Social impact, ethical practices and economic value are headlines of an expanding sustainability agenda, says the Supply Chain Sustainability School’s chief executive officer Robin Mellon.

Every business or service has a supply chain, whether you’re selling coffee, clothing or construction materials. In some cases, these supply chains are quite simple. But increasingly, especially in large industries like construction, supply chains are complex and frequently inscrutable.

Mellon says Australia’s property and construction industry faces five main areas of supply chain risk: governmental, regulatory, economic, reputational and environmental.

“Each of those risks will ebb and flow depending on your business, but as the scope of sustainability continues to grow, so do the risks.”

Shifting community expectations, investor demand for transparency and increasing pressure on corporations to demonstrate good corporate citizenship are just some of the factors influencing supply chain sustainability, Mellon says.

“While in the past our industry was focused on environmental sustainability, today we are considering more social and economic factors,” he says. These include modern slavery, social value and economically-sustainable business models.

A recent survey of members of the Supply Chain Sustainability School found 52 per cent of respondents thought sustainability was a more important issue in their businesses than it was 12 months ago, and 49 per cent have already begun to engage their suppliers earlier.

“Seventy-nine per cent of businesses now have a sustainability plan in place within their organisations. This may not mean much in itself, but compared with five or 10 years ago, this is a massive shift,” Mellon says.
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A new worldwide guidance standard for sustainable procurement, ISO20400, was released in June 2017 and broadens the definition of ‘sustainable procurement’ to include economic and social factors, alongside the environmental. Mellon says the standard’s impact “will be felt through big business first, but will trickle down to all small businesses through our supply chains over time”.

Issues like modern slavery, which “few people were talking about five years ago” are starting to dominate discussions, he adds.

“There’s a massive and immediate reputational risk involved in discovering that the materials in your building were created through forced labour, for example.”

The 2016 Global Slavery Index estimated that 45.8 million people in 167 countries are in some form of modern slavery, a term that includes debt bondage, forced labour and human trafficking. An inquiry is underway into whether the Australian Government should establish a Modern Slavery Act, similar to that established in the United Kingdom in 2015 which requires companies with a turnover of more than AU$59 million to report on their compliance annually.

Big business in Australia is already backing the introduction of an Act, and Mellon says it will “drive changes in both business and personal behaviours”.

“When large companies with influence over extensive supply chains make changes, people listen. Whether we are talking about carbon, certification of materials or modern slavery, a large company can change an entire supply chain in one move.”

Mellon says he’s inspired by the work of some industry leaders, who are embedding social value into their decision making. He points to Mirvac, which surveys its suppliers annually – “whether they are providing toilet paper or legal services” – to ensure each meets its vendor code of conduct and aligns with the company’s broader social impact agenda.

“Big organisations wanting to include social value in their decision making have a huge ability to change things for the better,” he adds.

Mirvac’s Song Café in Sydney’s 200 George Street, which operates as a social enterprise with all profits supporting YWCA initiatives, demonstrates the social impact the industry can make on supply chains and local communities, he says.

Mellon also points to the work of John Holland, which is currently rewriting its sustainability strategy in light of the new international standard and best practice procurement examples, and which insists that every preferred supplier be a member of the Australian Supply Chain Sustainability School “so that everyone involved in a project can be speaking the same language”.

In the instant information age, any oversight, irresponsibility or malpractice down the line can be exposed and shared on social media in the blink of an eye. In this environment, companies can’t afford to be complacent, Mellon says.

His message is simple: “You can’t flip a switch and go from knowing nothing about sustainability in your supply chain to knowing everything. It’s a journey – and one we are all on. But there is free information out there to help people upskill – about energy and carbon, waste, biodiversity, sustainable procurement or modern slavery. If you learn just one thing a month, soon you’ll know a whole lot more.”

Alexander Symes and Joanne Jakovich from Big World Homes have spent years developing the prototype of their flat-packed sustainable home, which launched last September in Sydney. At the small scale, they say it’s “a transitional housing product that aims to bridge the gap between renting and owning”. At the large scale it could be “one of the most progressive, socially oriented, community-driven housing projects Australia has ever seen”.

Whichever it is, I’ve long had a fascination with the tiny home movement and was happy to provide funding through their Chuffed campaign to help get this project started (although, to be clear, I have no financial interest in the Big World Homes business; I just admire what they’re doing). After reading dozens of books on small living, tiny homes, micro-green and nano-houses, it’s great to see reality coming to life.
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So when the chance arose, early this year, to stay in the prototype home in its leafy Sydney suburb resting place of Leichardt, I jumped. Three days / two nights in the first Big World Home would give me an opportunity to put the place through its paces, experience the ‘small living / big life’ feeling, and provide feedback to inform the next version.

Oh, and just to liven things up (and since January is school holidays) I took my sons with me – Ed (Edward, then aged 7¾) and Jet (James, then aged 6¼). Let’s see how this 13.75 square metre flat-pack home copes with a sustainability wonk and two energetic children! Here are the five things that I learned:
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1. The less stuff you have, the less there is to clutter the place up or put away
This might be obvious, but I could never have squeezed all the ‘stuff’ from my apartment into this home. That’s not the idea. This is not the home for people with lots of shoes, dozens of suits or a collection of vintage typewriters. This is, however, the perfect place for people with simple wardrobes and unpretentious furnishings, and for those who tend to put something away (toys, books, clothes) before they get the next thing out. I spent years living above a single car garage in Paddington, and they were wonderfully economical years because I didn’t have much room to put ‘stuff’ and so didn’t buy much. This home has one big wall with shelves and hangers onto which I could have squeezed my book collection, plants in pots, simple clothes, and toys for my sons, and that was enough.

​2. Good design is everything
I’ve experienced roomy 50m2 apartments and cramped 100m2 units; it felt like Big World Homes have made an incredible effort to marry beauty, functionality, flexibility and style. The walls and shelving system look beautiful, and allow for display of plants, pictures or books, but are flexible according to occupants’ needs. As always with small areas, lighting is key; windows allow lots of daylight in, light-coloured interiors make it feel spacious, and ceiling LEDs allow for pools of light where needed. It takes two people working with a drill and a mallet a weekend to assemble the 39 structural-thermal-waterproof integrated panels, and since each panel weighs only 15kg it is lightweight and safe to handle; there’s just a few screws to fix into pre-drilled holes. The engineered polycarbonate exterior conceals a good, thick layer of insulation, with the plywood interior structure providing the great look and feel of wood. Or in technical terms, the walls and ceiling are made from 10mm fluted polycarbonate Danpalon sheet, 9mm vented air gap, 40mm high-density Polyisocyanurate Insulation that’s silver-backed on both sides, and 9mm Hoop Pine plywood sheet internal finish which altogether achieves an R rating of 2.0. Got it?

​3. Small really is sustainable
So not only is this home made from the minimum of materials, but the roof is covered with 1.5kW of photovoltaic panels which feed the batteries beneath the home. The complex-looking but surprisingly simple ‘power panel’ converts the stored energy into a useable form for appliances, lights and pumps. Since this is uncovered, I could explain to the boys how this worked, and they found this logical rather than bewildering. The gutters around the sloping roof capture rainfall, and the prototype 1,400 litre underfloor water tank is large enough to provide a week or two of water-conscious washing up, showers, toilet flushing and laundry, and can be topped up or resized to suit your usage. The composting toilet is simple, and the shower cubicle big enough for my six foot one inch frame, with small gas cylinders feeding the hot water and stovetop systems. So, all in all, it should be possible to live pretty much off-grid. There’s one door at the ‘back’ and one along the side, onto which veranda areas can be built, so airflow was excellent as soon as there was any wind. The daytimes were warm, and the unit came to be as warm as the air, but an evening breeze and a single fan helped cool us.

​4. We need to manage our expectations about where we live
At a starting price of $80,000, Big World Homes are a great entry point in the market. If you can find the right location, this would be a good way to get your foot onto the ladder, and the sustainability features I’ve outlined will help keep running costs and utility bills at a minimum while you save. Perhaps it’s unreasonable to want a huge house in a fashionable suburb on a single salary, but it’s not out of reach to locate a Big World Home in the right place and work from there. Less is, after all, more affordable. Maybe it’s time to examine traditional housing finance models too?

5. Lego still hurts when you step on it in the dark in a tiny home – so step outside more
Going back to my original point, putting things away is vital. What made this experience so amazing was the chance to ‘discover a new suburb’, and the great playgrounds, parks, cafes and restaurants around Leichardt. Once you realise that your back garden can be enormous depending on where you’ve located, suddenly interior space starts to feel less important. There’s so much more to do out there once we step (carefully) outside.
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So, the big question: would I live here? Well, I can imagine using this as a stepping stone from renting to owning, having this as a granny flat or teenager retreat at the bottom of the garden, placing this on a hillside somewhere as a holiday cabin, or as medium-term emergency accommodation. I know this would have suited me just fine at periods through my twenties and thirties, but maybe not full-time with two kids. This does, however, offer a great, sustainable, affordable, comfortable solution for many different people at different times in their lives, so I’m hoping Big World Homes really will provide that ‘missing link’ in the housing market. We had fun, we learnt a lot; a great experience.

Recently I was fortunate to moderate a panel at the Sydney Architecture Festival entitled, appropriately enough, ‘Where does your stuff come from?’; the topic of one of my recent Sourceable articles and the core of my work leading the Supply Chain Sustainability School. Despite being the same day as the AFL Grand Final, the session drew a good crowd and promised to be an interesting exploration of the supply chains behind everything from foundations to furniture to fashions: http://www.sydneyarchitecturefestival.org/program/where-does-your-stuff-come-from

But what happened next was unexpected; whilst I thought I knew which direction the speakers and conversation would take, I was wrong. Each of the four panelists was asked to introduce themselves and outline what they do, what they’re passionate about, and why it would matter to them where their ‘stuff’ (materials, resources, skills etc.) comes from. Preliminary introductions unfolded smoothly. And then, surrounded by beautiful furniture and great minds, we disappeared into a fascinating world of stories. Stories of Aboriginal design, the links between sustainability, beauty, spirituality and function in boomerangs and buildings, heirloom products, handprinting and restorative development, and the development, evolution and skills behind the knowledge, routine and physical jobs around NSW.

Speaking in the session were designer, artist and film-maker Alison Page, architect and sustainable development advocate Caroline Pidcock, furniture design curator, storyteller and our host at the CULT showroom Richard Munao, and business strategist, design thinker and jobs-for-the-future advocate Tony Stephens. A gender-balanced panel – well played Sydney Architecture Festival!
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Alison outlined concepts of design from an Aboriginal perspective, noting the materials used, the traditions embraced and how communities each have a unique cultural identity and spirituality that needs to be reflected in the built environment. Caroline talked of handprinting; where a range of positive business impacts from best practice products to sustainability programs can balance an organisation’s footprint. Richard referenced the importance of authenticity and longevity in design, particularly in the creation and passing down of heirloom products and pieces. And Tony spoke of the importance of the skills and narratives within engineering, architectural and technical services here in NSW and the need to build on infrastructure investment domestically and expand internationally; whilst the Jobs for NSW initiative focuses on fast-growing SMEs and start-ups, the real ‘wicked problem’ is how to transition regional SMEs away from older industries and into newer ones. Their challenge is to create 150,000 new jobs in the four years to March 2019, and these need to be sustainable, lasting jobs.

