Reporting sustainability

Sectors: Developers, Builders

Government developer Landcom is reassessing its sustainbility targets. Chris Larsen examines the impact these new indicators will have on the property industry.

In the sustainability game, reporting is everything. Green buildings mean little to developers, owners and occupiers unless they can prove they are green.

The NSW Government’s development arm Landcom can lay claim to a longer history of sustainability reporting than most organisations or businesses operating in the built environment. In 2010 it will have been reporting on its sustainability practices for eight years.

The group’s director for sustainability and policy, Steve Driscoll, says when the organisation first began its green journey in 2002 “we were a bit like Robinson Crusoe”.

Landcom reports against 34 key indicators annually and says it has met the majority of its green targets to date. The indicators used by Landcom have brought rigour to the reporting process, allowing areas requiring improvement to be targeted.

For example, meeting targets for moderate income housing has been a challenge for Landcom, Driscoll says. In this case, the cost of land has been an impediment.

“That target, in particular, has been one we’ve struggled to meet,” Driscoll says. “What does that mean for us? We’ve tried hard to be as efficient as we can,” with Landcom exploring solutions ranging from home design to different land sizes.

“You can’t improve performance unless you’re measuring it,” Driscoll says, adding that Landcom’s reporting process has also helped create a market.

Systems that might otherwise have struggled to gain a foothold – such as water metering and quality reporting – are now well established.

While Landcom’s indicators have served it well to date, the organisation is now taking stock of its measurables and reassessing its targets.

For 18 months it has been consulting with its development partners to refine the sustainability indicators and targets against which it reports. The results will be made public in the near future.

The reassessment process is important not just for Landcom. but also for the industry. When private sector companies partner with Landcom, they sign up to the same sustainability targets Landcom sets for itself. “Through that process we’ve been able to ratchet up the performance of the NSW development industry generally,” Driscoll says.

“We will set a new benchmark. Our partners will come along on the journey with us. They’ll go away and implement these [benchmarks] on projects that are non-partnered.”

Driscoll says feedback from its development partners on the reassessment process has been valuable. For instance, some partners thought the indicators could be more ambitious and so water quality targets were stretched.

However, Landcom is mindful not to make life impossible for the development community.

“We could measure absolutely everything and report on everything. But there is a massive compliance cost to do that,” Driscoll says. “The issue of compliance costs, and the issue of making sure we were reporting on the material issues that affect our business, were important,” to the reassessment process.

“We don’t want to discourage people from reporting on sustainability by making it too hard for them.”

Driscoll says it’s likely Landcom will continue to stretch its sustainability targets. History has shown that innovators lead by example and then regulation sweeps up the slow-movers.

However, the organisation is waiting for a Federal carbon reporting framework to establish itself before incorporating that measurement into its indicators.

“ ... the whole carbon issue is under active and lively debate at the Federal level,” Driscoll says. “The issue of boundaries [for measuring carbon emissions] is one that is dragging the carbon trading debate at present here in this country and internationally. It’s one I think needs to settle.”