"Build it cheap, sell it quick, run with the money" has been the battle cry of all but a few of SA's biggest property developers for years. Struggling for survival against an interest-rate rollercoaster, high inflation, falling real rents and continual booms and busts over 30 years, developers have ignored the fact that they and their international peers are among the biggest polluters on earth.

Buildings consume 40% of the world's energy and produce about 30% of greenhouse gases. Together they form the cities that produce 80% of global pollutants.

But suddenly the traditional Greens in their tie-dyed kaftans and Birkenstock sandals are being crushed, along with their wind chimes, by a stampede of Boss-suited corporates invading their territory. In SA these are led from the heart of property industry organisation Sapoa by new CEO Neil Gopal and Bruce Kerswill, champion of green buildings and head of Spire Property Services.

"I want to make green buildings one of Sapoa's key focus areas," says Gopal. It was a big subject at Sapoa's recent Sun City conference, where World Green Building Council executive director Huston Eubank enthused 1 200 property delegates with greenness and Kerswill announced an SA green building council that will be formed by Sapoa.

Green buildings have all the elements of a successful new religion. For a small extra contribution to their normal construction costs, developers can apply simple technology, save the world and get even richer than the property boom has made them.

SA development giant Zenprop has been an early adopter of greenness. "We find that initial costs are usually about 10% higher than normal buildings," says executive director Rodney Weinstein. "But the subsequent efficiencies and cost benefits are still worth it."

Kerswill says the cost of materials is higher in SA, "but that should fall as demand develops a scale of supply".

"Another plus is that the components of green buildings don't need rocket science to install," adds Kerswill. "Careful orientation, screening and using light colours reduce heat load. Thermal mass moderates temperature; more efficient lighting and larger windows with more natural light reduce energy consumption."

Best of all, tenants are eager to occupy green buildings and will pay a premium to lease them. Multinationals are specifying green components as a condition of signing up.

The green building council will develop a rating system similar to the US and Australia that will score the greenness of buildings. Kerswill and Eubank say the green council should be a voluntary organisation.

But SA has another unique situation. Many major developers and builders have disappeared through the 30 years of boom and bust. Most developers are small, unsophisticated and difficult to persuade (but Kerswill says the response so far has been overwhelming). Even in the US, many large residential developers are resisting the change, though Kerswill says it is a major force in Australia. He favours some regulation, citing the EU's recent legislation that all buildings must measure and declare their energy use and carbon footprint.