to a more sustainable future

Introduction

As a Government-owned developer, Landcom must maintain a leadership role by driving sustainability performance across our operations. We are acknowledged not only for the way in which we set sustainability targets in our projects but also for the way we report on our achievements and impacts. Our approach has been adopted and adapted by others in the building, construction and development industries.
 

We also know that in a changing world we cannot be complacent so we have reviewed our indicators and targets to ensure they continue to challenge us and drive innovation in our projects and teams for the years ahead.

Reflecting on our achievements

Last year, an initial internal review of the sustainability indicators established in 2002 suggested that, generally, they were reporting against Landcom’s key material nonfinancial issues effectively. Nevertheless, some did not fairly or accurately describe the extent of our efforts and performance in specific areas.

Many included targets with a time horizon of 2008. Some, like stakeholder consultation, had achieved the desired results and now form part of every masterplanning process that Landcom manages. Others introduced 'stretch targets', many of which have either been achieved or have become redundant, since legislation has been introduced which mandates performance at the level prescribed by the indicator. As well, process or technology advances meant it was time to review opportunities to raise the bar on Landcom’s sustainability performance.

Reviewing the indicators

We recognised that if Landcom was to maintain its position as a sustainability leader, the indicators would have to be revised to ensure they remained relevant to our business practices, continued to respond to stakeholders’ concerns and took account of new challenges and opportunities.

In February 2008, the Landcom Board approved a review of the indicators. The initial review process included:

• Obtaining and reviewing stakeholder feedback on our reporting.
• Conducting literature and peer reviews to identify material issues for the development and construction industry sector and examine best practice reporting in other jurisdictions.
• Revisiting Landcom’s regulatory requirements in light of the current operating environment.
• Surveying the executive and senior management teams on Landcom’s material issues. This data was tested in workshops with a cross-section of staff to see if the issues were valid across the organisation, and to identify additional issues.

There was an extensive list of material issues identified from this process, which was prioritised into six key areas as follows:

• Maintaining and retaining Landcom's relevance and flexibility
• Balancing stakeholder expectations
• Ensuring the fundamental value and quality of our products and services
• Protecting and enhancing the natural environment
• Strengthening the social environment in which we operate
• Driving sustainability in the supply chain

The relevance of each material issue to our major stakeholders was then assessed. We defined our major stakeholders as State and local government, the development industry, our employees and the community. With minor exceptions, the majority of these issues had at least some relevance to each of the identified stakeholder groups.

Next we reviewed the existing sustainability indicators against these material issues, identifying those that were no longer useful descriptors and those that were still relevant.

With the help of relevant experts and the benefit of ongoing and targeted stakeholder consultation, a revised suite of indicators was proposed. This modified or updated some indicators, removed those that were redundant, introduced new ones that better measured Landcom’s business activities in the current operating environment and established new 2015 target horizons for 'stretch' targets.

In cases where we have achieved 100% compliance in consecutive years, we removed indicators or data items and embedded them in our independently accredited Environmental Management System (EMS). This will ensure the issues can be monitored across projects and will open them up to compliance auditing as part of the EMS management process.

Landcom’s Board will ultimately have oversight of this process. We believe this will promote a comparable level of openness and accountability to that provided by our current sustainability reporting arrangements.

As with the original indicators, we recognised that new or revised indicators:

• Had to relate strongly to our core business and contribute to the State Government’s goals and priorities.
• Had to be meaningful to, and easily understood by, major stakeholders, particularly those who have a role in data collection and compilation.
• Must be within our control and/or influence, allowing us to demonstrate our performance over time.
• Must, where relevant, aid the setting of targets and enable reporting from data that is accurate and readily available.

We ensured the overall reporting process remained relatively simple without compromising its quality or value. We also ensured that the new indicators would not result in excessive compliance costs for Landcom or our partners.

Feedback

We placed the revised suite of sustainability indicators and targets on public exhibition during the year. Together with an explanatory paper and consultation questionnaire, they were placed on the Landcom website for 30 days in May.

We also organised presentations for staff and the Landcom Project Review Panel. Plus we ran newspaper advertisements and two more workshops with key Landcom stakeholders – developer and builder partners, contractors, project managers, NGOs, industry groups and key government representatives.

All feedback was compiled along with comments from submissions from the public. Issues raised were reviewed and opportunities for changes identified. Generally stakeholders were supportive of the revised indicators though in some cases it was felt the proposed targets were reflecting current industry practice rather than best practice and leadership. Many of the new proposed targets commented on by stakeholders related to the environmental targets – particularly energy, water and waste. Suggested amendments to our indicators were considered in light of the likely cost to implement, potential improvements in design, and technology innovation likely through to 2015.

Other proposed changes related to the contract compliance indicators. This is because recent changes to our contracts – which required contractor partners to undertake occupational health and safety and environmental auditing themselves rather than be subject to a Landcom audit – mean that a new set of performance monitoring measures was required.

Throughout the feedback process, it became clear that a number of issues raised via public submissions could not be captured through the sustainability reporting framework at this stage and many were considered to be outside Landcom’s core material issues.

Revised indicators - the way forward

A total of 20 modifications were made to the revised indicators and targets as a result of the public exhibition and stakeholder consultation process.

The new indicators were finalised and adopted by the Minister for implementation in the 2009/10 reporting year.

We have introduced no new indicator groups beyond the existing environmental, social, economic and governance indicators. No amendments were made to our economic indicators, nor were our social, environmental and governance indicators significantly altered.

While we expect some targets will challenge Landcom and our partners, the way we henceforth collect data for our sustainability reporting will be similar to existing processes. For that reason we do not expect there will be a greater reporting compliance burden on partners and contractors.

All new projects and project agreements will be subject to the new indicators and targets. The six-year performance time horizon to 2015 is expected to be relatively easily achievable for some indicators, while for others it will be much more challenging.

Unless otherwise agreed, legacy projects will continue to deliver against the sustainability targets under which their respective agreements were established, and achievements here will continue to be reported.

While sustainability reporting is still in its infancy in the development sector, this year will be our eighth consecutive in which we report on our sustainability performance and the seventh in which we report against a specific suite of indicators and targets. As of next year we will be reporting against our second generation of indicators. In the section of this report that contains our performance data we have included commentary on the changes - if any - made to each indicator.

We believe our revised sustainability indicators will provide a robust description of our business and its sustainability impacts, now and into the foreseeable future.