Seven ways to scale up sustainability
25 Mar 2022
To go further and faster, we need sustainability at scale. Here are seven examples showcased at TRANSFORM that have gained awards and applause…
1. Frasers Property Australia shares its knowledge
In an example of radical collaboration, to achieve the world’s first Living Building Challenge rating for a retail centre, Burwood Brickworks’ team spent 20,000 hours investigating products and materials, Frasers Property Australia’s CEO Anthony Boyd told our audience. The resulting Greensheet is a list of 1,400-plus materials that “could have been valuable intellectual property,” but which has much greater industry impact as a shared resource.
2. EY demands green tenancies
Selina Short, EY’s Managing Partner for Oceania Real Estate, Hospitality and Construction, came at sustainability at scale from the perspective of a large tenant with more than 400,000 employees around the world. EY’s new green lease policy will soon require landlords to sign up for a Science-Based Target. “We will enter a period where, if the owner of the building can’t make that commitment, we will not move into the building,” Selina said.
3. Stockland reimagines de-fit waste
Stockland is trialling its own leasing model that aims to reduce the 10-15 tonnes of de-fit waste generated for every 150 sqm tenancy, said Sustainability Manager Katherine Featherstone. Stockland has developed a database of reusable fitout materials to help its tenant customers reduce costs and their environmental footprint at the same time.
4. Level Crossing Removals Project grows its leaders
Future Green Leader for 2022, Dev Chandraratne, gained a round of applause for her work as lead Sustainability Advisor on the Level Crossing Removals Project in Melbourne. Dev drove the Green Star rating process for Reservoir station, which was the first 5 Star Green Star As Built train station in Australia. She has now set her sights on a 6 Star Green Star rating for Coburg Station. Both stations have achieved outstanding sustainability results, including a 40% reduction in emissions and 90% reduction in water use.
5. Woolworths dives deep into data
At its peak, Woolworths Group used 1% of electricity generated in Australia, noted the company’s Senior Manager for Climate Change Phil Senn. Since then, Woolworths has invested significant capital in energy efficiency programs as it works towards net zero by 2050. Woolworths developed its own in-house energy management centre which monitors 1.2 million data points across 1,100 supermarkets in real time. As soon as an irregularity is spotted, the centre can send in its specialists to resolve it.
6. Lendlease sets a market challenge
Lendlease – which is targeting “absolute zero” by 2040 – is driving market transformation by “strongly encouraging” all its civil contractors and suppliers to make the switch to B5 biodiesel, Australian CEO Dale Connor said. The endgame is to phase out diesel entirely, but for now, Lendlease’s position lays down a “market challenge,” Dale noted, that may be the impetus we need to support B5 manufacturing Down Under.
7. Officeworks starts new conversations with customers
“The majority of Australians want to make sustainable choices,” said Officeworks’ Head of ESG Ryan Swenson. But they want those choices to be easy and affordable. Officeworks is doing just that, and sales of its Officeworks’ sustainable product range – which now amounts to more than 2,000 items – is growing at three times the rate of the standard product range.