By Mr Keith Bishop, Former General Manager, Marketing Strategy , One Steel Limited
This paper, to be presented at the Sustainability Business conference in May 2012 will present a case study of the Australian Steel Industry working with the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) from 2008 to 2011 to demonstrate how Industry Associations, NGOs and individual corporations (eg. OneSteel and BlueScope Steel) can work together to build greater sustainability awareness/ understanding and improved/ tangible sustainability outcomes in an industry (in this case within steel construction market and green building sector). An overview of the process and outcomes will be presented as outlined below as well as learnings for other businesses and industries.
Through a multi-stakeholder panel negotiation process held over a period of nearly a year in 2009 a new improved Green Star steel credit was developed and released in early 2010. The key to success was the adoption of a simple framework for increasing sustainability (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle in that order) and the recognition that all parts of the steel industry value chain could and should contribute towards sustainable outcomes (not just the large manufacturers).
This has resulted in a successful industry program where a larger than expected number of downstream SME fabricators and constructors have signed up to an Environmental Sustainability Charter run by the Australian Steel Institute. It also resulted in the major steel makers taking Sustainability more seriously in their business and improving their external reporting (eg. OneSteel released its first full sustainability report in late 2010) as well as promoting more sustainable steel construction products and practices to their customer bases (including exhibiting at Green Cities in early 2011 – a first for the steel industry).
Mr Keith Bishop
Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Transformation Conference
Radisson Resort, Gold Coast, May 21 & 22, 2012