Growthpoint Properties South Africa’s leading locally listed REIT, took home three prestigious awards at the recent South African Facilities Management Association’s (SAFMA) annual awards ceremony: the Gold Award for Sustainability Champion of the Year, the Gold Award for Innovation in Facilities Management and a Silver Award for Leadership in Facilities Management.
This recognition for excellence in FM acknowledges the paradigm-shifting journey Growthpoint’s FM function has undergone over the past three years, as its Facilities Management Centre of Excellence (COE) has evolved from a traditional support function into a strategic, data-driven business enabler with a clear and ambitious long-term vision.
A multi-year strategy built on strong foundations
The COE was reinvented in 2023 to establish a long-term FM strategy driving standardisation, digital enablement and operational excellence across Growthpoint’s extensive South African property portfolio of 341 diverse retail, office, mixed-use precincts, logistics and industrial, and trading and development properties located countrywide.
The strategy is structured around four strategic pillars: technical excellence; systems, tools and procedures; infrastructure and technology enablement; and centralised support and agility.
“Receiving these awards is a reflection of the extraordinary work our FM team and partners have put in over several years. This has been a transformative undertaking for Growthpoint. We are particularly proud that the vision originated from within our own team and that, together with our partners, we have found genuinely innovative ways to raise the standard of service and operational excellence for our tenants,” says Engelbert Binedell, Chief Operating Officer, Growthpoint Properties.
Binedell adds, “The project has been delivered systematically, and ahead of milestone after milestone, which speaks volumes about the calibre of the people behind it.”
A cornerstone of this strategy is the full implementation of the myBuildings Facilities Management System. Where most others deploy only individual modules of this system, Growthpoint chose to implement the complete system end-to-end, integrating it with existing people, structures, building management systems, services, maintenance and compliance processes across the entire portfolio.
This comprehensive, ground-up approach took two years of preparation, but delivered a fully customised solution that performs optimally for Growthpoint’s buildings and tenants today. The system went live in November 2024 and achieved full organisational adoption by April 2025, with Phase 2, which includes company-wide procurement integration, completed in October 2025.
Building a real-time data backbone
“In executing our digitalisation and data integration strategy, we’ve worked together with our technology partners to engineer a solution that integrates with existing equipment, thereby avoiding capital-intensive replacement and retaining the full value of existing infrastructure,” explains Christiaan Meyer (Commercial) speaking on behalf of the Growthpoint’s three National Facilities Managers who head the COE, including Sean Meyer (Industrial) and Andrew Vorster (Retail).
Having navigated the technical, contractual and organisational complexity of establishing this backbone, and with Growthpoint’s FM system firmly in place, their real-time data integration project is the next milestone. Growthpoint’s Digital Twin initiative consolidates live operational data extracted from existing building management systems and equipment using Internet of Things (IoT) devices and third-party Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The data is then processed into a Growthpoint-hosted data warehouse from which smart dashboards and performance management processes are developed largely in-house.
These dashboards are monitored from the Growthpoint Control Centre, a dedicated central operations hub at Growthpoint’s Sandton head office. Since going live in June 2025, the control centre provides real-time visibility across FM operations, solar performance, utilities consumption and service delivery, proactively flagging anomalies across the national portfolio.
The first phase of 44 buildings being onboarded onto the digital twin platform is well underway and will be completed by the end of June 2026. A further 100 buildings are targeted in Growthpoint’s next financial year (end-June 2027), and full portfolio coverage is anticipated by December 2027.
Buildings already onboarded are delivering measurable results, thanks to real-time data monitoring and performance management dashboards. For example, the ability to remotely monitor and manage water infrastructure across an entire business park, has helped to extend backup water supply from around four days to as long as two weeks in a grid failure scenario.
Tangible benefits for tenants
The driving purpose behind these initiatives for Growthpoint is the direct and measurable benefit to tenants. Many of the technology improvements under way in the utilities space have already resulted in reduced consumption costs being passed directly to building occupants, with significant savings evidenced over the past two to three years.
Looking ahead, the data integration programme will enable Growthpoint to move well beyond monthly utility reporting. Tenants will be able to benchmark their consumption in real time against comparable buildings in their region and sector, receive proactive recommendations to reduce inefficiency, and ultimately engage with Growthpoint through a live tenant portal drawing on the digital twin as its data source.
Remote intervention capabilities in response to building occupancy data, such as adjusting HVAC or lighting will further reduce waste and cost.
The long-term objective is ambitious: zero manual intervention across the full cycle from planning and budgeting through to execution and reporting.
Meyer highlights, “Everything we are doing is operationally driven. If we improve any part of our operational activities, our tenants experience it firsthand, be it through improved service delivery or through actual cost savings. That is the ultimate measure of success for us.”
Preparing people for the future of FM
Underpinning every technical achievement is a deep commitment to developing people. The FM leadership team has mentored six FM graduates annually, a dozen over the past two years, several of whom have been retained within the organisation.
Extensive accredited training has been completed across occupational health and safety, fire safety, risk and legal compliance, utilities, FM systems, and sustainability, with numerous team members completing FM Learnerships at NQF Level 6.
Looking further ahead, Growthpoint is already planning for the evolution of the FM profession itself. As automation and AI integration become increasingly central to building operations, the team is identifying the reskilling, retraining and role redefinition that will be required over the next three to five years.
“The view from Growthpoint’s leadership is clear: this is not about reducing headcount, but about equipping FM professionals to work alongside intelligent systems, empowering them to interpret data, act on recommendations and manage increasingly complex infrastructure,” says Binedell.
A night of recognition
The Gold Award for Sustainability Champion of the Year reflects Growthpoint’s ambitious and measurable commitments to environmental stewardship. Growthpoint has cumulatively spent R1bn on solar installations in its portfolio, with 84 plants and a PV capacity of 61.7MWp, already placing it on par with a commercial-scale renewable utility. It is on track to exceed its goal of reaching 68MWp this financial year.
Comprehensive water resilience solutions have been implemented across the portfolio, with 162 buildings fitted with backup water systems, incorporating combined storage capacity of nearly 10,000 kilolitres, supported by 40 registered boreholes.
The Gold Award for Innovation in Facilities Management acknowledges the meticulous preparation and implementation of the Facility Management System to achieve maximum operational adoption and integration with existing systems. The scope and scale of implementation required a gallant effort by the business with multiple teams and departments coming together to ensure success in the shortest amount of time. For this purpose, a change management strategy was created that greatly relied on in-house champions to spearhead implementation and support teams within an accelerated delivery window.
The Silver Award for Leadership in Facilities Management recognises the collective leadership of the three National Facilities Managers who head the COE. Their ability to unify teams across Growthpoint’s office, retail and industrial sector property portfolios under a single, coherent FM vision — while managing major system transitions, cultural change, and stakeholder complexity — has set a new benchmark for FM leadership in the South African property industry.
“These awards belong to every member of our FM team across the country. What we have built together is more than a set of systems or processes. We have built a culture of excellence, accountability and innovation. We are incredibly proud of what this team has achieved,” concludes Meyer.