First EDGE Certified Commercial Building Inaugurated in Accra

By Roger A. Agana

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday inaugurated the first EDGE certified commercial building here in Accra, capital of West African country, Ghana.

The building, known as the Atlantic Towers, located at the Airport City on the Liberation Road is an energy efficient office block.

The event which was hosted in collaboration with the country’s EPA and the IFC’s Environmental and Social Risk Program aims at showcasing to stakeholders in the property sector the main benefits of the tool in cost savings through improved sustainable design.

Joseph Akwasi Kuma, Senior Country Officer of the IFC, Dennis Papa Odenyi Quansah, Green Building Lead of the IFC and Kirsten Hayes of SGS presented the official certificate to Radwan Dakmak, Developer of the Atlantic Towers.

DAKMAK expressed in his speech enumerated the benefits that customers would enjoy from using the EDGE certified building over other ordinary commercial buildings.

He said, “I am very happy that my commercial customers will now benefit from 30-40 percent savings in utility cost compared to other commercial buildings in Ghana who do not have EDGE certification.”

The Developer further stated that notwithstanding the fact that building green adds a little bit more to the cost of building, other significant saving can be made during the process.

“We used LED motion and sound sensor, UV protected windows because we really wanted to achieve our objective of the first green commercial building in Ghana, but incorporating all these features means we were able to make a significant saving of about 40,000 United States Dollars (USD) on the cost of generators needed as back up for the building,” Dakmak observed.

Stakeholders in the building industry who were present at the inauguration were impressed with the ease of use of the application and the clear financial savings that were demonstrated by selecting better building materials and design features that reduced water, energy and materials embodied energy in the buildings.

It must be noted that the EDGE technology can be applied for residential, commercial, educational, hospitality, retail and hospitals.

EDGE is certified by SGS, Ghana and thinkstep in the United Kingdom (UK), making it an internationally recognized and certified standard for green certification. It is anticipated that companies looking for commercial properties in the West African country will soon demand green certification to help them keep their operation cost at much lower levels.