Our commitment to sustainable development means that we aim to ensure our developments, products and services have no net adverse effect on the environment, the economy or the community in which we operate. Landcom’s objective is to move beyond a “minimum harm” philosophy by adopting practices that add value and enhance community life, the environment and the economy.
WHAT SUSTAINABILITY MEANS TO US
In addition to being commercially viable, our business philosophy is also guided by four sustainability principles. We endeavour to:
1. deliver a sustainable quality of life;
2. conserve resources;
3. minimise our impact on biodiversity;
4. and minimise pollution.
A number of key performance indicators and targets underpin each of these principles and are publicly reported every year.
For example, we promote a sustainable quality of life by being a socially responsible employer and by ensuring we are a socially responsible developer for our customers and the communities we serve. We measure our performance by gauging our success in this area against indicators such as provision of moderate income housing, community development, community consultation, heritage conservation, stakeholder relationship management, employee satisfaction and many more.
Indicators such as integrated urban water cycle management, energy efficiency and waste minimisation underpin our objective of conserving resources. And our efforts in reducing the impact of our operations on biodiversity are measured by indicators such as native vegetation and riparian corridor management.
Sometimes our sustainability objectives overlap. For example, making our developments more energy efficient reduces greenhouse gases, which in turn reduces pollution. Similarly, introducing integrated urban water cycle management within our projects improves stormwater management, which in turn reduces urban runoff.
INTEGRATING SUSTAINABILITY INTO OUR BUSINESS
We have integrated our sustainability philosophy into our business processes and our day-to-day operations. Sustainability targets are set in our business plans and included in the individual performance agreements negotiated with our staff.
We also pass on our sustainability performance criteria and targets as essential requirements for our private sector partners, either as part of Landcom’s supplier pre-qualification process or as requirements within our Tender documents and development agreements.
The sustainability criteria adopted for our partners and those for our supplier pre-qualification can be downloaded as a pdf (56KB).
Process diagrams illustrating the integration of sustainability into our business can also be downloaded as a pdf (36KB).
SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING BOUNDARIES
Every Landcom project is monitored against sustainability criteria and performance targets through our sustainability reporting system. Detailed tracking of our projects helps us to better understand, on a practical level, what we need to do to implement our sustainability philosophy.
While we masterplan and manage major infrastructure works on most of our projects, we tend to deliver building construction through partnering arrangements with private sector developers or builders. Our products, the methods we employ to deliver these products and our ability to exercise direct control over built form outcomes have determined our sustainability indicators and reporting boundaries. For the purposes of Landcom’s sustainability reporting, its projects have been divided into two groups that reflect the level of its influence and control, as follows:
1. Projects where the end product delivered to the consumer is “land”.
Most of this land is sold to the public as individual house lots or to private business interests as industrial land. Landcom has little control over the final built form where it no longer owns the land. For these projects, the most effective control mechanism is through the development approvals process exercised by the consent authority.
2. Projects where the end product delivered to the consumer is dwellings
(i.e. “built form” projects).
Landcom tends to have more control under these arrangements, especially when it delivers dwellings in a partnered arrangement with another developer or with builders. Under this scenario, Landcom can exercise additional control to promote key sustainability and urban design objectives.
Our sustainability indicators have been tailored so that they are relevant for the two types of project referred to above. Therefore, not all indicators are applicable to all our projects. We also report on our corporate responsibility and governance performance through a series of supplementary indicators.
SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS AND PERFORMANCE TARGETS
Landcom’s sustainability indicators were developed in conjunction with its key stakeholders during an extensive consultation programme conducted over 2001/2002. The details of this consultation process were reported in the “Towards Sustainability 2002” report.
The selection of our sustainability indicators was based on the following:
- the significance and relevance of the indicator to our core business;
- whether the indicator enables us to demonstrate a change in our performance over time;
- our ability to exercise direct control or influence over the indicator;
- whether the indicator could be easily understood and communicated;
- whether clear and measurable targets could be developed to illustrate our performance against the indicator; and
- the likelihood of data being readily available to enable the reporting of our performance against the indicators, as well as our ability to retrieve accurate and meaningful data from third-party sources (contractors and builders, etc).
Landcom conducted comprehensive research for a number of its adopted sustainability indicators so that realistic and measurable targets could be set. This research was necessary to ensure that Landcom, while setting robust targets, did not nominate targets that imposed an undue burden on its private-sector partners.
Adherence to our sustainability indicators is not the only means by which we deliver sustainable development. However, they are intended to give an overall picture of the potentially significant impacts of our core business. To ensure that they remain relevant to our business, they are subject to regular review.
REVIEW OF INDICATORS
Defining sustainability indicators is not always easy and we continue to look for better ways to meaningfully report our progress in some areas.
In 2005/2006, we engaged the Total Environment Centre and Corporate Responsibility to review our current indicators, along with the sustainability reports we have produced over the past four years. We asked them to make recommendations for improvements. We also asked a number of industry associations (such as the Housing Industry Association, the Urban Development Institute of Australia and the Property Council of Australia) for their feedback, along with our developer partners, employees, contractors and builders. Full details of the stakeholder reports we received can be downloaded: pdf (148KB), pdf (20KB) and pdf (144KB).
Most of the recommendations related to improving the presentation of information and better navigation. However, suggestions were offered about a number of indicators, including transport and accessibility, land use efficiency and density, affordable housing and access to green space.
In 2006/2007 we will integrate these stakeholders’ suggestions/recommendations in a comprehensive review of Landcom’s sustainability indicators. This review will be conducted in conjunction with a reference group that will include internal and external stakeholders.
Finally, we have recognised that there is a gap in how we measure Landcom’s performance in terms of social sustainability. During 2005/2006, we developed a draft Social Sustainability Policy for Landcom to provide guidance on social risk assessment principles and “objective setting” for our projects. These principles are currently being trialled across a number of our projects. We also formed an expert social sustainability reference group to help us develop measurable and meaningful social indicators.