Paul Davy: On South Australia’s sustainability champions

Good afternoon.

Alright. Well we’re an independent practice helping clients – architects, property developers, state governments, universities – reduce their climate impact in the built environment.

We started about seven years ago and business has been gradually increasing ever since. Over the past 12 to 18 months though, we have seen a greater increase in demand for the services that we’re offering.

We’ve seen a really dramatic shift of emphasis towards wellness recently – towards people, comfort, productivity.

I think it’s a lot to do with, if you like, where the money is.

If you look at a typical corporate profile, maybe 90 per cent of a corporation’s recurrent costs are actually people driven, not infrastructure and energy.

So if you can make a 5 per cent saving in absenteeism and a 5 per cent increase in productivity, it’s a massive win. Whereas, a 5 per cent saving in energy efficiency, yeah, you know – whatever [laughs]. It doesn’t really impact on the bottom line that much.

At the same time, you’ve got the World Green Building Institute doing great things to give the whole movement a big boost. We’ve certainly got new clients because of it – people like to have new things to talk about, new things to think about.

We’re still a boutique practice – I mean, there’s seven of us – but we’ve taken on two new staff this year and we’re looking to possibly take on one or two more early in the new year.

Thanks.

There’s the occasional new start up, or an individual might break away from a company and set up on their own, but I wouldn’t have said that’s at a higher rate than has been previously. It’s mostly healthy competition in the existing pool.

They’re really strong. Irrespective of federal party lines or policies, the South Australian government finds ways through the sustainability maze.

For example it’s committed to a zero carbon energy grid by 2050, and may even achieve that by 2030. There’s also significant incentives for people to invest in large scale renewables, energy storage projects, energy innovation – those sorts of things.

Yeah, the Adelaide City Council, of course. They’re fully committed to carbon neutrality, so we do a lot of work with them.

Other strong councils include the City of Charles Sturt, the City of Onkaparinga, the City of Playford, and City of Port Adelaide Enfield. But every local government authority now has a climate change adaptation review and action plan in place – every one.

We’ve got very finite resources down here. We’re at the end of the river [laughs], it’s a long way from power, we’re a long way from water, so everyone takes it really seriously.

Pretty good… I think it’s fair to say we’ve definitely got extremes at either end.

We’ve got some big corporations that care a lot and are doing great things, Uniting Communities, for example. They provide certified carbon neutral living opportunities for older people, low income families and the like.

I won’t name organisations that are at the other end of the spectrum, of course, but there are those that couldn’t care less about the environment or climate change or energy. They just build cheaply and are focused entirely on operations.

I think that’s the same across all industries in South Australia.

Oh, yeah.

I would say “keep it simple”.

Before you start investing in technology or spending money on bricks and mortar, have a think about stuff like workplace practices, dressing for climate.

If you can work in a t-shirt and shorts, open a window, or if you can work in your garden on a laptop,then that’s where I’d start. Manage your environment, rather than pumping the airconditioning up.

And if you’re really stuck, look at things like insulation and shading before you get to big spending. People first, then passive, then technologies.

I’m preparing a tender for a university building at the moment. As well as doing the work we obviously have to keep pitching for it, so I’ll be spending the rest of the day writing that.