As South Africa’s built environment places increasing emphasis on greener, more resource-efficient buildings, the sustainability conversation is becoming more sophisticated.
Recent developments, including the growing implementation of the City of Johannesburg’s Green Building Policy and the broader shift towards embedding sustainability into the planning and approval process, are encouraging developers, architects and specifiers to think differently about how buildings will perform over their lifetime.
That’s a welcome shift.
But I believe we’re still overlooking one of the simplest and most important sustainability questions of all: how long will the material actually last?
When we specify a surface, we tend to measure its sustainability credentials at the point of manufacture: the recycled content, the certifications and the energy used in production. Those things matter. But after close to thirty years supplying tiles and surfaces to South African homes, commercial spaces and large-scale developments, I have come to believe that the most honest sustainability argument in our industry is also the simplest: the most sustainable surface is the one that does not need to be replaced.
A surface that performs for thirty years without fading, cracking or requiring costly maintenance doesn’t just avoid the environmental cost of replacement. It avoids the financial cost too. Every replacement requires new raw materials, manufacturing, transport and installation. Choosing well the first time is both the more environmentally responsible decision and, over the life of a building, often the more economical one.
South Africa’s climate puts materials to a particular test
Our built environment faces conditions that many surface materials were not designed for. High UV exposure accelerates the degradation of finishes. Significant temperature swings between day and night create thermal stresses. In a water-scarce country, surfaces that absorb moisture, harbour mould or demand chemical-intensive cleaning carry a maintenance burden that compounds over decades.
High-density porcelain tile performs particularly well against these pressures. It is non-porous, resistant to moisture and microbial growth, stable across a wide thermal range and durable enough to withstand years of everyday use. At Soshanguve Mall, for example, Marfil porcelain tiles were specified precisely for these characteristics: engineered for high-traffic areas, water resistant, and built for longevity in a space that has to perform every day, for years, under thousands of feet. Increasingly, architects and developers are specifying these performance characteristics from the outset, rather than treating them as secondary considerations after the design has been finalised.
Specification conversations are changing
Five years ago, a specification conversation would often begin with visual references: a mood board, a colour palette or a finish direction.
Today, we are regularly fielding questions much earlier in the decision-making process.
Architects want to know about porosity before committing to a wet-area application. Homeowners ask how a stone-look porcelain tile will perform through a Cape winter. Hospitality developers ask about slip resistance, maintenance requirements and replacement cycles before they ask about colour.
That shift reflects a broader understanding that surface specification is no longer simply a design decision. It is a long-term asset decision.
Looking at whole-life value
As the property and construction sector increasingly adopts whole-life thinking, the same approach should apply to material selection. The question is no longer simply which surface is most affordable today, but which will deliver the greatest value over the expected life of the building.
A surface that requires resealing every few years or replacement within a decade carries a very different lifetime cost to one that performs consistently for decades. Increasingly, sustainability and commercial value point to the same conclusion: specify well, specify once.
Most clients that visit our showroom are either looking for a specific colour, size, tile, vinyl or engineered oak. They generally bring in a picture to show us the look that they are going for within their homes.
We always explain the pros and cons of the product, but ultimately, it’s a decision the client must make. For longevity and almost no maintenance, the choice would always be tiles.
Vinyl is also low maintenance if the correct maintenance plan is followed.
Engineered oak flooring is extremely popular now, there is maintenance that needs to happen every few years, a sand and varnish/stain but other than that if the correct maintenance plan is followed, the floors will last a long time.
Water-wise design extends beyond plumbing
Surface selection also plays an important role in resource efficiency.
Porous materials such as unsealed natural stone, cement-based tiles and some terracotta finishes require regular sealing and more intensive cleaning. Over the life of a building, those maintenance requirements translate into greater water and chemical use.
A non-porous porcelain surface, by contrast, requires minimal maintenance and can generally be cleaned using less water and fewer cleaning products. Combined with its longevity, that makes it a practical choice for a water-stressed country.
This is not an argument against natural stone, which remains a beautiful and appropriate material in many applications. Rather, it is an argument for matching material performance to the demands of the project.
Durability and design are no longer in tension
One of the most encouraging developments of the past decade is that sustainability no longer requires compromising on aesthetics.
Large-format stone-look porcelain surfaces deliver the warmth of travertine or the drama of marble without the porosity or maintenance demands. Textured finishes provide genuine slip resistance while remaining visually refined.
Good specification is about understanding not only what a surface will look like on installation day, but how it will perform five, ten and thirty years from now.
As the sustainability conversation continues to evolve, I believe durability deserves to sit alongside responsible manufacturing, environmental certification and resource efficiency as one of the industry’s most important measures of sustainability.
Because ultimately, the most sustainable surface isn’t simply the one with the strongest environmental credentials.
It’s the one that continues performing exactly as intended decades after it was installed.