Opportunities for strata apartments in Melbourne
The Electrifying Apartment Buildings Program in Melbourne is calling for expressions of interest to electrify. Up to 10 medium and high-rise strata titled apartment buildings will be provided with grants to owner’s corporations to carry out energy efficiency upgrades and work to slash common area energy bills.
The initiative is a joint initiative of the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and the City of Melbourne. The program will offer electrification feasibility studies, NABERS energy ratings, and energy opportunity assessments.
Melbourne Lord Mayor, Nick Reece said: “Four out of five City of Melbourne residents live in apartments. It’s easy enough for homeowners to go electric, but when you live in a building with 100 owners, it’s 100 times harder!”
“We’re doing everything we can to get off the gas in Melbourne, and we want to make sure all our residents can do their bit too.” Applications close 26 July.
British Council grants for Australian UK alumni
The British Council has today opened applications for its Alumni UK Grant Programme, which will offer international UK alumni who have completed at least one term of study at a UK institution. This year, grants for Australia will focus exclusively on climate action and sustainability, with recipients to receive up to £5,000 ($A 9600 ) “to turn climate action ideas into reality”. Projects can be new or scaling of an existing one and can be implemented in 5-6 months. Applications close 3 August.
Aware Super firm invests in German student housing
Australian superannuation manager Aware Super is partnering with student accommodation providers Tribera to own and operate German student housing assets, targeting a portfolio of more than €1billion (A$1.6 billion) of investment capacity.
The partnership will include owning and operating “high quality student housing assets” across German cities including Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, and Frankfurt. The providers will exclusively provide the asset, property and development management services.
The providers were acquired by majority share by Macquarie Asset Management in July 2025 and currently manage 11,000 beds across eight European countries.
Aware Super head of international and senior portfolio manager for property in the UK Mathieu Elshout said the student accommodation market in Germany was a “structural opportunity” with “strong and growing demand” but significant undersupply, and the partnership will help it diversify its portfolio both into continental Europe but also in a new alternative sector. He said there was “strong long-term, risk-adjusted returns” for its members.
Australasian Reporting Awards reveal the cream of the crop
ESG reporting expert Marie-Louise ter Beek, said this week she was highly impressed by
“the incredibly high standard of gold reporting recipients in the 2026 ARA Sustainability reporting awards in which she was an adjudicator, noting Charter Hall, Sunway Construction Group Berhad, Wesfarmers and sustainability report of the year recipient CLP Group, “one of the largest investor-owned power businesses in Asia Pacific” according to World Benchmarking Alliance.
NT government averts eyes from LNG poisoning
Research and advocacy not-for-profit Climate Integrity has obtained documents under the (freedom of) Information Act 2002 revealing that the Northern Territory government has been aware that residents living near liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants have been exposed to dangerous amounts of toxic pollution – yet failed to act for almost two years.
The documents show that the Medical Advisory Committee (MAC) for the Royal Darwin Hospital and Palmerston Regional Hospital wrote to the Chief Minister, Lia Finocchiaro, in September 2024, that INPEX’s Ichthys LNG plant was “emitting dangerous amounts of toxic pollution and are not being held accountable”. The letter said the residents would have higher rates of asthma, pregnancy complications, birth defects, cancers, kidney and heart disease from exposure.
Despite this, the government took no action against Santos, which also owns LNG plants or INPEX, until recently, when it agreed it would monitor volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including the known carcinogen benzene. The World Health Organisation advises “no safe level of [benzene] exposure can be recommended” to humans, but the INPEX plant was found to emit 11,000 tonnes of VOCs at the Ichthys plant and was also found to systematically underestimate its emissions.
Jobs
The City of Perth has appointed Nic Brunsdon as its new city architect. Brunsdon runs his own architecture firm, as well as co-founded Spacemarket, a company that activates “forgotten, unloved, in between use” spaces. The council said Brunsdon has extensive experience in delivering housing, cultural and hospitality projects and transforming underutilised buildings and vacant spaces into thriving hubs and will help it create more activated, welcoming and dynamic places across the city.
