20 June 2013 — For every dollar a man earns in the construction industry, a woman doing the same job earns just 82.3 cents.
And the gender pay gap must be closed if the industry is to attract and retain the best and brightest women, says the National Association of Women in Construction.
Chief executive officer Sheryle Moon said men were frequently paid more than women. Read More
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By Donna Kelly
12 June 2013 — Suters Architects and dwp have formed an alliance, known in Australia as dwp|suters.
Chief executive officer Leone Lorrimer said the move allowed the company to further its geographic spread and improve capacity to deliver expert services to a broader location. It has brought together dwp’s experience in hotel and high-rise residential developments with Suters’ education, sports, hospital Read More
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11 June 2013 — Australian company Switch Automation has been selected to provide a data acquisition and monitoring platform for more than 120 buildings in the Seattle 2030 District, a high-performance building district in downtown Seattle, United States. Read More
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11 June 2013 — A ruling in a suit brought on by inner-city plaintiffs of Milwaukee has found that an urban freeway connection cannot proceed without studying the project’s impacts on transit-dependent populations and regional suburban sprawl. Read More
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By Donna Kelly
13 June 2013 — LJ Hooker has joined business think tank and advocacy group Sustainable Business Australia.
LJ Hooker’s head of sustainability Cecille Weldon said the company had been approached by SBA because of LJ Hooker’s initiatives such as its Liveability.com.au website – giving property owners and renters access to information about sustainability, and its 3P Program Read More
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By Dick Clarke, Building Designers Australia
5 June 2013 – Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s stated intention to disband the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and his warning that he would “tear up” any contracts it enters into, are both troubling and illogical. Read More
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5 June 2013 — A RMIT University course will provide a skills boost to architects, planners, engineers and other built environment professionals looking to work in the humanitarian sector.
The Pathways to Working in the Humanitarian Sector course will case study real world projects.
The two-day intensive course has been developed in partnership with the Australian Red Cross, Red R, Engineers without Borders, ARUP, Habitat for Humanity and Architects without Frontiers.
Architects without Frontiers...
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By Donna Kelly
3 June 2013 — Lend Lease is busy walking the walk on sustainability, global head of sustainability Joe Van Belleghem told the recent Property Council of Australia Sustainability Development Conference. Read More
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By Donna Kelly
3 June 2013 — “We are all feeling at the moment there is a huge amount of work to do,” was the message from Norman Disney & Young global head of sustainability Tony Arnel at the recent Property Council of Australia’s Sustainability Development Conference. Read More
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On a conservative base for a carbon tax, the markets, and FM in Hobart comes of age
30 May 2013 — Dear Mr Abbott,
By all accounts it looks like you could well be the next Australian prime minister.
That being so – although this is a time when anything can happen – there is something really important you might want to take note of in relation to your attitude to the carbon tax.
In the US there is a new conservative movement, and it’s born out of the very essence of conservative America,...
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By Cameron Jewell
30 May 2013 — Founder and director of Carbon Arts Jodi Newcombe is on a mission to make sustainability cool.
Having worked for the past 15 years as an environmental economist advising government and industry on natural resource management issues, she’s well aware that sustainability can be, well, a little dry. Read More
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29 May 2013 – It’s not a global financial crisis we should be so fearful of, but the looming global ecological crisis, Australian Conservation Foundation president Ian Lowe told the National Press Club on Wednesday in a speech that launches a new strategy and direction for the ACF to tackle economic and investment issues in the battle for Australia’s future. Read More
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By Leon Gettler
29 May 2013 — The world celebrated Earth Day last month. Don’t worry if you missed it, you wouldn’t have been on your own. The annual event is not generating the same sort of energy and attention it used to get 43 years ago when it started.
As Nicolas Lemann points out in the New Yorker, Earth Day on 22 April 1970 took the world by storm. Read More
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By Donna Kelly
29 May 2013 — Alexie Sellar has worked as a mechanical engineer in project management and was recently the acting energy hub coordinator for Engineers Without Borders NSW. Read More
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By Donna Kelly and Tina Perinotto
8 November 2012 – [UPDATED 31 May 2013] Cundall worldwide is the first consultancy to sign up to BioRegional’s One Planet Living, which provides a free set of principles for development and other enterprises that make sustainable calls on the planet’s resources. Read More
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27 May 2013 — GPT has withdrawn from pursuing its proposal to acquire Australand’s commercial and industrial assets and business.
Last December GPT expressed interest in taking over Australand’s most valuable assets, including a multi-billion-dollar investment property portfolio. However, today GPT stated that a price they would be willing to pay was unable to be reached, and they would not be pursuing the matter further.
