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ith its goal to reduce its energy use by 15% by 2015, coal miner Exxaro has built green housing for its employees through the company’s eco-friendly housing project, in Lephalale, Limpopo. This is in line with the Department of Minerals and Energy’s Energy Efficiency Accord for the industrial and mining sectors.

Exxaro says that, because of its rapid growth in Lephalale, owing to the Grootegeluk Medupi expansion project, 797 housing units were required for 1 124 current employees, as well as new team members who will operate beneficiation plants Grootegeluk 7 and 8.

The company says housing units are located within a radius of about 7 km of the community centres to create a mutually beneficial relationship between the housing residents and community businesses.

The allocation of housing includes 81 housing units and 284 flat units in Onverwacht and 40 housing units and 292 flat units in Marapong. The mixture of housing types caters for different needs and housing grades, explains Exxaro.

The company notes that, through the Lephalale Eco Housing Project, it has demonstrated its commitment to sustainability and protect-ing the environment by imple-menting R26-million worth of green technoloy principles aimed at reducing electricity and water consumption in Lephalale as well as living and maintenance costs to homeowners.

Different energy saving technologies were analysed and the most appropriate were selected for the Lephalale environment, including water-wise gardens as opposed to conventional gardens, direct solartherm geysers in the place of electric geysers, and Bosch gas stoves instead of conventional electric stoves.

Each of Exxaro’s eco-friendly housing units will save about 1 319 kWh/m through the implementation of the green design principles.

The technologies selected are based on price, energy efficiency, performance, aesthetics and acceptance by homeowners, who were encouraged to be more environmentally aware through an awareness and training campaign undertaken by the company.

Additional innovations, key to decreasing the impact on the environment, are thermovents inside the house, reusable rainwater captured in water tanks and evaporative cooling systems.

The coal miner says the housing project also has posi-tive economic benefits for the Lephalale community, from infrastructure development, broad-based black economic-empowerment opportunities and growth in local business to local economic development and employment.

Further, the project also invested R68-million in local business, employed 62% of construction workers locally and provided skills transfer through training programmes.

The company says construc-ting affordable green homes also affords its employees the opportunity to own the housing units in the future. Exxaro used its own land, which it says resulted in low erven costs.

The coal miner says the suc-cessful project has resulted in the company deciding to implement similar green initia-tives for its future projects.

Exxaro says it is committed to both national and inter-national protocols aimed at encouraging countries and industries to adopt more responsible energy use programmes.

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