In less than 12 months since we last spoke to global engineering firm AESG, the company has gone from kick starting its Australian operations, headed by Devan Valenti in Sydney and Douglas Sum in Melbourne, to a staff of 11 in Australia and more than 15 across Australia and Southeast Asia.
It’s pushed out the space needed for its Melbourne office, is actively looking for more staff and is about to import a façade access specialist who will bring high tech to the tough job of cleaning high rise windows with drones and robots.
On top of that, the company has notched up clients and relationships with the likes of Dexus, Cbus Property, Mirvac, 151 Property, Built, Investa, Kapitol Group and Multiplex.
A key opportunity, says the pair, has been to recognise that while some parts of the market are in retreat, there are areas that show no sign of slowing down. Wealthy private clients, for instance, wanting luxury apartments with complex tech innovation, green or otherwise or aesthetics. There’s the ever growing student accommodation sector keeping the workbook active and there’s also been work generated by the company’s loyal global client list.
Among its biggest inroads, however, has been in the Green Star and other environmental building ratings.
This is not a surprise. Devan’s past work leading the development of Green Star Buildings for the Green Building Council of Australia gives him a big advantage.
In addition, he’s brought into the team Deejan Ferrao, who “led the development of Green Star Performance Version 2 over a three year program, including setting the stringent carbon targets”, Devan says. And alongside has been Arya D’Souza, who worked at the GBCA, and a new recruit, Kornchanok Napamorakot, an architect by qualification, who has been a star performer delivering multiple certifications, including WELL and Green Star.
“We’ve got very intimate knowledge of these rating tools, how they work and all the details,” he quips.
This has led to some great opportunities – among them securing the first 6 Star Green Star rating under the new Performance v2 rating tool for a building in Adelaide when just 5 Star had been expected, followed by 5 Stars across the client’s remaining portfolio.
With their intimate knowledge of Green Star tools, and the current transition from the “older” to “newer” tools happening in 2026, this puts them in a strong position to support clients through this process.
Devan says the company has brought some innovations to the work that made the achievements easier.
Among these a structured engagement program with key stakeholders who are usually left out of the equation when transformation is in play – property managers, facility managers and others from the supply chain for instance.
“A lot of times, property managers, for instance, are just told what to do, and you don’t have their buy in and commitment,” Devan says.
“But if you take them on that journey, they feel invested, they feel informed and that they’re contributing to a bigger program of works. They are ultimately the ones who drive outcomes.
“It really worked well. I think it’s one thing to getting agreement for sustainability outcomes and another to actually achieve them on the ground.
“If you don’t get their buy-in, it becomes difficult to get the things that you need from them – so all the building information we needed to implement policies and initiatives on site. “
But step one he says, is to ensure the team fully understands the long term strategic commitments made by the client. And then aligning the sustainability outcome with these.
“The Green Star certifications that we worked on were verified outcomes that aligned with those longer-term commitments.”
The team also dealt with so-called “ratings fatigue” where clients are overwhelmed with the many tools on the market, by consolidating all the tools in a coordinated strategy, leveraging efficacies.
It enables requirements and ultimately results to be communicated clearly with tenants, for instance, and becomes an opportunity for engagement, enabling benefits to be clearly pointed out.
In the realm of façade engineering, Douglas Sum, as technical director of facades in Australia, tackles the increasingly complex demands that seem to be generated by a mix of grand aesthetic ambitions and growing capacity to deliver them.
One client, for instance, wanted a legacy office building with a glass façade that curves inwards as well as outwards. This would require special moulds to be designed, and the special glass can only be sourced from overseas manufacturers in Germany, Spain and China.
And there’s the sustainability angle.
“Obviously, facades are really important for climate control and internal comfort, and people can get off the shelf models.”
But when the demands are complex, Douglas likes to “sit down close with the architect and the client and to investigate or brainstorm how to ‘polish’ the details of the façade.”
Because it’s in the details that the final vision can be achieved.
“This is what I am really passionate about – working with the architect from the start of a project, a focus on every single detail. It can be so intense.”
A common problem is the engineer. “It’s very easy for them to say no, it won’t work for structural or performance issues.”
But that doesn’t gel with Douglas; he’s determined to get aesthetic value alongside structural integrity and thermal performance.
Too often there’s a tendency to use “performance based solutions” by throwing the problem at the contractors and (essentially) walking away.
“It’s too easy to pass on the problem; to say it’s your responsibility,” he says. This comes from a lack of detail in the design phase; it opens up the risk profile, he says.
But on top of design comes the challenge of managing the maintenance of tall façades. Douglas is looking forward to the arrival of a specialist in this field from one of the company’s offshore offices who has skills in robotic and drone technology.
It’s just part of the attention to detail, Douglas says.
And something that perfectly blends with Devan’s creative solutions to achieve better sustainability outcomes.
The story was first published on The Green List. If you are interested in being featured on TGL, please contact hello@thegreenlist.com.au or call 02 808 42291.