Introduction

Landcom's Sustainability Report presents our performance over the 2008/2009 financial year against sustainability indicators and targets. Sustainability indicators are grouped under the broad headings of environment, social, economic and governance. As a revised suite of sustainability indicators will be used to compile our 2009/2010 Sustainability Report, and each year thereafter, a brief summary of the changes to each indicator and an explanation supporting the changes is also presented this year.
 

While our sustainability indicators have undergone significant review, the four principles that guide our activities and underpin our targets remain unchanged¹ . According to these principles we must: deliver a sustainable quality of life; conserve resources; minimise our impact on biodiversity; and minimise pollution.

Also unchanged is the way we integrate sustainability into our business. Sustainability criteria and targets remain firmly established in our business plans, in staff performance agreements, and in developers' and builders' tender requirements and contracts. They are also included in the pre-qualification and ongoing performance management of our civil works and landscape contractors and project managers² .

Six-year performance summary results and analysis

Report scope
Landcom's control and influence varies according to the type of project in which it is involved, how it is delivered and the nature of the end product. Accordingly, for reporting purposes we categorise our projects into 'Land' and 'Built Form' projects, as follows:

• Land: For these projects, we subdivide the land and sell it directly to the public. We have either no further control or else limited influence on the housing or buildings erected on this land. However, we can exert some influence on design and sustainability initiatives through design guidelines, incentives such as landscape rebates and grant-funded solar photovoltaic programs, or through the development approval process.
• Built form: For these projects, we subdivide land and remain involved in some way throughout part or all of the building process. We exercise control over the built form either through joint ventures, project delivery agreements or other builder partnering arrangements. In this way, Landcom is able to exercise additional control to promote sustainability and urban design objectives.

All of our 'project-related' sustainability indicators have been specifically tailored to be relevant to the types of projects referred to above. This means that not all indicators are relevant to all our projects and some are designed to measure our performance in our own internal operations.

The collection of sustainability data is based on the milestone each project has reached. Therefore, while 27 projects are in planning and/or production phase, this year's report covers only 22, being those which achieved a specific reporting 'milestone' in the 2008/2009 year. These milestones are defined in the following table, along with those indicators which are reported.

1 See www.landcom.nsw.gov.au and the 'Raising the bar to a more sustainable future' section in this report.
2 See www.landcom.com.au/sustainability-policy

Project based indicator reporting milestones

 *All remaining indicators are Corporate indicators which are reported annually.