Winner — Companies and organisations with the most improved environmental practices: First National Bank
First National Bank’s Bank City headquarters are smart, grey and, one might think, not particularly green. That’s where you would be wrong. As brightly coloured as the air conditioning and electricity conduits, Bank City is ÂÂgetting greener by the day.
”I’m incredibly proud of our facilities management team, which looks after our buildings. They have come up with so many green innovations from low-energy lights to air conditioners and recycling grey water from basins into the showpiece fountain outside,” says group environmental, health and safety manager Madeleine Ronquest. ”We used to have overhead lights in the passages that required three, long fluorescent tubes. These have been retrofitted to take two shorter, energy-saving globes, which use half as much energy.”
”Not only has this saved on lights bills, but all the heat generated by the lights meant the air conditioners had to work extra hard. Now we save on cooling bills too,” says Francois Pretorius, technical manager at Bank City, whose job it is to implement the greening projects.
Since Bank City consists of five seven-storey buildings with four- ÂÂstorey basements housing about 6 000 employees in downtown Johannesburg, these innovations have translated into significant savings for the company. The current saving of about 2 000kW a month is worth about R320 000 (or about 20%) saved on the electricity bills a month.
And for the planet? FNB is reducing its carbon footprint drastically and influencing others to reduce theirs.
”We have been able to sell environmental innovations to head office on the basis of financial savings,” says Ronquest. ”The innovations save money and pay for themselves within a short time. We also came to an agreement with Eskom. Under its demand-side management programme, it has subsidised the payment of consulting engineers to help us redesign our energy use. Besides the retrofitted lights, there are timer switches that turn the lights off at night. Only the main areas remain lit. However, if someone needs to work at night there are override switches,” says Ronquest.
Energy is one of 10 key environmental issues being tackled by the bank as part of working towards ISO 14001 certification. The environment is considered an important business value at FNB; the CEO of FirstRand Bank, Sizwe Nxasana, is the spokesperson on environmental issues.
”We’ve captured the low hanging fruit,” says Pretorius ”Now we want to fine-tune our energy savings, receiving maximum impact with minimum disruption to the comfort of employees.” The nub of this is how low temperatures and lights can go before people notice. Eliminating waste is vital to achieving this end. For example, FNB is looking at motion sensors that will respond to both heat and movement and switch lights on only when people enter the building. ”R” is pleased as we pass the sixth-floor boardroom. ”Oh good, the lights are off.” Some people willingly switch lights off, but others keep forgetting.
”It’s much easier when you design environmental features from scratch. At Bank City we have to retrofit the building,” says Pretorius. ”Wesbank is building an eco-friendly headquarters in Fairlands which it will share with home loans.” This building will enjoy such innovations as double glazing and solar water heaters. Bank City is exploring installing solar water heaters to heat water for hand basins, but the existing plumbing and fancy leaded roofs pose challenges. Currently there are multiple boilers running every day for this purpose.
However, Bank City has achieved improvements with the air conditioning, which is now computerised. It is automatically switched off after hours and on again at 6am.
Air is filtered and recycled because it is far more expensive to heat or cool ”new” air from scratch. Staff control temperatures at localised office level. Basement fans run only when needed.
The bank is installing 42 new drives for basement fans, which will adjust automatically to extract carbon monoxide when needed. Large, underutilised fridges in refreshment areas will be replaced with smaller ones. New lifts with energy-efficient motors are being installed. They should reduce consumption by between 8% and 20%.
Customers have been invited to join in. For a reduced service fee, they are able to receive statements electronically. With this new system in place, the bank was able to save 22 354kg of paper last year in one region. In-house employees are encouraged to reuse paper. The bank is considering using recycled paper for letterheads and branded ÂÂdocuments. Printer cartridges will be recycled too.
A waste process analysis is being done for the ISO 14001 accreditation. Discussions are under way with a waste manager to collect all recyclables from Bank City. ”We are hoping to break even with our waste management initiative and any financial surplus will be given to charity,” says Ronquest. ”It is thought that employees will be asked to put paper, tin, glass and plastic into central bins. The waste handling company will collect these bins, sort the waste and take it to the recyclers, such as Collect-a-Can and Consol Glass. Volumes are significant; the cafeterias produce 25 000 drinks cans a month. Office furniture and electronic equipment are ‘recycled’ by being donated to schools, churches and charities.”
An important aspect of the waste collection initiative will be raising awareness among staff.
”I am busy planning an ÂÂawareness-raising programme,” says Ronquest. ”First we will show how we saved money at the office through energy efficiency and then suggest that staff try these techniques at home. With 42 000 employees countrywide at First Rand and 36 000 at FNB, we could influence more than a million households. Thanks to the Greening the Future Awards, we’ve now produced an environmental ÂÂmanagement training video. ÂÂPosters, plasma screens in the lifts and ÂÂinternal newsletters will be used to get environmental messages across.”
Besides educating its own employees, the bank has enormous influence among suppliers and customers. With a purchasing budget of R1,6-billion a year, it is able to negotiate with its suppliers to be more sustainable themselves.
Environmental performance will form part of tender requirements. Suppliers will be encouraged to ÂÂcomply with the performance criteria of the JSE (environmental) sustainability index. In its lending policy, the bank insists that large developments must have an environmental impact assessment approved before money is released.