The Local Economic Department (LED) will be taking steps to ensure that a Green Economy can be established in the Makana area.
The Local Economic Department (LED) will be taking steps to ensure that a Green Economy can be established in the Makana area.
This concept is an integral part of the Green City initiative currently driven by the Department of Social and Community Services and was originally introduced by the Rhodes Investec Business School last year to establish Grahamstown as a Green City.
A Green Economy is a sustainable economy and society that focuses on the creation of environmentally sustainable jobs to preserve the natural world for future generations.
This concept was mentioned in President Jacob Zuma’s State of the Nation Address as well as at the inaugural Green Economy Summit in Johannesburg in May this year where Zuma appealed to the country to develop a path towards greener, more sustainable development and economic growth.
According to an LED progress report, the way forward for this initiative involves the establishment of partners from sectors such as agriculture, private business, government department and agencies and Rhodes University.
“An audit will have to be undertaken on all the by-laws to determine which could contribute to the minimising of the carbon footprint.
Some of the by-laws will have to be reviewed and new by-laws would also have to be drafted,” said LED Director, Riana Meiring.
She said that this is a cumbersome process and will take some time. The green city strategy must be concluded first, before embarking on this exercise, Meiring added.
Creating green jobs will attempt to combat challenges such as curbing climate change and providing work in a time of rapid population growth.
Green jobs are found in many sectors of the economy such as recycling and agriculture and could assist in reducing the carbon footprint.
Two months ago, an Invasive Bio-mass energy project was proposed by the Nollen Group, an environmental finance group based in the Netherlands.
Nollen Group representative, Charlie Cox proposed a 2 to 3MW biomass power plant to be constructed at the old power station in the industrial area to sell renewable electricity to Makana Municipality and Rhodes University.
This project will form part of the Green City initiative as it will generate sustainable energy by burning alien vegetation to create renewable energy.
Cox said that they were looking at assisting Makana in getting off the Eskom grid altogether, with the plan of selling electricity nationally and possibly even internationally.
This could enhance the local economy and Grahamstown would be on the road to becoming South Africa’s first green municipality.
“By attracting ‘green projects’ to the area, the municipality and the communities could benefit greatly as we are moving towards a trend worldwide that green technology is favoured.
The municipality could thus position itself as a green city,” said Meiring. The Economic Development Tourism and Heritage Portfolio Committee recommended this project to the Mayoral Committee that this project be approved in principle.
The Mayoral Committee has therefore resolved that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) be explored and that the municipality agrees in principle for the bio-mass plant to be granted access to the municipal grid.
According to Meiring, the municipality is in process of drafting an MoU and an Environmental Impact Assessment will be carried out where the community will be consulted as a part of the process.
