Cape Town, South Africa

Initiating a Stakeholder-led Transition in Cape Town

Cape Town is located in the Western Cape province, at the south-western tip of the African continent, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Indian Ocean to the south. The Western Cape is renowned for its rich biodiversity, featuring mountains, valleys, and extensive beaches. The region has a Mediterranean climate, with cold winters and hot summers. At the heart of this region lies Cape Town, the country’s oldest city and home to nearly two-thirds of the Western Cape's population. With almost five million inhabitants, Cape Town is South Africa’s second-largest economic centre and second most populous city after Johannesburg.

The City of Cape Town has shown ambition in steering the transition towards a more equitable and climate-friendly urban future. This is evident in its commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, its Climate Change Action Plan, and its active participation in global city networks. Despite these policies and initiatives, progress in transforming the spatial and economic patterns of urban development has been slow, perpetuating social divisions and economic hardship.

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Cape Town faces a severe housing shortage, driven by rapid urbanisation and population growth. This issue is further exacerbated by socio-spatial inequalities and historical injustices. The spatial divisions imposed during the colonial and apartheid eras continue to shape the city’s landscape, reinforcing patterns of segregation and unequal access to the advantages of urban agglomeration. These divisions result in stark disparities in living conditions, access to education and economic opportunities, and overall quality of life. Many Cape Town residents lack access to adequate housing, quality education, healthcare and reliable, affordable public transport. It is crucial to address these needs, primarily by providing safe, accessible and affordable housing, regardless of the construction materials used.

Climate change poses major challenges to Cape Town, including an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as droughts, heavy rainfall and heatwaves. These challenges are compounded by severe water scarcity and an increased risk of bush and shack fires. The city’s coastal location further exposes it to coastal erosion and storm surges, while changing rainfall patterns endanger food security and biodiversity in the Cape Floral region. Over the past decade, Cape Town has faced severe droughts due to a significant reduction in rainfall, and it is projected to undergo above-average increases in both annual and maximum temperatures. The city has implemented several programmes to support climate change adaptation, mitigation, and resilience, including the Cape Town Climate Change Action Plan. However, these initiatives are not fully integrated with the city's other spatial and urban planning policies, which tend to focus on attracting investment by lowering barriers for private-sector developers and employing conventional building approaches to promote economic growth and job creation.

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Transitioning to a regenerative built environment in Cape Town requires reshaping how the city is built and lived in, so that socio-spatial justice, ecological restoration and climate resilience become mutually reinforcing outcomes. This approach confronts the legacy of apartheid-era spatial planning by supporting the development of inclusive, well-located and dignified human settlements, particularly by enabling regenerative self-build in the low-income housing market. At the same time, a regenerative transition prioritises bio-based, low-carbon Alternative Building Technologies (ABTs) that actively sequester carbon, designs circular supply chains that minimise waste and reuse materials, and enhances the city’s resilience to climate shocks while improving community well-being.

The ReBuilt roadmap for Cape Town identifies four regional opportunities that can generate momentum:

• empowering low-income builders, 
• leveraging the short-term rental market to catalyse a regenerative shift, 
• establishing incentives to accelerate innovation in material supply chains and
• integrating material transitions into education on the built environment

Three crosscutting findings emerge across these opportunities: first, institutional incumbency and centralised national regulation limit city-level action on ABTs and underscore the need for regulatory alignment; second, unlocking private-sector investment is essential for scaling ABT production and uptake, potentially through a dedicated financial instrument such as a Green Equity Fund; and third, moving beyond isolated pilot projects requires the removal of cost and compliance barriers so that regenerative, low-carbon materials can reach market scale. While significant barriers to transforming the built environment persist, engaging diverse stakeholders, fostering a shared vision and developing a common agenda for joint action through facilitated dialogue, as well as enhancing knowledge sharing and learning, can enable Cape Town and the Western Cape to progress towards a more regenerative and equitable future.

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The Cape Town Ropadmap can be found here.

‍The Cape Town case study is additionally supported by the Toni Piech Foundation. See News Section