George Wachiuri, Group Chief Executive Officer at Optiven Group says the future is ready for the use of renewable energy to facilitate and enable sustainable real estate. Wachiuri who is currently in the United Kingdom, made the remarks as the doors opened to the Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi on 4th September 2023, the first to be held in Africa and Kenya in particular since the inaugural summit was held 31 years ago.
Wachiuri noted that the use of renewable energy could provide much needed solutions in real estate including in provision of night lighting using solar power street lights in residential areas. He singled out the use of solar panels especially considering the challenge of rain fall thus making way for more sun that is the main ingredient to harness solar energy.
Wachiuri advised that as a strategy, Optiven via it’s GoGreen Initiative, has rolled out the use of solar power on it’s projects to facilitate not just powering of the project and street lighting, but also to power features such as water fountains at the projects.
Through a charter that encourages investors to build green, Wachiuri adds that, “we have continuously called on our customers to build sustainably so that they can tap water from their buildings and harvest this key resource. On waste management, we encourage the use of biodigesters to also leverage on the environment’s aesthetics and the end product on waste handling.“
Wachiuri echoed the call by President Dr. William Ruto who has called on Africa and the world to harness the abundant resources that support renewable energy so as to tackle the climate crisis of our time. Dr. Ruto noted that Africa in particular holds the key to accelerating the decarbonisation of the global economy.
Africa has capacity to meet all it’s energy needs from renewable energy resources that are readily available including water, sun and wind. Among the benefits of harnessing renewable energy include climate smart agriculture, environment conservation and a better continent. Kenya for example has 92% of power from the national grid coming from renewable sources – a great step as the country works towards embracing 100% renewable energy by the year 2030.
CLIMATE QUOTE
Dr. William Ruto : “As a continent, Africa has abundant renewable energy potential and natural assets to green our consumption and contribute to decarbonization of the global economy.”
