There’s never been a better time to focus on social value and sustainability. Don’t miss a brilliant lunchtime event tomorrow (Tuesday)
I’ve just jumped off our final Zoom briefing for our event tomorrow at Greenhouse, and if you’re coming tomorrow, you are going to be so impressed by the incredibly talented people we’ve been lucky enough to assemble. These are the people who care – a lot – about other people and through their work in the built environment bring the most creative, intellectual, technical and academic powers to bear on the outcomes.
Besides, could there be a better time to talk about social value, sustainability and climate change? Because if not now, with a thumping victory for the only major party that’s likely to take this stuff seriously, when?
OK, 20 maybe 30 years ago would have been better – but now is all we have.
In Australia, we just removed some of the biggest hurdles and barriers to rapid transformation. The naysayers who hide behind their lack of scientific qualifications to doubt climate change, who want to silence the Voice and Welcome to Country, who want an anti-woke agenda to make disrespect and segregation great again, have been put to the test in the election we are so privileged to have been part of.
We will say no more on that negative score and take our cue from newly re-elected PM Anthony Albanese who, as he was about to deliver his victory speech, hushed the boos for opposition leader Peter Dutton and called for respect and courtesy.
So enough said.
Moving on to the exciting work, we are so, so lucky to be involved in. This brilliant sustainability industry is now unshackled, fully. No more excuses about the possibility of a new government rolling back the gains the way Tony Abbott did. And we will not hesitate to apply all the pressure we can to Mr Albanese and his government to complete what is still left undone on climate and sustainability.
With the kind of majority the Australian Labor Party has just achieved, he has no excuse not to risk a bit of offence to the one sector that fully deserves it, still – the fossil fuel industry, that has kept him knocking back the stronger environment laws that we have been promised. Tanya Plibersek, if you are still the environment minister in the new ministerial lineup, we’ll have your back.
The built environment knows it can have an enormous impact on many of our ambitions.
In our session on Tuesday, we will zero in on how it can influence outcomes on social value, connectivity and fighting the scourge of the loneliness epidemic, now affecting one in three people, up from four, Professor Xiaoqi Feng said.
Kellie Payne of Bates Smart said blue zones designed 100 years ago may not work on the humans of today. We need wonder, early formed habits that gently nudge people into what is good for them, not necessarily what they find easy.
Petie Walker from Stockland, in a one-on-one chat with me, will scroll through the challenges of how to measure social impact and the framework that her team has just completed after two years of work. And she’ll let us in on the early plans for the Waterloo redevelopment.
Gabrielle McMillan has thousands of surveys and thousands of clients, mostly in office buildings, who tell her company, Equiem, their most successful social engagement program to get people back to the office!