Keynote Speakers 2013

Dr Nick Fleming, Chief Sustainability Officer, Sinclair Knight Merz

Nick has diverse industry experience, an aptitude for resolving complex problems, and a passion for creating vibrant businesses and communities. This provides the foundation for his work as a business leader, intrapreneur, design coach, writer and public speaker.

He has over 20 years professional experience in the water, natural resources, infrastructure, mining and defence sectors across multiple markets including Australia, New Zealand, south-east Asia, the UK and Americas. Nick principally operates as an integrator of technical disciplines dealing with aspects of strategic planning and design, decision support, and organisational leadership and change.  His work is typically for developers, owners and operators of private and public infrastructure of a built and natural form.

Jason Roberts, Co-Founder, Better Block USA

Jason Roberts has over fifteen years of experience in IT consulting and Communications. Before founding the Better Block project, Jason Roberts led multiple community non-profit organizations focused on alternative transportation including the Oak Cliff Transit Authority, and Bike Friendly Oak Cliff. In 2010,

Jason spearheaded the City of Dallas’s effort in garnering a $23 Million dollar TIGER stimulus grant from the FTA to help reintroduce a modern streetcar system to the region. In the Spring of 2010, Jason organised a series of “Better Block” projects, taking blighted blocks with vacant properties in Southern Dallas and converting them into temporary walkable districts with pop-up businesses, bike lanes, cafe seating, and landscaping. The project is now being duplicated throughout the country, has been featured in the Washington Post and New York Times, and was recently awarded a 2011 ASLA Award. Team Better Block was showcased in the US Pavillion at the 2012 Venice Biennale (the ‘Architect’s Olympics’).

Professor Billie Giles-Corti, Director of the Melbourne University School of Population Health.

Professor Billie Giles-Corti is Director of the Melbourne University School of Population Health, McCaughey VicHealth Centre for Community Wellbeing.  For nearly two decades, she and a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and post-graduate research students have been studying the impact of the built environment on health, social and health behavior outcomes including walking, cycling, public transport use, overweight and obesity, social capital and dog walking.  A leading public health researcher in Australia and recognized internationally for her research on the health impacts of the built form, Professor Giles-Corti serves on numerous international, national and state committees and boards. 

John Thwaites, Professorial Fellow, Monash University, and Chair of ClimateWorks Australia and the Monash Sustainability Institute

John is Chair of the National Sustainability Council an independent Council appointed by the Australian Government to provide advice on sustainability issues and a public report on Australia’s sustainability every two years. John is a member of the Leadership Council of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (“SDSN”) launched by the Secretary General of the UN to provide expert advice and support to various international processes working on the development of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. John was named as one of the 100 Global Sustainability Leaders in 2012 by ABC Carbon Express.

John is a consultant at Maddocks Solicitors providing advice to the firm and its clients on climate change, water, sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

John chairs the Australian Building Codes Board the body responsible for developing and managing Australia’s building regulations. He also chairs the Climate Group Ltd in Australia, the Peter Cullen Water and Environment Trust, and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Australia’s only cultural centre dedicated to film, TV, games and the moving image. He is also a director of the Australian Green Building Council and a member of the Advisory Board to the Harold Mitchell Foundation.

John Thwaites was Deputy Premier of Victoria from 1999 until his retirement in 2007. During this period he was Minister for Health, Minister for Planning, Minister for Environment, Minister for Water, Minister for Victorian Communities and Victoria’s first Minister for Climate Change. In these portfolios he was responsible for major reforms in social policy, health, environment and water.

Professor Anthony Capon, Head, Discipline of Public Health, Faculty of Health University of Canberra

Tony is professor of public health at the University of Canberra and visiting professor in the healthy built environments program at the University of New South Wales. He is an authority on health promotion and environmental health, with research interest in urban futures, sustainability and human health.

Tony is currently working with the International Council for Science to develop a new global interdisciplinary science program on health and wellbeing in changing urban environments using systems approaches. He has held fellowships from the National Health and Medical Research Council and World Health Organization and a diverse range of leadership roles, including with the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine and the International Society for Urban Health.

Melissa Houghton, Director, Sustainability at Work

Melissa Houghton is an experienced strategic communicator with a passion for sustainability. In her 15 plus years, Melissa has held senior executive positions at News Digital Media (NDM), Telstra, Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) and is currently director and co-owner of Sustainability at Work.

Sustainability at Work was born in 2010 out of the desire to bring 'people' back into the centre of the sustainability and 'green' building movements. Since then Melissa has led and influenced strategic discussions around the economic, social and environmental impacts of those business, with C-level executives and established and implemented strategies to drive positive sustainability behaviours, culture and outcomes for their people, their customers and their partners.

Melissa has co-authored a number of research reports including "Insights into the attitudes and behaviours of Australian Workers towards sustainability at work and at home" and "The Australian Sustainability Manager- the role, the challenges and the Future".

Melissa is seen as an industry expert on green skills, workplace sustainability, behaviour change in the workplace, stakeholder engagement and marketing sustainability. She has been part of industry task forces including the UWS Bringing Sustainability to Life roundtables providing research information, advice and guidance. She has been a facilitator for CSIRO's Energymark community engagement research program and is regularly invited to speak at conferences. Melissa is on the Board of Directors for Oxfam Australia and a member of the Marrickville Cooks River environmental committee.

Mr Simon Lockrey, Research Fellow, Sustainable Products and Packaging, Centre for Design, RMIT University

Simon is a Research Fellow and the Research Area Leader of Sustainable Products and Services at the Centre for Design at RMIT University. He has worked as a product design engineer both in Australia and Europe for over a decade. His work has crossed a large range of industries, including design consultancy, commercial interior furniture manufacture, and multinational appliance procurement. He continues in a design role as director of Froth Design, with his more recent design work including the Dyson DC31 handheld vacuum, the Dyson DC39 cylinder vacuum, and the Cyclone 'Lock and Load' Wheel Barrow.

Simon's research at the Centre primarily focuses on bringing practical expertise to sustainability research projects, engaging industry, policy makers and wider community sectors on themes such as life cycle assessment, technology development, efficiency, waste, marketing strategy, and sustainable product and service design principles. The research is often achieved with global partners, recent examples including collaborations in Europe, Asia, and more recently Antarctica. His work is covered in various reports, media releases and academic outputs regarding projects with Nestle, LyondellBasell, MicroHeat, AFGC, Chep, Ceramic Fuel Cells, Lion, and Antarctica New Zealand. He teaches at RMIT and Swinburne Universities, conducts industry training and events, presents at local and global conferences, and regularly writes for the design blog core77.

Angela Hazebroek is a Director of URPS

Angela Hazebroek is a Director of URPS – the Adelaide-based planning firm – Urban and Regional Planning Solutions that she co-founded 10 years ago. She has over 25 years of experience working in and for Local Government, State Government and the private sector.

While her colleagues consider her present passion for planning and designing age friendly communities and environments to be motivated by self-interest, Angela has had a strong focus on recognising and responding to the needs of older people since she worked on developing policy to support Housing for Older People within all residential areas as a 30 year old planning student.

Angela’s professional practice covers a broad range of areas from social planning, food systems planning, matching experiences to visitor expectations in natural/protected areas, cultural attractions and tourism regions.

As the project manager for the preparation of South Australia’s Age Friendly Communities and Environments Guidelines and Toolkit for Local Government, Angela worked closely across State and Local Government and with the property development sector to achieve pragmatic and practical outcomes.