This has been an exceptional year for Landcom.
We worked against a background of unprecedented economic and market uncertainty, due largely to the impacts of the global financial crisis. In response, we increased investment in our greenfield developments and stepped up our production of land and housing, which provided stability and work security for our civil works contractors and others. We also played an important role assisting the state government in delivering its commitments under the Commonwealth's nation-building program.
These unique circumstances helped shape the year's achievements. We also used the significant shift in the market resulting from the GFC as an opportunity to focus inwards, by re-evaluating our own organisation, its values and behaviours including the way we manage performance and develop our people.
This reflective process reaffirmed my view that the worth of any organisation stems from its values and the way in which it lives those values to drive the business fundamentals. At Landcom, our values revolve around sustainability, building relationships and problem-solving.
Sustainability in particular is absolutely integral to our operations. For the past eight years we have reported our performance against what were – when first set – ambitious targets. With industry and community expectations shifting and with many of our targets comfortably achieved, we introduced our second generation of sustainability indicators during the year. This report represents our first opportunity to give an account of Landcom's performance against our updated indicators.
The year also marked two other sustainability milestones for Landcom. In November we launched our diagnostic tool PRECINXTM, which uses real data to assess environmental, economic and social performance over large-scale projects and neighbourhoods. Industry and government interest in PRECINXTM continues to grow nationwide. We were also nominated by the Global Reporting Initiative as one of 10 industry participants worldwide to work on the development of a reporting framework for the property industry. This is welcome recognition of our pioneering approach to sustainability.
Our most constructive relationships are built on trust, the development of a common purpose, our willingness to take responsibility and, ultimately, our ability to deliver. We have continued to work cooperatively with local councils, state agencies and the development industry on our major projects. However, this year our work with Ageing, Disability and Home Care on their group homes program and the social housing we produced under the nation-building program extended our reach into the social and community housing sector. We intend to develop closer working relationships with this rapidly changing industry sector over the next 12 months.
Landcom's ability to solve complex problems was put to the test more than ever this year when the tight financial market threatened the progress of a number of our developments. At Green Square we took a larger equity stake to kick start this major redevelopment. Likewise at Oran Park we made dramatic progress to ensure the supply of housing product was maintained during the economic downturn.
In the coming year, we will investigate a number of new and complex projects including those at North Penrith, the University of Western Sydney Campbelltown and at Edmondson Park, which, if they go ahead, will be
exciting developments.
In the meantime we continue to develop responses that increase the supply of land for greenfield development and urban renewal. Our ongoing attempts to address housing affordability will be complemented by encouraging greater housing diversity across our projects and by exploring options for the delivery of long term affordable rental accommodation. And we intend to revitalize our commitment to a strong and enduring sustainability culture across our organisation and supply chain.
It has been a very satisfying year and I must acknowledge the people without whom our achievements would have been impossible. To everyone in our organisation who worked so hard and with such commitment this year, I and the senior management team thank you most sincerely. Our constituting legislation calls on Landcom to be a successful business, operating as efficiently as any comparable enterprises, and maximising the net worth of the state's investment in us. I am confident we have the people, the structure and the values to ensure we meet these objectives in the year ahead and to achieve even more.
That is something we can all be proud of.
Sean O'Toole
Managing Directior