South Africa's first home energy & carbon rating via LookSee-SANEDI

In a landmark development for residential sustainability, Standard Bank’s LookSee has partnered exclusively with the South African National Development Energy Institute (SANEDI) to launch the country’s first energy and carbon certification for existing homes.

“South Africa cannot meet its climate goals without addressing the carbon footprint of existing homes,” says Kabelo Makeke, Head of Personal and Private Banking at Standard Bank. “This certification provides key insights and empowers homeowners to cut emissions and save on electricity costs.”

Until now, recognised certification programmes in South Africa for residential homes have only focused on newly built homes. The new LookSee certification programme fills a critical gap – enabling homeowners to understand, improve, and be recognised for the energy performance of their existing homes.

With over 6 million residential properties in South Africa, this initiative has a potential to lay the groundwork for one of the largest household-level climate action efforts in the country’s history.

Tested, endorsed, and ready to roll out

The certification is underpinned by a custom methodology developed by Standard Bank’s energy specialists and LookSee, the bank’s home efficiency platform that helps homeowners save money on their monthly bills.

“We’ve been thinking about the absence of a framework for measuring the energy efficiency of retrofitted homes for a while now” explains, Marc du Plessis, Executive Head of LookSee. “So, we built a solution that could assess homes in a practical, data-driven, and scalable way, without requiring costly inspections or disruptive processes.”

Leveraging data like electricity bills, satellite imagery, and inverter logs, the team ran an internal pre-pilot to build a detailed energy profile for each home, then benchmarked it against industry standards to determine ratings.

“We were impressed by the thoroughness of LookSee’s approach, from how data was sourced and validated to how the methodology aligns with the South African National Standards and the country’s sustainability objectives,” says Faith Mkhacwa, SANEDI’s General Manager for Energy Efficiency and Demand Side Management. “This certification programme has the potential to transform the residential market by promoting a culture of energy efficiency, supporting South Africa’s 2030 residential energy targets, and helping homeowners and buyers make smarter, more sustainable decisions. The availability of reliable data gathered through this initiative can also be used to inform future energy policies.”

With the partnership formalised, LookSee and SANEDI are now embarking on an official pilot programme in preparation for a full market rollout.

Benefits, opportunities and incentives

Du Plessis believes these certifications will give families unparalleled insights into their energy consumption as few understand how their electricity consumption compares to similar homes, and whether they are efficient in their use or not. “The carbon rating, on the other hand, will help them understand their environmental impact. This awareness is critical to get the residential market to act on climate change,” he says.

“This programme will allow South Africa to build a more energy-efficient residential market, which in turn could open up access to green funding on the international stage. Ultimately, it’s essential that households be empowered to contribute to the national goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2030,” concludes Du Plessis.