MARKET PULSE: Paul Edwards has been at TSA Management group for just three months but already he’s well down the path of creating a new strategic pathway for the company that he will oversee in his role as global head of ESG (environment, social and governance).
His plans are big. He wants to build a team of 50, he told The Fifth Estate on Wednesday and has already appointed two [pof the new team – Emma Haselden as a customer experience manager who had worked at Mirvac as he did previously and Clinton Rakich a climate scientist with a background at Ramboll, Edge Environment, Eco Logical and the Bureau of Meteorology.
The first two appointments are a hint of where Edwards wants to take the company – into ESG consulting targeting the many corporates who don’t know what’s about to hit them with climate disclosure related obligations (our words, not his).
Meanwhile Edwards has been visiting some of the other offices in the network including New Zealand where there’s 150 people and some of the 13 offices in Australia. The company also has operations in Ireland, the UK, Malaysia, and Singapore with a total global staff of around 950 people.
Sustainability is not where the company started, he said, but the field is certainly centred on the radar now.
Its areas of engagement include energy, water, stakeholder engagement and community engagement, project management and cost management.
Edwards noted that Emma Haselden’s role in customer experience was central to the behaviour change needed for the net zero and sustainability transition.
“We’re focused initially on climate and nature, but the social element is a major growth area because people realise, we can’t deliver any of this without great customer experience,” he said.
Previously at Charter Hall and a range of other property companies, Adrian Harrington is delving again into his interest in affordable housing with work on Housing All Australians, founded by the indefatigable Robert Pradolin.
Harrington is chair of the group that sports a “Who’s Who” from a range of property and corporate supporters in its ambition to find a disused or dilapidated property to turn over to housing for those who need it. It’s like PIF, Harrington said, referring to the property industry’s favourite charity, the Property Industry Foundation, that builds new housing for people in need, except HAA refurbishes existing buildings.
The latest venture is a disused 40 bed aged care facility in Western Sydney that has not been occupied for 12 months.
On Wednesday, he pointed to the release of a new report from the organisation Youth Homelessness Matters Day.
It’s the third part in the Give Me Shelter series of reports created in collaboration with SGS Economics and Planning that highlights the long-term costs of youth homelessness in Australia, according to a note sent to supporters by the group’s impact officer, Charley Vokoun.
Vokoun said the study “sheds light on the profound economic implications of youth homelessness, confirms the ‘rate of return’ achieved from solving it, and underscores the urgent need for social and affordable housing solutions.”
Robert Pradolin said, “Policymakers are encouraged to pay close attention to the remarkable rates of return achieved from investing in social and affordable housing for young people. It is comparable to, and often greater than, the returns achieved on other major Australian infrastructure investments.”
Key Findings include:
- every $1 the Australian community invests in social and affordable housing for youth will deliver $2.6 in benefits
- failure to act on shelter needs will cost the community $4.5 billion* a year by 2051
- the benefits of adequate housing are estimated at $7.3 billion*
More losses in consultancies but not in sustainability
In broader news the shakeout in the big consultancies continues. EY has slashed another 148 jobs marking more bloodletting from the sector. But it did it a bit more nicely than we’re used to seeing. According to news reports the staff were told they had a week to find another job in the company or… leave.
The company blamed a downturn in demand which we guess may or may not have a lot to do with a contagion from the PwC tax scandal last year. Other companies such as PwC, KPMG and Deloitte and McKinsey & Co are both down; and EY cut 232 jobs in November, according to The AFR. Governments cutbacks in consulting work, to the tune of 40 per cent, are partly to blame, the newspaper said.
Demand still strong in sustainability
We’re not sure where the job cuts were exactly, but let’s take a guess they are not in sustainability or climate advisory.
The only departure of people in those departments at the top end of town are when the team members are being filched, not lost through jobs cuts. Just after publication last week news broke that Pollination walked off with an entire enviro/legal team from Minter Ellison. See details in our new regularly updated breaking news/briefs section top left of the front page here.
Recruiter Richard Evans of Talent Nation has been busy recruiting and says there’s no discernible slowdown in the sustainability space. In fact, employers are still struggling to find really good people to fill roles on offer. A new opening he’s seeking to fill is for a head of sustainability for the Port of Melbourne, and his own team is looking to bolster up numbers by another three staff. He currently has 10 on the books.
A Climate education campus in New York
At New York City the good burghers have taken matters into their own hands and created an experimental “climate education campus” to train up the next generation of students in climate careers”.
A not-for-profit, Runway Green Education Collective, has been engaged in creating plans for a US$65 million, seven-acre (2.8 hectare) experiential learning ecosystem targeted at upskilling black and brown communities, according to publication Next City.
The city wants to tackle both the climate crisis and income inequality.
The Collective will also manage the education ecosystem, including a public high school for students from central Brooklyn and a 3-acre )1.215 ha) farm, hydroponic greenhouse, rooftop solar panel workshops, science labs, and an amphitheatre.
Geoffrey Roehm, executive director of the Runway Green Collective, said: “Over 70 per cent of New York City public school students are economically disadvantaged. The majority of these students would not have the opportunity to attend a world-class learning environment.”
The new school is scheduled to open in 2026 and will host about 50,000 kindergarten to year 12 public school students annually to learn sustainability skills and credentials.
Jobs news
And back in Aus, Aware Real Estate has appointed Emma Thomas from Stockland as its new head of ESG to be responsible for environmental, social, and corporate governance strategies, management and performance, and the company’s health, safety, and environmental protocols.
She has spent over 20 years working in ESG, risk management and governance for a number of real estate companies in Australia, the USA, and the UK. At Stockland she was group environmental sustainability manager for almost two years, followed by manager of sustainability governance at the APA Group, as well as multiple sustainability-related roles at Lendlease for more than six years, including most recently as director of sustainability for property and investment at Lendlease America.
Cundall APAC, a sustainability and engineering consultancy, has appointed its partner Alex Saez as its new Asia Pacific managing director.
Mr Saez spent more than five years working with the company, including almost two as its APAC operational director. Prior to Cundall, he was head of the M&E engineering department at AECOM in Spain a principal engineer at Cundall for three years prior.
Hong Kong-based structural engineer Dong Chen has also been promoted to partner after his achievements in leading Cundall Asia’s growing structure team.
At Cundall Australia, director David Collins take the managing director role after a track record of environmentally sustainable designs and green ratings. Mr Collins has been with the company for more than 15 years in Australia and Asia across several portfolios, including commercial office property, residential, health, aged care, industrial, retail, education and master planning.
The outgoing Australian managing director, Garrit Schot will also shift into a new leadership role, which will will involve expanding the company’s Australian building services engineering team to meet sector demands, including new data centres and electrification.
The CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) has appointed Kirsten Rose as its inaugural deputy chief executive. The new role will allow Rose to lead the organisation’s strategic direction.
Ms Rose has been the executive director of future industries and the organisation since 2020 and has led portfolio research into agriculture, food, human and animal health, biosecurity and manufacturing, and delivered national scientific infrastructure and science and innovation based services.
She also acted as chief executive for three months during 2023 and still serves as a non-executive director for Pilbara Ports, as a member of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia’s Western Australia advisory council and as governor for the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia.