The Urban Green File is a South African trade journal which focuses on the development of the urban environment.
It's mission is to give coverage to environmental issues, largely in the urban environment, in various fields and across a number of disciplines. Sustainability is our focus.
The focus of this multi-disciplinary journal has broadened as the years have gone by but the core objective has remained the same: the journal, as its name implies, deals with environmental (green) issues, largely in the urban environment. These include energy and water conservation and waste management in buildings - we cover at least one 'green building' in each issue and this is becoming a much easier task because the awareness of the need to conserve resources is certainly growing amongst architectural and other building professionals, and a number of enlightened property developers and owners have come to the fore, over the past few years. Restoration and adaptive reuse of buildings is also covered, along with Environmental Management Systems for buildings.
The journal looks at waste management and recycling projects - and this aspect is emphasised in a regular feature entitled: 'words on waste'. Water purification and provision, and the conservation and restoration of urban rivers and wetlands is another theme, along with rehabilitation of mines, pipeline servitudes, road embankments and degraded sites. Erosion control and air and soil pollution are dealt with in news items and feature articles.
The journal encourages ecologically sound, indigenous landscaping and our indigenous 'tree of the issue', which involves the participation of those in the landscaping/horticultural industry, has been a very popular feature. We write regularly about invasive alien plant species and biological control measures for these species. Urban open space, in the form of parks, squares, nature reserves and golf courses is of vital importance to the journal. We write about Environmental Impact Assessments, Environmental Management Plans for the construction of projects, and Environmental Management Systems in industries and corporations, with the objective of achieving ISO 14001 certification. Aesthetics and visual impact are environmental issues. We also look at urban renewal issues, high density affordable housing and other social projects aimed at community development and poverty alleviation. People are part of the environment.
We encourage readership participation in the form of letters. In our events column we provide information on conferences and symposia in the environmental field, while our UpFront news items cover a broad range of environmental projects and issues. We do technical book reviews. The editorial comment at the start of each issue often tackles a contentious subject such as threats to indigenous plants in the wild, the eradication of invasive alien plant species, alternative sources of energy, the importance of rehabilitating and saving wetlands and the need to conserve our grasslands against the threat of development.