The session also focused on the issue of beauty, and how we need a bit more of it in all our lives. I’ve said many times that the buildings we love will last forever; Sydney’s Bourke Street Public School, the Brisbane Arcade and Adelaide Town Hall aren’t just functional structures but places of beauty and inspiration, brimming with stories of their development and survival, and for this reason they will be maintained, repaired and truly loved.

With CULT’s stunning furniture and design around us, and conscious of Alison Page’s words about Aboriginal design blending function, beauty, spirituality and sustainability, we also examined increasingly popular rating tools such as the Living Future Institute Australia’s (LFIA’s) ‘Living Building Challenge’. LFIA Board member Caroline Pidcock explained how the design and architecture fraternity is embracing the concept of not only doing ‘less bad’ but developing buildings with a positive, regenerative impact. The Living Building Challenge recognises and rewards buildings around not only categories of their Place, Water, Energy and Materials use, but also themes of Health and Happiness, Equity and Beauty – including elements of Spirit, Inspiration and Education.
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And behind all of these themes were woven the stories – those stories of buildings we love, stories of materials and their sources, stories of crafts and traditions, and stories of history and heritage. The conclusion? That whether we’re talking developments, designs, dresses or desks, people are showing more and more interest, and attaching more and more value, to the stories behind their production.

Mass-produced items may be cheaper and easier to obtain, but there are rarely stories behind them; there is rarely a connection. Heritage pieces, crafted items, carefully sourced materials and truly sustainable developments hold more stories, and the market value of these is growing around Australia. More to the point, Australia’s ability to tell these stories (and to verify them) will stand us in increasingly good stead worldwide. The value of these stories lies in their ability to show the ‘provenance’ or chain of custody of the item or service, the demonstration of awareness of the supply chain, the emotional involvement which often outweighs any economic drawback, the knowledge that a higher quality product will last longer and therefore be a better long-term decision (“buy cheap, buy twice”), the awareness that something is line with our own inherent principles and, to be blunt about it, the ‘bragging rights’ that come with such a choice.
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So the panel, audience and I got to a conclusion, confirming that there is a growing demand for stories, beauty and quality, as well as a better blend of all three. As architect Richard Buckminster Fuller pointed out so accurately many decades ago, “When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.”

​The Supply Chain Sustainability School was launched in Australia in 2015 to raise sustainability knowledge and competency along construction and infrastructure supply chains. Here, Lucy Dixon talks to CEO Robin Mellon on how the School supports small-to-medium enterprises, providing e-learning, information and face-to-face training for construction and infrastructure suppliers, contractors and service providers.

Why do you think sustainability is important in the construction supply chain?
It’s funny how the term ‘sustainability’ means such different things to different people; if I asked you whether it was important for your organisation to have a ‘sustainable business model’, you’d say that it was essential. But for many people ‘sustainability’ is still a luxury, a nice-to-have, an extra or even an inconvenient chore. I think sustainability, in all its meanings, is about making sure that your organisation can sustain itself in the short-, medium- and long-terms. That includes using resources efficiently, maximising opportunities while minimising costs, managing risks properly and ensuring that your business is resilient and your supply chains aware. Environmental, social and economic sustainability are now becoming intertwined, so opportunities to manage each one in a better way must be seen as opportunities to do better business.
How are Australian construction companies embracing sustainability?
There are many Australian construction companies that are fully embracing sustainability, completing ‘World Leadership’ Green Star-certified (GBCA) buildings and communities, ‘Excellent’ Infrastructure Sustainability-rated (ISCA) projects, using Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA) and Global GreenTag-certified products and services, and accessing the multiple free resources offered by the Supply Chain Sustainability School. These are the best in the industry, such as Stockland with its sustainable diversified property leadership or John Holland with innovative high-performance engineering, construction and services solutions; such commitments to completing sustainable projects in sustainable communities within a sustainable business model will leave a lasting legacy. However there remains many large and small construction companies across Australia for whom sustainability is only a very small part of what they do, and within which sustainability is not seen as relevant to procurement teams, project managers or principals. Those are the organisations who will not have a resilient business model in ten years’ time.  

