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The Fifth Estate
Green buildings and sustainable cities – news and views
In a surprise it didn’t happen earlier Property Council of Australia has appointed one of the most diplomatic people we know in the property world, Michael Zorbas as its new chief executive.
Michael is a master of delicate political wrangling and one of those media commentators from the steel-trap school of media management – not so bad for the members, not so good for the unwary journo trying to prise out some juicy snippet of behind the scenes insight… just sayin’…
Regardless, here’s a huge congratulations on the appointment Michael! You deserve it and we know you will do well, especially now the entire property industry is poised to “get” sustainability, ESG and the climate emergency… a very real challenge for us all.
Apropos of that it’s interesting how many new projects are coming through to us promoting their all electric credentials and growing commitment to all round sustainability.
There’s even a crowd in Melbourne who say their prospective tenants only want second hand buildings to fit their ethos of sustainable premises. So exciting to hear and of course right down the alley of these owners who specialise in conversions. Hopefully we will bring you a story about them soon.
At the Property Council Michael is just the fifth person to hold the position in the organisation’s 54-year history, replacing departing CEO Ken Morrison. In the media announcement he said he will work with members, allies, and government to “unlock the potential of Australian cities” (sustainably, right?). He has been with the group since 2018 but also had a five year stint in the early 2000 and another fill-in role for seven months in between working with Lendlease, Stockland and Grocon.
National president David Harrison, managing director and CEO for Charter Hall was pleased. He said: “Mike has the vision to lead our industry forward in challenging times and his ability to engage with governments at all levels is a significant asset as the regulatory environment becomes increasingly complex”.
A few new faces will be joining committees there too. JLL’s head of sustainability Australia and New Zealand, Connor McCauley, will jump onto the NSW sustainability committee and Caitlin Uren, head of ESG and capital markets at JLL Australia, will sit on the Victorian sustainable development committee.
At the Committee for Sydney, Eamon Waterford has been named the next chief executive to start in late February. In the interim, Michael Rose will continue as executive chair and Ehssan Veiszadeh as interim CEO.
Waterford first joined in 2015 as head of strategy and advocacy, and was deputy CEO before joining the Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade as chief strategy officer in 2021.
His career has spanned from involvement in youth social services and homelessness, to policy and government strategy.
At New Forests, the global investment manager of nature-based real assets and natural capital strategies, David Brand is stepping down as chief executive after almost two decades in the role.
Mark Rogers will step up to fill the role. He’s been managing director, Australia and New Zealand since 2016 and held the additional responsibility of senior managing director for the US business since 2019. Brand isn’t disappearing entirely; he will become chair of the company’s board. Rogers’ national role is now up for grabs. So there’s two job openings that now need to be filled and consider if the state of our natural resources is what keeps you awake at night. Actually it should be keeping us all awake at night.
And to whet your appetite in recent developments the company committed US$200 million for the African Forestry Impact Platform fund and announced its first acquisition, Green Resources, East Africa’s largest forest development and wood processing company.
Danielle Pacella has been named sustainability lead for architecture and interior design practice Cumulus. The architect and certified Passivhaus designer previously worked for Jackson Clements Burrows Architects (JCB).
The role is newly created and in addition to sustainability leadership and coordination it includes overseeing the progress of Cumulus’ Environmental Management Systems (EMS).
At the Australian Passivhaus Association, Jess Robinson has been appointed to the board as they try to ramp up their efforts for widespread adoption of the Passivhaus principal.
With over 29 years of consulting engineering experience as a designer and project leader, Robinson is currently the global sustainable design expertise leader for Aurecon and has been with the design, engineering and advisory firm for 20 years.
EVT Entertainment Ventures Travel – a property and entertainment company that owns and operates accommodation in Australia and Europe has a new sustainability manager, Katharine Hopper.
Katharine was previously with Great Southern Bank for five years, which touts itself as one of the largest customer owned banks in Australia – news to us as we were not familiar with it. Turns out the bank was formed in 1946 with a mission to provide “responsible and affordable lending”. It gained its size through “a series of mergers with like-minded credit unions and community groups”. Katharine spent more than five years there and previously worked at Origin in social programs and at Oxfam.
At the federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, Ian Porter has started a new position as strategic advisor, net zero. He was previously head of portfolio management at Climateworks Centre and with 30 years of experience he has also been senior adviser at the Bushfire Inquiries Taskforce.
Across the ditch in New Zealand (sadly now bereft of its global leadership storming PM Jacinda Ardern) Frucor Suntory has a new new sustainability director in Oceania,
Ian Goldschmidt. The food company says it wants to work in harmony with nature but we see most of its brands are drinks… and sadly these still don’t always come in a returnable nice glass container. (Note to self: find out how many times plastic containers can be recycled; we’ve heard varying and contradictory stories there).
He previously worked for Fonterra for 18 years, which recently was featured in this encouraging headline: Fonterra bans its milk suppliers from killing bobby calves and in equally exciting news it announced four weeks ago it was working with Nestlé to open New Zealand’s first net zero dairy farm.
Now that’s pretty radical stuff. We probably need to speak to Ian to see what his role was there was specifically but we gather it was around some fairly heavyweight change management such a “three waters strategy”, asset management, resource consenting, policy, and compliance management and the all important stakeholder management and building relationships such as with “local government, iwi/hapu, third party partnerships and private industry”. In other words, all the things you need to bring serious systemic change. Let’s hope Frucor Suntory now is up for a challenge!
Su-Fern Tan, as we see it, is one of the stars of the green property and ESG industry. We had an amazing conversation with her a while back around her experiences in the US including her involvement in Local Law 96 in New York City which really pushes the agenda for cleaner energy with big landlords and other work that sadly we had to pull the pin on writing about because of sensitivity… you know the drill (our biggest bugbear) but we certainly appreciate her insights and skills.
In recent news Su-Fern who is head of ESG at CBRE Pacific will pick up the role of chair of the expert reference panel – sustainable fit-outs at the Green Building Council of Australia. They will benefit greatly from her leadership we reckon.
Moving to rural/ag matters Michael Anderson, head of sustainability at GrainCorp has taken on a new role as president at the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform Australia, succeeding Jack Holden who served as president for five years.
Can you think of a more important resilience strategy than the one of ensuring a sustainable agriculture. If we had 10 journos on staff we would be working on this industry big time, we promise!
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