Everything, everywhere, all at once

Two days before TRANSFORM 2023 kicked off in Sydney last week, the world’s leading climate scientists released the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report with a “final warning”.

If seven years of effort, hundreds of experts and thousands of pages of documentation can be distilled into one sentence, it’s UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call to arms: “Our world needs climate action on all fronts – everything, everywhere, all at once.”

This call to arms echoed in every session of TRANSFORM 2023 and we certainly covered a lot of ground – from green finance to the future of the grid, circular economy to embodied carbon, designing with Country to building with nature.

Each year our industry’s agenda gets more ambitious. The scale of the multi-dimensional challenge and the speed at which we must move are undeniably daunting – and we could see this written on our audience’s faces.

Unlike the characters in the Oscar-winning tale of the multiverse, none of us are omnipresent. So how on earth do we do “everything, everywhere, all at once”?

It’s the GBCA’s job to translate the latest science and global megatrends, the current research and recent policy shifts into practical pathways so our industry can do what you do best.

A perfect example of this is our latest discussion paper, Building with Nature 2.0, which we launched last week at TRANSFORM.

The 2022 State of the Environment report paints a bleak picture. Over the last 200 years Australia has suffered the largest documented decline in biodiversity of any continent. Our new discussion paper suggests an industry-wide response.

Building with Nature 2.0 consolidates the work we began in 2018. We examine the global megatrends and shifting policy landscape, synthesise the latest evidence and leading opinions, and scrutinise the emerging frameworks that guide financial decision-making.

We look at Green Star’s areas of influence and how we can align those with industry priorities. Our next step is to develop a Nature Roadmap – in much the same way we established a Climate Positive Roadmap to direct the built environment’s decarbonisation efforts.

Building with nature is just one of the hard but necessary conversations held on TRANSFORM’s stage and in every single break.

Each TRANSFORM participant could see that capital markets are moving in the right direction. Finance and government policy are starting to line up. Consumers are demanding change. Lighthouse projects are challenging best practice and product manufacturers are stepping up to the plate.

Rather than worrying about the whirling multiverse of endless possibilities, we can continue to synchronise our steps and choose to walk the best path for our industry, our nation and our planet. That's how we'll achieve everything, everywhere, all at once.