How can the construction industry use sustainability as a driver for innovation within the supply chain?
A sustainable organisation – one that is truly economically, environmentally and socially sustainable – is one that uses its supply chain as a catalyst for innovation. An informed organisation regularly looks along its entire supply chain for areas of opportunity (how can we be more efficient, more streamlined, more resilient?) and areas of risk (what could go wrong, harm us, damage our reputation, impact upon the environment, hurt us financially or, worst of all, injure our people?). So the desire to be more environmentally sustainable, using less resources for example, can become a driver for innovation; how can we achieve the same outcome using less materials with fewer touch points. The desire to be more socially sustainable, ensuring that modern slavery touches no link of your supply chain for example, can become a driver for innovation; how can we get the buy-in of every person, internal and external, to promise that levels of global slavery are reduced. Supply chains are becoming a point of strategic difference for organisations since they offer a change to reduce costs, risks, waste and environmental impact whilst increasing competitive advantage, knowledge and social benefit.
What can smaller construction product manufacturers/service providers do to ensure they don’t miss out on becoming part of a sustainable supply chain?
There are a few priorities here, centred around knowledge, control and time. To begin with, nobody is expecting smaller firms to be instant experts on sustainability themes, but they do need to demonstrate a basic awareness of the key issues. Since these basic building blocks of sustainability education are available for free on the Supply Chain Sustainability School website (www.supplychainschool.org.au) there are fewer and fewer excuses for not knowing what’s going on. There’s a wealth of free knowledge and diverse learning options available, with the school adding more every month. The school will help organisations find out what they know, what they don’t know, what they really should know, and how they can access more information. Secondly, small organisations often feel that while they have control over their own staff they have little sway over the multiple links through their supply chains. But as Sam Walton, founder of retail giant Walmart, said: “There is only one boss – the customer – and he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” Every small company has the ability to start asking questions; where things are made, and how; whether things are certified or verified, and if not why not; or whether companies around them have policies around vendor conduct, modern slavery or recycling of materials. So asking questions, and exercising as much control, influence and inspiration as possible to ensure supply chains become more sustainable is good. Ultimately, taking your business elsewhere may result in better triple bottom line outcomes. And finally, smaller businesses are not expected to be instant experts, but setting a target with a medium-term range will be a good way to encourage improvements over time. For example, committing to improve sustainability knowledge on set topics by the end of next year, with a few relevant metrics, would be a good starting point. Regular, frequent, small steps towards improved knowledge are so much easier, cheaper and less time-consuming than being forced to take large, sudden steps when government regulation or smarter markets catch up with you. And, of course, the Supply Chain Sustainability School can help with regular re-assessments of knowledge, and in turn recommend further sustainability learning options.

What do you think is the biggest challenge, particularly in Australia, of embedding sustainability into the construction supply chain?
​The biggest challenge is the prevalence of short-term thinking, rather than medium- or long-term thinking. I totally understand the pressures behind current project deadlines (and budgets), financial year accounting and modern electoral cycles, but these are all examples of short-term influences. When a building, community or infrastructure project is going to be around for 50-100 years (or hopefully more, depending on quality!), why would the deciding factor be whether a lower-performance product can be obtained $5,000 cheaper? Especially when the lifetime of environmental, social or economic benefits will probably far, far outweigh it. So many of the ‘arguments’ for sustainability, whether around solar panels, water tanks, better materials, energy- or water-saving initiatives, focus on medium-to-long-term paybacks. Which means we have a fundamental discord between decision-making priorities and lasting benefits. This isn’t something we can ‘fix’ immediately; it’s going to take multiple movements, and understanding around issues such as performance-based specifications, life cycle assessment (LCA) and whole-oflife analysis, social sustainability and non-political infrastructure delivery to really change how we design, construct, operate and recycle fit-outs, buildings, communities and infrastructure. It is rare that short-term fixes eventuate into long-term satisfaction, especially with low levels of supply chain knowledge. And this knowledge, or lack of it, is a growing risk. According to deloitte in its 2016 Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) survey, whilst ‘procurement risk is on the increase’, cost reduction remains the top priority for CPOs and ‘62 percent of CPOs do not believe their teams have the skills and capabilities to deliver their strategies’. These figures are echoed in this year’s Hackett CPO study, which shows that although ‘market risk is increasing’, the top priority for 2016 is still to ‘reduce and avoid procurement costs’.
How does the Australian approach to sustainability measure up to that of other countries?
There are wonderful, awe-inspiring, magnificent parts, and then there are shameful, embarrassing, cringe-worthy elements to Australian sustainability approaches. In some respects Australian cultures are very much aligned with sustainability; the essence of vast distances, scant resources, extremes of climate and relatively few people spread across the world’s driest inhabited continent seems to align with the core tenets of sustainability. I’ve seen many buildings and communities that play to these strengths; making best use of the water, energy, resources, biodiversity and environment, as well as the technologies developed to help overcome labour shortages and extremes of climate. But in other regards, the way in which Australians don’t recycle much (despite having to import so many things), don’t capture much rainfall (despite being the driest inhabited continent), don’t ride-share very much (despite the number of single-occupant car trips made) and don’t capture much solar or wind power (despite the numerous hours of sunshine and wind) is just humiliating.
And how does construction measure up compared to other industries?
I have been fortunate enough to travel extensively over the past decade, looking at other countries’ efforts in the built environment sustainability space. There are many countries doing extraordinary things through their building, infrastructure, supply chain and procurement sectors. Germany has made some amazing advances in energy efficiency and renewable energy production, with buildings that reflect this (see DGNB). Across Latin America there are some great examples of infrastructure being completed to best practice sustainability principles, such as the Mato Grosso do Sul State Road Transport Project in Brazil, in which application of more sustainable approaches to erosion control saved about US$46 million, or the roadbuilding project through a valuable biodiversity corridor in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina that included special wildlife crossing/ connectivity points with eight underground and three canopy wildlife crossings. The UK has been targeting more sustainable supply chains throughout construction and infrastructure, with the original Supply Chain Sustainability School launched in the UK in 2012 by Action Sustainability with the groundswell of activity around the London Olympics. And the procurement practices in the USA have shifted tremendously around the changes specified by the US department of defense, whose small and steady improvements in sustainability criteria send massive ripples through US and global procurement and supply chain networks. In fact, the US Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Sustainable Product Purchasing program states that ‘the department’s vision of sustainability is to maintain the ability to operate into the future without decline either in the mission or in the natural and manufactured systems that support it. dod embraces sustainability as a means of improving mission accomplishment’. However Australia is definitely leading the way in ‘putting it all together’, especially within the construction sector. Maybe it’s that with a (relatively) small population it’s possible for innovation to spread quickly, maybe it’s that with eighteen different climate zones there’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach and so project teams learn to adapt their own unique solutions. Overall I’ve seen Australian projects assembling the energy, water, materials, emissions, waste, transport, innovation, biodiversity, health and safety, education, workplace and social solutions in a way that creates truly world-leading developments.
Can you give a few examples of Australian companies you think are doing great work in this field?
Three good examples of organisations doing great work would be Mirvac, Laing O’Rourke and Sustainability Victoria, each of whom are Founding Partners of the School. Mirvac is one of the leaders with its ‘This Changes Everything’ strategy, engaging businesses with Vendor Codes of Conduct and Supplier Annual Reports, and engaging people with its ‘House with No Bills’ initiative and diverse community projects. Laing O’Rourke is investing heavily in innovation through its Engineering Excellence, digital Engineering, Product & Process Innovation, R&d and Skills & Education initiatives. And Sustainability Victoria, the Victorian statutory authority that facilitates and promotes environmental sustainability in the use of resources, has produced an amazing range of services and advice for households, schools, communities, businesses and local governments. These organisations are the ones writing the future of where and how we do business.

