ON July 4 at Thaba Eco hotel and spa, the Green Business platform welcomed guest speaker Lorraine Jenks, who spoke about greener operating and procurement standards in homes, hotels, offices, factories, agriculture and tourism.
The Green Business platform connects those who are passionate about saving the environment and learning ways in which to utilise greening solutions.
Her presentation touched on green procurement in the sense that everything impacts on pollution, forests, the air, water systems, natural resources and people in positive or negative ways.
Responsible procurement means selecting products and services that have the lowest negative impact on the environment and the highest positive impact on communities and people.
Lorraine mentioned projects that her team got involved in (hotel stuff and green stuff) and building a green home with all the various green products such as hemp material items and green cleaning products that are eco-friendly or ‘greener’ than their competitors.
Her conclusion was that people should remember this is Africa and that the rules should be bent. The various communities should find new ways and don’t need to copy overseas models.
“Unlike other parts of the World, in South Africa, our most critical sustainability criteria are firstly water security, then job creation, food security, energy saving and then the rest,” said Lorraine.
