President,
Busa
According to Business Unity South Africa (Busa) president, Brian Molefe, the focus on energy savings needed to be done through energy efficiency initiatives that would counteract any negative economic and job creation impacts.
Busa further pledged to appoint an accountable energy manager for every building it occupied, and this manager would be responsible for implementing energy efficiency plans for each building, along with an audit of the buildings to assess energy efficiency. A staff awareness campaign would also be undertaken to build support.
"We are also working to develop an Energy Efficiency Audit Protocol with the Presidency and are partnering with government, particularly the Department of Trade and Industry, on rolling out energy efficiency audits, particularly among small to medium-sized enterprises," commented Molefe.
A similar note was echoed by South African Local Government Association (Salga) chairman, Amos Masondo, who said that organisation has short, medium and long term plans in place to ensure energy efficiency in local government buildings and municipalities.
Longer term plans included promoting solar water heaters and solar traffic lights, Masondo said.