Media release – Wednesday 9th March 2016
 
NEW CEO TO LEAD AUSTRALIA’S SUPPLY CHAIN SUSTAINABILITY SCHOOL
 
An industry leader with extensive experience promoting sustainability in the built environment has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Australia’s Supply Chain Sustainability School.
Robin Mellon, who was formerly Chief Operating Officer with the Green Building Council of Australia, has stepped into the new role with the aim of increasing supplier engagement on sustainability within the property, construction and infrastructure industries.
Launched in March 2015 with the support of key industry partners, the organisation builds on the success of the United Kingdom’s Sustainability School, established in 2012.
Co-Chair of the School and founding partner John Holland’s Manager for Sustainability, Renuka Sabaratnam, said appointing a ‘champion’ represents the next step in the School’s growth and evolution.
“Robin’s collaborative style and extensive networks will enhance our ability to work with both the public and private sectors to raise understanding of sustainability,” Renuka said.
Rod Petre, Co-Chair of the School and founding partner Mirvac’s Procurement Manager Construction, said Robin was selected for his reputation, industry knowledge, and broad experience working to educate the sector on best practice sustainable construction.
“Working with someone of Robin’s calibre will help us deepen the understanding of sustainability and create a ‘multiplier effect’,” Rod explained.
“As smaller companies increase their understanding of sustainability, project teams will benefit and be able to deliver better outcomes,” Rod concluded.
Robin said he is proud to be part of an industry-led initiative that unlocks the potential for so many organisations to create real value, providing free learning options for companies of every size.
“Sustainability offers great opportunities for us all – but we need to understand our supply chains better and realise we can’t address these issues alone. Bringing the best resources and tools together in one place to build everyone’s skills and knowledge from the fundamentals upwards is the fastest way for us to create the buildings, communities and infrastructure we need for a sustainable Australia,” Robin concluded.
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Media contact
Robin Mellon
Chief Executive Officer
Supply Chain Sustainability School
W:        www.supplychainschool.org.au
M:        0434 495 388
E:         info@supplychainschool.org.au  
 
About Robin Mellon
Robin Mellon has combined his passion for the environment, qualifications in real estate and finance, and experience with heritage buildings to become one of Australia’s acknowledged experts on sustainability in the built environment. Robin has extensive experience working in both the private and public sectors, and has held senior positions within industry associations. As the former chief operating officer of the Green Building Council of Australia, Robin drove the adoption of the Green Star rating system for buildings and communities, and spearheaded government and international relations. As the chair of the World Green Building Council’s Asia Pacific Network, Robin helped other countries establish their own green building councils. An accomplished presenter, educator, awards judge and media commentator, Robin is determined to leave the planet in a better shape than it was when he found it.
 
About Australia’s Supply Chain Sustainability School
The Supply Chain Sustainability School was established in 2015 to increase sustainability knowledge and competency along the construction and infrastructure supply chains. With an emphasis on supporting small-to-medium enterprises, the School provides free e-learning, information and face-to-face training for construction and infrastructure suppliers, contractors and service providers. Companies signing up can access a wealth of free resources and tools to meet increasing sustainability demands and performance benchmarks, and to help build clever, collaborative and competitive construction and infrastructure sectors. www.supplychainschool.org.au

Read the media release on the School's website here: http://www.supplychainschool.org.au/about/news/73/NEW-CEO-TO-LEAD-AUSTRALIAS-SUPPLY-CHAIN-SUSTAINABILITY-SCHOOL

​The Art Gallery of NSW was a great venue for last week’s Green Globe Awards 2015, with winners providing a dazzling display of some of the best in sustainability that NSW has to offer. But was this ‘just another awards night’ or can these accolades tell us something more?
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As Chair of the three groups of expert judges once again, I had the honour of reading, assessing and discussing many of the submissions, and making recommendations about not just the winners but the ‘winners of winners’. And three things struck me:

1) As I noted in my opening remarks, there has been a lack of leadership at federal level in the sustainability space over recent years - although this is starting to change, with the appointment of Jamie Briggs as Australia’s first Minister for Cities and the Built Environment, and Christopher Pyne’s move to the new position of Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, putting buildings and innovation firmly back on the agenda. However at state and local levels we have been seeing the emergence of true environmental leadership, from the guidance of Rob Stokes, now as NSW Minister for Planning, and Mark Speakman, who hosted the Awards, as NSW Minister for the Environment and Minister for Heritage. The NSW Sustainability Advantage program, the Action Matters campaign, and the Saving our Species program are all great example of leadership in action. And at local government level, it was wonderful to see councils from north to south as well as way inland demonstrate their dedication, from Lismore’s ‘A Model of Sustainability’ to the City of Sydney’s ‘Zero Waste Program’. 

​2) The sheer breadth of the initiatives entered into the Awards this year was amazing – from childcare facilities to university faculties, from food production to transport enterprises, from dust reduction efforts to manufacturing efficiencies, and from heritage buildings to major infrastructure projects. In particular, many of the winners showed how sustainability was part of their DNA, not something that they considered an ‘extra’. The Small Business and the Premier’s Award for Environmental Innovation winner (photo above) showed exactly that:

A family-owned small business based in Byron Bay, Brookfarm produces gourmet macadamia products for local and export markets. Brookfarm has made sustainability the cornerstone of its farm and bakehouse operations, the company's branding, growth and business success. Brookfarm has installed 288 solar panels on its bakehouse, has saved 160 kilolitres of water a year through harvesting and recycling of rainwater and, as part of its rainforest regeneration program, has planted more than 30,000 trees on the farm that have stored over 2,310 tonnes of carbon. The company has now reduced its waste per tonne of product by 25 per cent, increased its waste recycling by 23 per cent, is a pioneer of biological controls in macadamia farming and has eradicated or dramatically reduced chemical, pesticide and synthetic fertiliser use.
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Don’t forget: this is a family-owned small business showing real leadership in NSW.

3) When you’ve got your head down, and you’re busy looking at your current strategy or the details of a particular project or both, it’s easy to forget just how many people are powering positive change across the state. Minister Speakman, as he thanked the judges and judging chairs for their efforts, noted that each of the judging chairs had probably taken a week of their time to assess, judge, discuss and recommend the entries - and I wouldn’t have changed a single minute of that time, as it is a unique way of seeing what people consider leadership, of finding out what innovation is approaching, and of seeing how many, many small efforts can amount to one huge difference here in NSW. So try to take a moment to keep your head up, read about some of the initiatives that have won awards, and see what you can learn about how buildings can be run, how businesses can succeed, how the environment can be protected, and how both individuals and international enterprises can improve.

My thanks to the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) for running such a great awards program and an exhilarating awards night, and my congratulations to all of the finalists, highly commended entrants, and the winners. The work of the NSW OEH teams keeps the aim of the awards relevant, the dedication of the judges helps to select the cream of the crop, and continued collaboration with industry-leading and industry-benchmarking organisations such as the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) and Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) helps to support, connect and promote the Green Globe Awards.

Be proud of the leadership role that NSW is taking, and celebrate our sustainability successes!

By Tina Perinotto, published in The Fifth Estate, 20th August 2015
After eight-and-a-half years, Robin Mellon, the Green Building Council of Australia’s renowned chief operating officer, is heading off in a new direction.

First stop a long overseas sojourn in Sri Lanka to “see the elephants, the temples and the tea plantations, and do a lot of eating”, relaxing and to undertake a reboot. And then, who knows?

The Fifth Estate wagers he will land somewhere back in the industry, so deeply embedded does he seem to have become in the space.

But before Mellon can reset his internal computer, there’s a bit of defragging that needs to be carried out. Hence an exit interview to get a few things off his chest.

First, to be absolutely clear, now that he’s free from the constraints of the advocacy game, Mellon would like it known that he does not think much of this current federal government. It’s a “pathetic excuse” for leadership, he says. On climate, for example, the government simply “won’t take the lead”.

He says conservative British MP and former Environment Minister in the UK Lord Richard Benyon put it best recently when he said the Abbott government’s response to climate change was “incomprehensible” and “bewildering” (a sentiment the majority of Australian population seems to agree with, given recent opinion polls pointing to a surge in support for climate action).

“Abbott’s dismissal of climate science and his belief that Australia must choose between economic growth and tackling climate change speak to a distorted vision of what it means to be a conservative,” Benyon said.

“True conservative values include distaste for over-regulation and enthusiasm for entrepreneurialism. But they also include a respect for sound science and economics, a belief in protecting the natural world and a responsibility to do the best for the biggest possible number of one’s citizens.”

Mellon would have quite a deep understanding of conservative British politics, perhaps more than the avowedly Anglophillic Abbott could rightly lay claim to.

His background is as a valuer in the Department of Environment and Planning at the City of Westminster in London, marketing and property management at Woodhams London, and policy adviser for the Heritage Lottery Fund in the UK, before moving to Australia fourteen years ago.

Mellon says Benyon is “as blue as they come”, and he’s nailed the issue.

The choice, Mellon says, is not between development and the environment.

“It’s not buildings or green buildings; it’s both. It’s about green building, a productive workforce and a sustainable economy. If you want to, say ‘it’s the economy, stupid’.”

The recent emissions reductions targets announced by the federal government were a “disappointing excuse for emissions reductions, making it 26-28 per cent by 2030 with Abbott’s ‘captain’s pick’ of 2005 when everyone else is at 2000 [levels] because that’s easier.

“When you couple that with the woeful emissions reductions fund, which frankly had nothing in it for buildings…” Mellon trails off.

The ERF could have been good for buildings, Mellon says.

Together with the weakness on same-sex marriage, it all adds up to more reason for people to ignore the federal government and simply “get on with it”, he says.

Certainly local councils are doing that.

Mellon says some are doing outstanding work.

“I take my hat off to them,” he says.