GPT said it had consistently advised the market it did not need...
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On the fatigue factor as a good sign, market failures and counter cyclical smarts
23 May 2013 — After the tough news last week that Stockland had cut its sustainability team by more than half, we took a look at how other companies and sectors in the market are faring.
Not everyone is shedding staff in their sustainability teams, and not everyone is “fatigued” by green buildings and the word sustainability, as one of our readers put it. Read More
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By Cameron Jewell
23 May 2013 — The green building industry in Western Australia has taken a while to get into gear, but according to Georgiou Capital development manager Greg Hancock, the only way is up.
Georgiou Capital looks set to build a 15-storey office tower and hotel for Perth’s CBD, which will be chasing a five-star NABERS rating and a five-star Green Star rating, too. Read More
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22 May 2013 — “With the UN’s projected 9.1 billion people by 2050, one can be absolutely certain that issues of sustainability will be front and centre in the daily livelihood of every individual and entity,” wrote Tom Kadala, founder and chief executive of the US-based Alternative Technology Corporation, after attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sustainability Summit last month. Read More
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22 May 2013 — New research shows that sustainability is an increasingly critical factor in attracting, engaging and retaining the best of the best.
Harvard Business Review has pointed to a growing number of “sustainability enthusiasts” who see sustainability as a key factor in job choices, and are even willing to accept lower remuneration to work for employers who are aligned with their beliefs. Read More
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21 May 2013 — A petition of 80,000 signatures was today delivered to NSW Parliament demanding that Premier Barry O’Farrell’s government supports a national 10 cent deposit on beverage containers.
The petition was delivered by Boomerang Alliance members including Clean Up Australia, Greenpeace, the Cooks River Association and Total Environment Centre. They were also be joined by the Uniting Church.
Community outrage over Coca Cola’s campaign against a ten cent deposit has continued...
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By Tina Perinotto
15 May 2013 — [UPDATED 17 May 2013] On face value, it’s the worst news the sustainable property industry could have wanted to hear.
Stockland, after setting the highest benchmarks in sustainability, after winning the lion’s share of gold stars for effort and achievement in the field – not to mention global accolades – has slashed its sustainability team by more than half. Read More
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By Cameron Jewell
15 May 2013 — Companies producing high-quality sustainability reports have more women on the board, provide more certainty to investors and have better environmental, social and corporate governance, says a report that named Mirvac, DEXUS and GPT as leaders in the field. Read More
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By Donna Kelly
14 May 2013 — For a long time Paul Metcalfe has had the burning desire to do something different. And he always believed that skills in communication would be important for sustainability. Read More
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By Tina Perinotto
9 May 2013 — Early this year GPT Group was lead investor* for almost $6 million into a San Francisco start up that provides an online platform for sourcing co-working spaces. It’s part of a promise to GPT shareholders to find new sources of income other than traditional commercial and retail rents and capital gains. So how’s this rather unusual challenge going? Read More
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7 May 2013 — The national construction sector is at the lowest point in seven months as tough industry conditions continue.
The Australian Industry Group/Housing Industry Association Australian Performance of Construction Index for April saw a 3.8 point reduction to 35.2 (readings below 50 represent a contraction) – the 35th consecutive month of contraction.
Construction activity was down to 34.7 while employment dropped 9.4 points to 29.8, the weakest employment reading since the index began...
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7 May 2013 — CB Richard Ellis global corporate services senior director Angus Harvey-Ross will swap his shoes for hiking boots when he climbs Mt Kilimanjaro to support his daughter’s fundraising efforts. Pip is raising money for an orphanage project in Arusha, Tanzania called “Many Shades” and needs sponsors for the seven-day trek. The vision is to open a number of homes for six to eight children under the age of seven. Each child will have a sponsor who provides funds for education,...
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24 April 2013 — The Australian Government has issued its investment mandate for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to invest at the “demonstration, commercialisation and deployment stages of innovation” to a limit of $300 million a year.
CEFC chair Jillian Broadbent: “We are now fully staffed and operational, ready to commence making investment decisions and to contract investments to be funded from July 1, 2013”.
The mandate says the corporation is a mechanism to help mobilise investment...
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17 April 2013 — Record confidence in the residential sector and positive project funding expectations have driven sentiment within Australia’s property industry to an 18-month high, new research has found.
The Property Council-ANZ Property Industry Confidence Survey shows the confidence index for the June 2013 quarter jumped from 107 to 124, the second consecutive quarter of growth. Read More
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By Leon Gettler
3 April 2013 – Cities are getting serious about climate change, from Vancouver in Canada to Malmo in Sweden and Reykjavik in Iceland.
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