According to Tony Cope, back in 2003, when he was at GPT as head of the office, the notion that you could make a commitment to achieve a minimum five-star NABERS energy rating on big projects such as Darling Park in the Sydney CBD received significant pushback. But it happened.
In 2010 and 2011, when he and others such as Ashak Nathwani, then at NDY, Stephen Ballesty at Rider Levett Bucknall and several others worked on the Property Council of Australia’s office building guide and decided to earn a premium label buildings would need to have the same NABERS, the pushback ramped up by an order of magnitude.
The calls that he and his colleagues received were “not quite death threats”, he laughed but pretty serious all the same. You are going to ruin the value of our property investment,” they complained, “the value will be written down.”
“But we stuck to our guns, and the result nowadays is Australia consistently wins global recognition for the quality and the sustainability of its office buildings.”
Cope was celebrating the launch of Nathwani’s new book on how to draw down carbon from the built environment when the imperative is as pressing as ever.
The book, Defeating Mr CO2, is an easy to read guide on the practicalities of how to do this.
Stephen Ballesty was also on hand to introduce Nathwani and lead some questions from Nathwani’s delightful grandsons, Kiyan and Zayn, after his daughter Rehana played MC and Michael Manikas, general manager of DLG SHAPE, brought an Indigenous perspective to the event.
Ballesty noted Nathwani had made an outstanding success of his life since migrating to Australia after his family was ousted by dictator Idi Amin from Uganda.
Exactly 50 years to the day that he arrived in the country, he was awarded his PhD. But that was amid a career in engineering, sustainability and facility management, co-design of the Indoor Environmental Air Quality Lab at the University of Sydney, lecturing, volunteer work with the Agar Khan Development Network and receiving an Order of Australia for his contribution.
Somehow, the book was slotted into this hectic schedule that would see him take off to India the next day to start work on the next project – a series of videos for children to help them understand tackling environmental sustainability.
Nathwani, on his part, joked and bantered with the audience in his typical lighthearted way, and the audience lapped it up, buying his book and lining up for the signing.