A recent workshop in Melbourne on resilience organised by the City of Melbourne’s new chief resilience officer Toby Kent, who is part funded by the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities Network, was particularly inspirational.

“Councils are leading the world, not just in Melbourne,” Mellon says.

In evidence, he says, was a load of commitment.

“Not just admiring the problem, but people putting things together, a spirit of collaboration that together we can achieve something much greater.”

Mellon also liked the broader sense of resilience in the discussion – a sense that a resilient community is critical to bouncing back after a disaster.

“Resilience, not just to floods and so on, but looking to having jobs, and residents and community in the future. It speaks to a better quality of life.”

Brisbane bounced back after devastating floods because it had a resilient community. In some places, such as the poorest parts of New Orleans, the community did not go back.

Mellon loves to visit places such as Gosnells in Western Australia and Melton in Melbourne where “world class buildings” such as civic centres, sports facilities, libraries and learning hubs have been developed by the local councils.

“The point is that Australian councils are really leading the charge now although I have no doubt the Abbott government would use these developments to say it means the market is working perfectly well without any intervention.”

What’s more important, he says, is that “any idiot” would look at these initiatives and say, “How do we create the best policies and market conditions to foster them and spread them around the country?”

There’s another issue he wants to bring up, and that’s the unintended consequence of success of the green building and sustainability sectors.

It’s around the fragmentation that’s happened with a growing host of organisations setting up and competing for the same space.

The industry, Mellon says, “will probably not sustain many more of these organisations.

“It’s not that the GBCA is an early mover and everyone should support the GBCA. But I see more fragmentation. There is a limit to the size of the market.”

If there are 200 organisations all after the same members, and all after the same pot of sponsorship, it’s going to be harder to make progress as a whole.

The answer, he says, is greater collaboration. If organisations are aligned then maybe they should start to work together instead of working on their own small patch.

The fallout is a waste of people’s energy, goodwill and trust.

Division may be what a very conservative federal government is going to rely on.

“I’ve never been prouder of Australia… as when the built environment put in one submission to the Emissions Reduction Fund” under the banner of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council.

For the GBCA the path is inevitably one of greater collaboration – with other ratings systems such as Living Building Challenge, WELL and One Planet Living. Each has their own emphasis and part to play, he says.

And on the subject of ratings, Mellon is keen to say how important it is to keep pushing the ratings agenda.

If you design and build to GS standards, he says, “then prove it, otherwise you won’t be believed.”

He thinks verified ratings will be the future, countering the trend for companies to claim they’ve built to GS standards but have saved themselves the expense of official ratings.

In the future we will have more ratings, across a greater range of products, he says. You can already see the strong makings of this trend in third party certification for items such as furniture that is “mainstreaming” sustainability, he says.

As evidence, he points to IKEA, which now claims it will make its entire supply chain green. This means green products will be making their way “through to everyone’s living room”.

Besides, having the ratings is a way to stop accusations of greenwash that can emerge very quickly with items that are not rated.

What about the opposite – having a green building and not promoting your green credentials? This has been a trend picked up by people such as Danielle King of Green Moves Australia in an article penned for The Fifth Estate, There’s great value in green credentials, so why are commercial agents so shy?

That’s changing, Mellon says. Marketing for homes and communities are starting to show Green Star ratings in the collateral, often with descriptors of what a 6 Star Communities rating means, for instance.

What about his move then? We know it’s come about because of restructuring within the organisation.

Mellon totally endorses the evolution of the GBCA.

“Every business goes through a period of reflection and reassessment.”

He thinks what will happen is that the GBCA will increasingly turn outwards. He hopes the industry and aligned interest groups will do the same and be part of greater collaboration.

“Not just in Australia but internationally” in order to achieve greater objectives.

The GBCA is very well positioned for the next stage, he says. It’s strong financially, it’s got good transparency, it’s taking aboard feedback and it’s got good governance.

In fact, “some of the best governance I’ve seen in any organisation,” Mellon says.

That’s an attribute that Mellon has clearly had a role in creating, judging by the comments from industry observers hearing about his departure. And partly the restructure is a function of the leaner more efficient organisation that chief executive Romilly Madew recently cited after the departure was announced.

And that’s not a bad juncture to sign out on.

In late May, the Australian Government released the Infrastructure Australia Audit, which explores how the nation will cope with an expected population of 30.5 million by 2031.

The audit underscores the importance of making our cities work. Cities are expected to contribute $1.6 trillion to the economy by 2031 – a 90 per cent increase on their current input.

The audit also gives us a clear picture of the future we face if we don’t get serious about sustainability, with skyrocketing congestion costs, high emissions and rising inequality just the start.

Over the last year, the Green Building Council of Australia has brought together some of the nation’s ‘city builders’, along with industry leaders and policy makers, for a series of forums which tackle the big question: what makes a city great?

In Sydney, Lord Mayor Clover Moore is proud of the City of Sydney’s efforts to reduce carbon pollution through green retrofits, with vast reductions in energy usage achieved through the installation of solar arrays and efficient LED streetlights, and thousands of square metres of green walls and roof space that is improving air quality across the city.

“Great cities don’t come by accident,” Moore said. “They emerge through choices we make and the commitment we bring to ensuring they are sustainable, equitable, inclusive, stimulating and beautiful.”

In Melbourne, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle is leading an ambitious Urban Forest Strategy – a plan to increase urban canopy cover from 22 per cent to 40 per cent by 2040. Significant investment in street furniture and paving for footpaths and streets is also helping to enhance the pedestrian experience of Melbournians. Doyle argues that “making our city more sustainable is directly connected with our future prosperity.”

