Tagged with Sustainability Conference 2012

The 2012 Sustainability Business Association – Conference Special Interest Group (SIG)

This year’s conference will see the formation of a Special Interest Group (SIG) to identify issues of importance to members and delegates for further examination and debate in 2012/13.

All delegates can register for this open discussion on the conference website.

“Taking Care of Business: Sustainable   Transformation”

21 – 22 May 2012, Radisson Resort,  Gold Coast, Australia

The conference will update delegates on a range of issues including;

  • Climbing the mountain: issues for business and society in the “Necessary Transition”
  • Redefining CSR Post-GFC
  • It’s all about me! Personalising Corporate Sustainability
  • The Sustainable Australian CEO: transformation of Australia’s business leadership in the Asian Century
  • The Business Sustainability Journey: progress report and likely developments to 2020

The 2012 Association Conference – Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Transformation will be held on the Gold Coast in May.

#susbiz

Ian Berry

The Association for Sustainability in Business Inc. is a Non Government, Not-For-Profit Organisation (IA 38885). The Association is not a lobby group, we aim to educate, and keep our members up to date with the latest trends, information, training and B2B opportunities while encouraging profitability and competitiveness.

The conference program is available on the website and will feature over fifty (50) presenters.

Ian Berry, Sparkenator will open the Conference
A sparkenation is a spark that ignites passion that leads to action that changes what’s normal. The author of Changing What’s Normal, Ian will ignite this conference before, during, and after his presentation.

Online Registration is available on the conference website.

Special Early bird Registration ($675) is available to members of the following organisations;

* Association for Sustainability in Business Inc.
* The International Society of Sustainability Professionals
* The Sustainable Energy Association
* The Australian Association for Environmental Education
* Local Government and Shires Associations
* Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Free wireless internet will be available to all delegates, sponsors, exhibitors and presenters at the conference and free broadband internet access in accommodation rooms. This will assist with B2B information exchange and networking.

Full registration also includes all sessions, morning teas, lunches, afternoon teas, conference materials including handbook and the ‘Welcome’ networking cocktail function.

I hope to meet you in May.

Knd regards

Angrela Green
Association Secretariat
The Association for Sustainability in Business Inc
Phone: (61 7) 5502 2068 | Fax: (61 7) 5527 3298

” Sustainability is the single biggest business opportunity of the 21st century.” – Will Day, chairman of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission

Australian Road Authority Tenders: constructing sustainability comparison tools

#susbiz Sustainability Australia

Prof Russell Kenley

By Prof Russell Kenley, Professor of Mangement, Swinburne University of Technology, Dr Toby Harfield, Research Fellow – Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology, Dr Palaneeswaran Ekambaram, Senior Lecturer – Faculty of Engineering & Industrial Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology

Australian state road authorities plan, manage and oversee the delivery of safe, efficient and integrated transport systems for sustainable economic, social and environmental outcomes in Australia. However, each state has unique administrative structures, guidelines and requirements for implementing the principles of environmental and ecological sustainability. This diversity means that standard methodologies to enable comparison of construction tenders in relation to claims of greenhouse gas emissions is currently lacking.

As approximately $4.6B will be spent annually on road construction to 2013–14, it is imperative that methods to qualify, calculate, and assess sustainability claims in construction tenders for infrastructure projects be developed. That is the aim of this study.

The conference presentation will focus on mapping activities, roles and responsibilities for road construction tenders within each state. These maps are expected to provide points of adaptation for new sustainability methodologies utilising procurement assessment criteria.

The outcome of this study is expected to be one set of empirically devised prototype tools to enable road and rail authorities, and construction companies, to fulfil their sustainability obligations. It is expected that the findings will be integrated into state road construction tendering processes. It is also assumed that standard methodologies for comparison of tenders will lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions during infrastructure construction in Australia.

Prof Russell Kenley, Dr Toby Harfield, Dr Palaneeswaran Ekambaram
Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Transformation Conference
Radisson Resort, Gold Coast – May 21 & 22, 2012

The crucial role of negotiation skills in addressing sustainability issues

Dr Judith Morrison

By Dr Judith Morrison, Trainer and Honorary Research Associate, Murdoch University, Mr Matthew Coxhill (Aquaculture, Publishing and Education.)

Failed negotiations around complex sustainability issues often involve high and counter-productive costs in time, money, reputation and trust.  Negotiations that don’t deliver mutually satisfactory outcomes leave communities, organisations and businesses cynical and unconvinced about the possibility of working together when sustainable solutions are needed.

Many organisations, public and private, are now required to negotiate around sustainability issues as part of their decision-making processes.  One advantage of open negotiation is its flexibility when stakeholders have to jointly look for solutions to problems in a more integrated way, and give equal consideration to the economic, social and environmental aspects of an issue that ensure ‘triple-bottom-line’ accountability.

However, attempts by stakeholders with widely differing viewpoints to find consensus often needlessly fail.

This presentation will show how this stalemate is often due to a limited understanding of negotiation skills, and that insufficient attention has been given in formal training to the crucial mix of skills required to negotiate through sustainability issues.   This emerging need is met through an accredited course Certificate IV in Understanding and Negotiating Sustainability Issues, which is designed to improve capacity to communicate ideas about sustainability back and forth between people who look at problems from very different perspectives.

The training has evolved from an understanding of processes of conflict resolution but takes a more proactive approach to help people practically and psychologically prepare for negotiations where stakeholders have inherently differing viewpoints.  In today’s complex decision-making and planning environments negotiators need more than natural, intuitive ability and good intentions.

They need specialised training and skills to anticipate, and hopefully avoid, some of the communication traps that undermine problem-solving processes involving a range of stakeholders. Cross-sectoral sustainability issue negotiations require competencies and skills well beyond those required for day-to-day engagement within one particular work sector or industry.

Dr Judith Morrison, Mr Matthew Coxhill
Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Transformation Conference
Radisson Resort, Gold Coast – May 21 & 22,

Our built environment: sustainable and affordable housing

By Mr Adrian Just, Director, Archicology Architects PL

This paper firstly makes an historical comparison between living patterns of Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, and secondly considers where people will live in the future and what they will live in.

For over 50 years, people have been migrating to South East Queensland, and this has affected the rate of development and the spread of housing that people choose to live in. There are divergent stories between Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, with differing planning and housing vernaculars.

We are on the cusp of a new range of housing typologies which are now necessarily sustainable and affordable. This is being driven by people’s needs, but also requires interventions to break the old housing models and market misconceptions. The change agents in this industry include demonstration by government, the state of the economy and the aspirations of the major developers.

Some specifics are outlined for planning and housing types, social sustainability and universal housing, and zero/low emission housing.

Mr Adrian Just
Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Transformation Conference
Radisson Resort, Gold Coast – May 21 & 22,