Lizette Swanevelder

Lizette Swanevelder abides by a philosophy that if she can 'lead the way in showing people how to protect the environment, then collectively and through our own individual actions, we can make a greater impact to humankind and the earth.' As CEO of Global GreenTag Africa, Lizette has been an exemplar leader in educating construction and design professionals and supporting manufacturers looking to expand their businesses. Her qualifications include Exemplar Global Environmental Management Systems Lead Auditor certification, supporting her work in sustainability and environmental compliance.

Lizette broke new ground in 2009, launching the first Global GreenTag operation outside of Australia in South Africa when the company was Ecospecifier Global GreenTag. Lizette was already part of the Building Council of South Africa (GBCSA) Technical Working Group Committee to develop the Green Star Rating Tool for Interiors Fit-Out tool. She famously took the lead also to help usher in the world's first, third party, green building product rating system for South Africa. This was at a time when the focus on 'green' was a relatively new and unfamiliar phenomena in South Africa's built environment industries, product greenwashing was rife and the marketplace, competitive.

Since then, Lizette has been on a mission to raise greater awareness for the Global GreenTag Product Certification Standard. She has been actively involved in the growth of marketing activities for Global GreenTag International; she has been helping to educate building and cleaning industries about green product certification, raising awareness about the business and ethical pitfalls of greenwashing, and successfully bringing on board an impressive list of South African product manufacturers with world leading examples of sustainable, product lines now certified by Global GreenTag.

Lizette has continued to work closely with various Associations and Institutes. These include The Cape Institute for Architecture (CIfA), The Society of Architects, Planners, Engineers & Surveyors (APES), The Association of South African Quantity Surveyors (ASAQS), Western Cape Property Development Forum (WCPDF), Urban Design Institute of South Africa (UDISA), Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) and hosting a monthly forum for the Winelands Built Environment Professionals Group (WBEP).

Highly committed to social upliftment through greening and sustainable development, at a personal level, Lizette is actively involved with non-profit organisations that support these interventions, such as Green Communities, which promotes sustainable urban green living environments for low-income housing settlements.

Lizette's leadership in the sustainability space also has been recognised in the South African market.

In 2021, under her leadership, Global GreenTag Africa was named a finalist in the 2021 Eco- Logic Awards for the ECO-INNOVATION AWARD category. Lizette was nominated as was one of the top 100 women in the Mail & Guardian Woman's Book of South Africa in the Environmental category. She received a certificate of merit for the Biodiversity Award at the 2014 Eco-Logic Awards hosted by SABC 3 and Enviropaedia for the greening of 200 gardens in the Witsand, Atlantis informal settlement and also won the 2015 Mail & Guardian Greening the Future award in the Communities for Climate Change category.