In Brisbane, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk is looking at centralisation.

“As our cities grow up and become more dense, we need to embrace opportunities for centralisation - cooling, water, waste, energy,” he explained. “Great cities must also prioritise all four modes of transport – public, pedestrian, cycling and cars – rather than prioritising one at the expense of all others.”

The federal member for Perth and former WA Minister for Planning and Infrastructure, Alannah MacTiernan, stressed that the design and quality of the buildings within our cities would dictate their future success.

“There is a balance we need to achieve between planning regulation and best practice development that will ensure our buildings, streets and open spaces make up a real community and not just a collection of separate assets,” she said.

Great work is being undertaken all over the country, yet all of the leaders highlighted the need for a truly holistic approach to sustainable development in our cities. They also emphasised the importance of creating community within our urban areas.

As federal member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt eloquently put it, “Great cities need to be designed by and for the people that actually live in them, not just by committees or ‘ministers on high’‎ far removed from the effects of what they do. There needs to be control over density and assurances that what actually gets built is appropriate; so that it benefits the many not just the few.”

His comment are reminder of the risks we face in our quest to make our cities both green and great.

The first is the risk of diminished or conditional access. How do we ensure that sustainable cities and their benefits don’t become the exclusive privilege of the wealthy?

Enhancing the efficiency of our existing residential developments, and encouraging people to think beyond the ‘quarter acre block’ is a good start. The City of Sydney’s Smart Green Apartments program and the City of Melbourne’s Smart Blocks initiative both aim to make existing residential buildings more cost-effective and efficient while minimising their environmental impacts.

Another risk for great green cities is our narrow focus of investment. The majority of our Green Star-rated buildings are within in the office sector. While nobody would argue that green offices are a bad thing, creating truly sustainable cities demands green buildings outside office hours. But this is changing; we now have more than 100 Green Star-rated university and school projects, 40 multi-unit residential developments and five community developments - some that will one day have their own postcodes and be home to many thousands of people.

A third risk is disconnected decision-making. We need more connected thinking and a consistent, collaborative approach to city development. The Green Building Council of Australia believes a Minister for Cities would ensure a more integrated approach to the planning and delivery of critical infrastructure for our economic powerhouses, and drive the reforms needed to connect policies and programs across all levels of government.

As our population grows, our nation is changing. We must accept this reality, and embrace the opportunities that bigger cities present. Doing nothing will cost more than the $53 billion annual congestion price tag outlined in the Infrastructure Australia Audit. Doing nothing will mean cities that are less liveable, less productive and less sustainable for all of us.

Our cities are more than a collection of buildings – they are the engine rooms of our nation’s productivity, prosperity and future potential. As Bandt said, “we don't just build buildings, we create communities.”

A new report from the Climate Council demonstrates that targets hit their mark, and I’d suggest this is as relevant for national targets as it is for portfolios, buildings or organisations.

The Climate Council's recent report, The Australian Renewable Energy Race, finds that those states with a favourable policy environment and with established renewable energy targets winning the renewables race.

South Australia, having already met its 2020 renewable energy target of 33 per cent, now sources more than a third of electricity from renewable sources and a quarter of homes have solar PV panels. South Australia has installed more large-scale renewable capacity since 2001 than any other state, and has now set a 50 per cent target.

The report finds the ACT is also “punching above its weight” with a target of 90 per cent renewable energy by 2020, and a feed-in tariff scheme attracting investment in large-scale projects.

No other Australian state has a current target to increase renewable energy, and during 2014 the federal government made moves to water down the Renewable Energy Target (RET). The GBCA, just like many other industry bodies, made our reaction perfectly clear.

On a positive note, NSW’s Minister for Environment and Heritage, Rob Stokes MP, declared in July that the Baird Government intended NSW to be “Australia’s answer to California,” with investment in solar for government buildings and a better climate for renewable energy solutions.  Unfortunately, this has yet to generate significant change within the state.

Renewable energy targets have been found to stimulate innovation, set a direction for industry and provide the impetus to invest in new technologies.  Independent modelling commissioned by the Climate Institute, for instance, has found that abolishing the RET could diminish investment in renewable energy by almost $11 billion.

More than 21,000 Australians are currently employed in the renewable energy industry and this may increase to 32,000 in 15 years with a strong and consistent policy environment.

With 2014 the hottest year on record, climate change is getting harder and harder to ignore. While national action has stalled, the action of some state governments demonstrates that setting goals and targets – and sticking to them – can deliver real, lasting change. So what does this mean for our built environment?

Around Australia, more than 800 Green Star-rated projects consume, on average, just a third of the energy used by traditional, non-green buildings. From green schools that complement geothermal energy with hydro power from the grid, to bank buildings complete with wind turbines and co-generation plants, to apartments with heliostats and entire communities tapping into precinct-wide tri-generation systems, energy targets encourage investment in technologies and solutions that are being found in buildings across Australia.

For our nation to grow its renewable energy industry, and to deliver better, greener buildings, we must have clear standards, benchmarks and targets. The building code sets the standards, Green Star sets practice benchmarks, and policies such as the RET set the targets, which help us do better.

The bottom line is simple. The property industry has made considerable investment in recent years in renewable energy technologies. As the Property Council of Australia points out, installed capacity of solar panels on commercial buildings increased nine-fold from 2010 to 2013. The RET has been a driver of good technology – and future investment in greener buildings depends on it.


- See more at: http://sourceable.net/hitting-the-renewable-energy-target/#sthash.cJgBcszH.dpuf