City of Sydney appoints Anna Mitchell as senior sustainability strategist

Anna Mitchell has been appointed to the new role of senior sustainability strategist at the City of Sydney.

As part of the sustainability strategy team, Ms Mitchell will undertakes strategic planning, project and program development, and advocacy work to ensure the City of Sydney delivers on the targets outlined in its Sustainable Sydney 2030 plan.

Ms Mitchell will lead the development of an environmental strategy for the city, which will draw together data and insights from the city’s suite of environmental master plans and sustainability programs.

The City of Sydney was selected as a participant in the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program in December 2014, and Ms Mitchell is also establishing the program in advance of the appointment of a chief resilience officer later this year.

Speaking to The Fifth Estate via email, Ms Mitchell said the 100 Resilient Cities initiative would involve developing a “Sydney resilience strategy”.

“The strategy will be developed not solely by City of Sydney, but in collaboration with government, community and business stakeholders from across the metropolitan area, and supported by the global 100 Resilient Cities network,” she said.

“[It] will identify innovative solutions to complex issues that will be identified as a result of a comprehensive consultation process. These issues may arise from a combination of environmental, social, cultural, and economic factors.

“The Strategy development process will commence once the chief resilience officer is appointed – this position is due to be advertised shortly.”

Ms Mitchell said she would focus on the overarching environmental strategy, which would involve consultation with the property sector, “but the broader team will be revising the waste strategy and developing a suite of sector sustainability plans”.

The first of the sector plans has just been completed, in collaboration with C40 – a Residential Apartment Sustainability Plan – “a plan to improve environmental performance in new and existing apartment buildings”.

The plan is going to council this week and is available to view here.

Before joining City of Sydney, Ms Mitchell was executive manager sustainability in the Commonwealth Bank’s corporate responsibility team, where she produced the bank’s annual sustainability report and led cross-business unit projects addressing environmental, social and governance issues.

She has also worked for state government and a consultancy firm in sustainability and community engagement roles.