The Green Building Council of Australia’s (GBCA) TRANSFORM 2024 conference saw a suite of built environment industry personalities congregate at the Hilton Sydney to discuss an array of pressing matters currently of large concern to the industry.

DAY 1

The underlying theme of the work of The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) dominated the early proceedings of day one. Via video link, Australian Tony Goldner, Executive Director of the TNFD, a market-led taskforce funded by participating G20 governments, outlined what the future looks like for the property sector in his keynote.

Goldner says the Taskforce will wholly influence the worldwide approach to nature and biodiversity.

“Science is telling us that the ability for nature to provide ecosystem services is now under incredible stress. We’ve breached six of the nine planetary boundaries. We have to start thinking about nature as a risk management issue,” he says.

“Building back the resilience of nature as the science tells us we have to do is a transformational opportunity for entrepreneurs, businesses and investors, who can create and scale opportunities to provide new bio-based materials products and business models into a circular economy.”

Weighing up the keynote delivered by Goldner, EY Oceania Partner Alexandra Banks believes immense upheaval lies on the horizon for the built environment as we know it.

“A nature-positive economy is one where we are living in harmony with nature. What does the property sector look like in that future state? It doesn't look like it does today,” she says.

“The built environment is going to continue to be part of society as we move forward but the reality is that the relationship that we have with nature needs to change. We need to move to a much more regenerative model and obviously with that transformation comes incredible opportunities and I'm really excited about that.”

“What does the property sector look like there? How ready is your organisation to be part of that sector in the future, and what can you do to contribute to that? The sooner you start thinking about this, if you haven't already started, is to talk to scientists, talk to indigenous people, and talk to your communities. They will tell you where there is important nature, that's precious to them, and that's what we need to be focusing on.”

The Leaders Panel, regarded by GBCA CEO Davina Rooney as a crowd favourite, homed in on shifting mindsets and organisations to drive urgent and lasting change. Discussing the likes of decarbonisation strategy and gender equality, some of Australia’s foremost property and infrastructure experts gave their thoughts on what is required for change.

Speaking on Airbridge, a company she currently Chairs, Infrastructure WA Chair Nicole Lockwood outlined the cost-first mindsets that currently dominate the property industry.

“We've got a carbon capturing utilisation startup. We can take an emission, we can put it into a solution, and we can turn it into a product that can be used as an input for other production, and we can’t get an industry partner to take us on, because in their mind the response is ‘oh, how do I make money outta your tech?’”

“Unfortunately, that's where government is important because unless there's rules or sticks and or carrots that make these sorts of changes palatable to the mainstream market. We are bashing on a door that's just not opening.

“The reality is we shouldn't be waiting for the rest of the world to push us through the door. We should be opening the door ourselves.”

Dexus’ Executive General Manager, Funds Management, Deborah Coakley gave a resounding address when discussing the recent findings made by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, indicating there is much work to be done in the property industry before it is regarded as truly equal.

“We can all dig into the detail and understand what the parts of that report are and why certain things are, but it doesn't really matter. What came out of that report for me is how people felt and they felt really let down,” she says.

“I would encourage you to get involved in that conversation because we need to bring about change in our organisations. We need to invest really heavily in making our industry attractive for students who are considering what they're gonna study. We really need fresh thinking and fresh people coming into our industry and we won't do that if we look like we’re behind.”

The conclusion of that conversation brought a new panel, titled How to do better with what we have – focus on existing buildings and retrofit. Built CEO Brett Mason sees retrofitting as an opportunity to reduce emissions and maximise existing assets.

“Commercial offices obviously are the most challenged part of the market at the moment. We've been looking at this spectre of having rafts of stranded commercial assets and it's been talked about, but now it's actually coming to fruition. We work in these buildings that can't get tenants or that don't quite stack up.

“Over 25 years, Built’s done a lot of complex building refurbs. And traditionally they've been a 100-year-old building like the Capella Hotel or the QVB. But now there's this growing cohort of 1960s and 1970s buildings that need something done. And we've started looking at it as: ‘well that they're at the end of their design life in a way, but they're at the end of their first useful life.’”

DAY 2

“We’ve locked up nature and tried to impose the built environment on nature rather than connecting it to nature. You’re not here to conquer the environment, you’re here to be with it,” notes First Nations design specialist Rowena Welsh-Jarrett

Let’s start treating Aboriginal knowledge and cultural heritage as “vital technical elements of the built environment” Rowena suggested. We have songlines, laid down by Aboriginal ancestors more than 65,000 years ago, that are “part of the fabric of Australia” that we can amplify in all our developments, says architect Jack Gillmer.

Australia is made up of 300 nations across Australia that are connected by a “common thread” – and this thread is a cultural system centred in Country, Yerrabingin’s Christian Hampson notes. Country is the code that unlocks the largest and oldest environmental database in the world. It has millions of authors, rich with wisdom, and a story that continues to grow with each new generation, Hampson says.

How do we read this code and amplify this powerful language of Country to create a better collective future? We start by “being good ancestors,” said Anahera Rawiri (Ngāti Whātua). The Principal of Kaihautū, Jasmax joined us from Aotearoa New Zealand. “We have a duty and a responsibility to the next generation – Te Āpōpōtanga – to ensure that their lives are better” than those that went before, she says.

For more information, go to https://gbcatransform.org.au/

Image: GBCA

Jarrod Reedie

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