“The innovation centre will be one of the most environmentally friendly buildings in the entire Vodafone group, powered with renewable energy using cooling and heating technologies. We are working with the Green Building Council of South Africa to ensure the building is accredited according to the Green Star rating system,” says Uys.
Once completed, the Midrand based innovation centre will house a team of experts tasked with developing energy efficient technology to counter some of South Africa’s, and the planet’s greatest environmental challenges.
“Building sustainable, environmentally focused systems and infrastructure is critical in the current economic and environmental climate. Not only will the innovation centre help to deliver energy savings across the Vodafone group, but it will also save us money. Business can no longer look at sustainability as a nice-to-have element of operations – it is a critical aspect of our business strategy that adds enormous value to the bottom-line,” says Uys.
According to Vodacom, considerable climate benefits and cost savings can be achieved by creating technology that runs on renewable energy.
“The innovation centre is a critical component in our global strategy to create mobile technology that impacts the environment in a positive way. If we are able to aggressively drive efficiency and cost reductions in this area, we can pass these reductions on to our customers, a core component of this strategy,” adds Uys.
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