Jacaranda City wins green award for second year running

31 May 2016 - 14:06 By Roxanne Henderson
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Image: Gallo Images/ IStock

Tshwane metropolitan municipality is the most green city in South Africa for the second year in a row‚ as local winners of the WWF's Earth Hour City Challenge.

Director of ICLEI Africa Kobie Brand announced on Tuesday that the city had this week clinched the award again at the African Capital Cities Sustainability Forum and Sustainability Week in Pretoria.

Tshwane has also been selected ahead of Cape Town as one of 13 eligible cities up for the Global Earth Hour Capital title.

Tshwane will compete against cities like Jakarta‚ Paris‚ Rajkot and Singapore. The Global Earth Hour Capital will be announced at the UN-Habitat III conference in Quito‚ Ecuador in October‚ Brand said.

The news was announced shortly after Tshwane executive mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa spoke of the city's commitment to its sustainable goals.

Ramokgopa said that Tshwane‚ like many of its peer cities‚ had undertaken to develop its social and technical infrastructure‚ take lessons from Africa's green building councils and prioritise the reduction of informal settlements to ensure its sustainability challenges are addressed.

The award has recognised Tshwane's following achievements:

  • The launch of the Tshwane Food and Energy Centre‚ next to Bronkhorstspruit‚ which creates sustainable livelihoods‚ produces food and renewable energy.
  • The launch of the city's Material Recovery Facility to the west of the Tshwane. This will assist in diverting substantial amounts of recyclable material from being landfilled.
  • Tshwane's resource efficiency‚ which is promoted through the city's Green Building by-law‚ the first of its kind in South Africa.
  • Interventions for green transport by the city like the active promotion of cycling‚ the investment in electric vehicles and solar charging stations‚ a Bus Rapid Transit system and a fleet of clean buses.
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