A new partnership between the South African Council for the Architectural Profession (SACAP) and media and events company alive2green signals a new era for members of the architectural community.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits need to be obtained by architectural professionals in order remain registered with SACAP, a compulsory registration that allows these professionals to practice in their field. Over a five year cycle twenty five credits need to be obtained with a minimum of three a year and one compulsory annual Category 1 credit.

From February 2010, architectural professionals will be able to redeem valuable CPD Category 3 Credits from purchasing a copy of either Volume 1 or Volume 2 of the Green Building Handbook. The Handbook chapters will be grouped together into learning modules which have been approved for accreditation by the South African Council for the Architectural Profession (SACAP).

From April 2010 architectural professionals will be able to redeem Category 1 CPD credits from the same Modules in the Handbooks by writing and passing the online multiple choice tests which will be prepared for each chapter and available online at www.greenbuilding.co.za.

For the first time CPD credits will be easily obtainable and accessible to all architectural professionals throughout the country, ensuring that credits are now economically and geographically accessible across all categories of registration. These credits are not limited by Voluntary Association memberships and allow for more time flexibility. This is “a truly ground breaking initiative that ensures universal accessibility of the ‘hardest to get’ CPD Category 1 Credits,” says SACAP Registrar Dorothy Brislin.

CEO of Alive2green, Lloyd Macfarlane says that he is “extremely excited about this initiative because the Green Building Handbook provides great value for Architectural Professionals. The author’s of the Handbook are experts and thought leaders in their respective fields and we are now very pleased to be able to share this knowledge through the mechanism of the CPD process.”

The Green Building Handbooks, published by Alive2green, are a collection of specifically commissioned contributions compiled into Volumes and published in high quality A5 format. The publication is aimed at property owners, architectural professionals, engineers, product and service providers, government, home owners, students and other related stakeholders in the built environment sector.

Edited by Llewellyn van Wyk of the CSIR and containing contributions from SA's leading experts and product suppliers, the Green Building Handbook provides readers with practical insights into green building designs, technologies, materials and solutions relevant in the South African context and the effect that each has on the environmental impact of buildings.

In addition to its high quality editorial content, the Green Building Handbook carries promotional material from producers and suppliers of materials, products and services, and these pages form part of the knowledge transfer inherent in the publication. The Green Building Handbook is the only guide of its kind in South Africa.