Growthpoint Properties has partnered with Fuel Switch, Africa’s first open blockchain enabled Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) exchange to unlock certified clean energy trading for tenants when its e-co₂ green energy initiative goes live in October 2025.

The REIT’s e-co₂ will deliver its first green electrons to 10 Sandton office buildings with hydropower wheeled over the national grid from the newly developed Boston Hydroelectric Plant in the Lesotho Highlands Water Scheme in partnership with Serengeti Energy.

For e-co₂, Growthpoint signed a 195GWh Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Etana Energy in 2023, securing a mix of hydro, wind and solar power.

The Group says the real breakthrough lies in how this energy is certified, tracked, and monetised for its tenants. To deliver this capability as part of a growing suite of high-impact business-enabling tenant benefits, Growthpoint partnered with Fuel Switch – a blockchain-enabled energy tech platform and the recent winner of the Agence Française de Développement’s Digital Energy Challenge.

Fuel Switch’s platform certifies the electricity as green using Internet of Things (IoT) and AI, providing independent third-party verification in an innovative manner. Once certified, the green energy benefit is recorded on a digital certificate.

Each REC confirms that one megawatt-hour of renewable energy has been generated and supplied to the national grid. The RECs are stored on the blockchain as a digital asset, each time-stamped and linked to a renewable energy source.

RECs can be redeemed for certified reduction of Scope 2 Carbon emissions. Fuel Switch integrates directly with SA’s national REC registry, zaRECs, as well as the global I-REC standard governed by the I-TRACK Foundation. Its blockchain platform provides an immutable record of each REC from issuance to retirement, which ensures auditability aligned with global ESG standards.

Until now, Africa’s participation in the voluntary RECs market has been limited. High costs, slow manual processes and opaque trading made it accessible to only the largest-scale projects. This changes in October 2025 when e-co₂ goes live and Fuel Switch will enable Growthpoint tenants of all sizes to access this new market.

On the e-co₂ rollout, participating tenants in select Growthpoint buildings will have their smart electricity meter consumption data automatically sent for verification, and the corresponding RECs will be issued directly into secure digital wallets. These wallets are free for Growthpoint tenants and accessed through the Fuel Switch Exchange platform, allowing tenants to access, manage and deploy their RECs based on business needs. They can redeem them to lower emissions or sell them for additional revenue.

This makes Growthpoint the first to offer a commercial scale, wheeled renewable electricity solution where renewable energy use is certified at the building level and the benefits are made available to tenants in a verified, auditable format.

Fuel Switch explains that an elegant system of automated actions executes predetermined smart contract rules embedded a secure blockchain data base resulting in green energy that is independently certified with the highest level of trust and transparency and direct access to an evolving trading market that is usually inaccessible to all but the biggest players due to high participation costs.

With Fuel Switch, transactions that previously took weeks can now settle virtually instantly. Its smart contract technology is a much more cost-effective way to transact leading to marginal fees. Its infrastructure is capable of handling over 10 000 transactions per second, and it is already trusted by major corporates in South Africa.

“It is a game-changer for how businesses can participate in clean energy markets and carbon reduction reporting. By combining our e-co₂ wheeled green electricity property portfolio with Fuel Switch’s blockchain technology, we’re opening the green energy market to businesses of all sizes, creating measurable environmental impact and generating real financial value,” says Werner van Antwerpen, Growthpoint’s Head: Corporate Advisory.

“Our mission is to make participation in the green economy easier, quicker, more cost effect and more transparent. Our partnership with Growthpoint accelerates this goal. With blockchain as the backbone, every REC is verifiable, tradeable, and audit-ready, fully aligned with evolving IFRS sustainability reporting standards,” comments Gideon Maasz, COO of Fuel Switch.