About Planet Earth Prop

PEOPLE: About the Director

Justin Jones

BSc TRP (WITS) / MBA (GSB UCT / ESADE) / CPPC (TUKS)

Justin Jones registered Planet Earth Prop in 1998 as a Close Corporation to offer property development and solutioning services for the commercial, industrial, and residential property sectors in South and Southern Africa. Today, Planet Earth Prop has a successful track record in providing and implementing sustainable property development solutions.

A Town and Regional Planner by training, with a master’s degree in business administration, he has over 25 years of professional experience in the field of delivering property projects in the built environment, property development, development management, property analysis, sustainability research and engagement. He has worked extensively in Africa across a range of sectors assisting key clients with the delivery of retail, commercial and industrial property projects and the strategic sustainability of large-scale property precincts and renewable energy related to projects. Prior to working in Planet Earth Prop full time, Justin was a director at Kagiso Properties (Pty) Ltd, an empowered property development group involved in developing retail, commercial and industrial property projects in South Africa. Before that, he worked at Total (SA) the international petrochemical group in the roll out of new service stations and the upgrading of existing service stations.

Towards sustainability and helping clients meet Environmental Societal and Governance (ESG) goals and challenges, Justin is collaborating with entities in the following areas – energy efficiency, alternative energies and 4iR technologies (see below collaborating entities) as they apply to property as well as other sectors.

Planet Earth Prop is a boutique property / real estate consulting entity that draws from many years of experience and skill in the delivery of property projects in South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, and Mozambique in the property sectors of Petrol Stations, Retail, Office, Industrial and Residential.

Planet Earth Prop also has a vast experience in nodal improvement projects for municipalities and corporate precincts, which includes City Improvement District establishment and management, property economics, place making and property research.

Our mission

‘Solutioning’ in property development

While the simple definition of Solutioning, is ‘an action or process of solving a problem’, in the complex area of property development, especially within difficult jurisdictions, such as in Africa, the definition needs to be expanded upon.

Therefore, a more appropriate definition, as it applies to Solutioning within property development could be – the experiences, actions or processes utilised by a development manager in either the delivery of a property development project or the qualification of a proposed project for a specific development site.

In this expanded definition, it considers the critical importance of experience and insights when it comes to setting a vision for a project, what the brief should be and how to proceed to implement a proposed project.

We have had clients that have unrealistic preconceived ideas of a proposed project/s and these ideas are based on unrealistic expectation of financial return, or a type of vision for a project, in terms of scale or make up which does not fit a particular node or jurisdiction. Therefore, we pride ourselves in having the ability to save our clients’ money through the practice of Solutioning and we do not have any concern advising clients not to proceed with projects where is the possibility of excess risk. In short, Johannesburg is not New York, and Kumasi, in Ghana, is not Johannesburg.

Collaborating entities