17 May 2012 – Leigh Holford has been appointed a consultant, sustainability and climate change with consultants Manidis Roberts, based in the Brisbane office.
Ms Holford comes from five years with with Happold Consulting in the UK, where she delivered a sustainability governance framework for the Olympic Park Legacy Company and worked on various land use and transport strategic projects in Detroit, Tanzania and Mozambique. She previously worked for PB in Australia. Her background includes a Masters in Environment and Sustainable Development.
In Brisbane Ms Holford will focus on the climate risk and resilience work, in particular working with Green Cross Australia to deliver its new resilience planning tool which would be used by developers and local councils Australia wide.
Senior executive environment group Adam Davis said the work was funded by a grant provided to Green Cross by the federal and Queensland state governments after the 2011 Queensland floods. It would become part of the GBCA’s Communities tool expected to be released mid year.
Resilience planning, Mr Davis said, encompassed events such as inland flooding, bushfires, extreme heat events, cyclones and coastal inundation and storm surges.
Other work the company was engaged in revolved around infrastructure, especially rail and communications and stakeholder engagement.
On infrastructure, Mr Davis said: “The work is building on the work of the last couple of years trying to embed climate adaptation into the design and delivery of large infrastructure projects.
“There’s been a real push following the floods for this kind of work.”
The new appointment brought the sustainability team to seven, and the sustainability and climate change group to 20 in a company that now had 110 people in Sydney Brisbane and Melbourne.
Mr Davis said there was potential for more growth in the Melbourne office, but in the medium term.