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26 June 2026
As the Sustainability Awards marks its 20-year milestone, the spotlight is turning not only to industry leaders, but to the next generation shaping the built environment. Emerging professionals challenge conventions, prioritising resource efficiency and circular design over complex technological fixes.
Among the most compelling categories is Emerging Sustainable Architect/Designer, a platform that recognises early-career professionals who are already challenging conventions and redefining what good design looks like in a climate-conscious world.
At a time when the industry faces mounting environmental and social pressures, these voices are not just promising; they are essential.
For Gabrielle Pavicic, last year’s winner, sustainability begins with a deceptively simple principle: helping people live well today without compromising the future.
Her work, shaped in part through her role at the Green Building Council of Australia, reflects a growing shift in thinking across the industry, away from relying solely on complex technological fixes, and toward smarter, more resource-efficient design decisions.
From prioritising reuse and adaptability to questioning the need for new materials altogether, her approach highlights how impactful outcomes can stem from rethinking the basics.
What makes the Emerging Sustainable Architect/Designer category so vital is its focus on this kind of mindset. Entrants are not expected to have all the answers, but they are encouraged to ask better questions.
As Pavicic suggests, innovation in sustainability is often less about invention and more about changing default assumptions: designing for disassembly, embracing sufficiency, and recognising the broader social impact of every project.
For those considering entering, the awards offer more than recognition, they provide a chance to contribute to a collective shift in how the industry designs, builds and thinks for the future.
Architecture & Design: How would you describe your approach to sustainability, and how has it evolved through your work with the GBCA?
Gabrielle Pavicic: Sustainability is pretty simple at its core: helping people live well today, without stripping back the environment future generations will rely on. I like returning to that definition because it’s a reminder that caring about ‘sustainability’ is actually just about being a thoughtful, caring human.
It also asks something of all of us. We’re constantly being pulled toward the next “new” product that promises convenience or improvement, and sometimes it really does solve a problem, but often it’s just good marketing. Every single new thing we buy has an impact on the environments we rely on and love, so it’s important to really think “do we actually need this… and if so, do we need it to be brand new?”.
My thinking personally has evolved through my work at GBCA as I continue to realise that many of the outcomes we’re aiming for in creating a more sustainable built environment, such as lower upfront carbon and less wasted materials, don’t necessarily require heroic technical solutions.
They often follow naturally when you centre a brief on quality and resource efficiency, and you design so materials can be reused again and again. That means thinking early about end-of-use: have I made it easy for someone else to reuse this, or when it can’t stay in its current form, is it straightforward to disassemble and use the parts for something else, or reprocess them into something else, or is it more likely to end up in landfill?
What opportunities do you see for rating systems to drive more ambitious sustainability outcomes in everyday projects?
What I hear most from project teams is that rating tools give them something concrete to anchor to when they’re aiming for sustainability outcomes.
When you’ve got a developer, contractor, designers and consultants all pulling in different directions, having a shared reference point changes the conversation – especially if it’s guiding the brief from day one. Green Star is a good example: it doesn’t just create a common language; certification also provides verification that a project delivered what it said it would, and that credibility really matters.
I’ve been working on Green Star Fitouts, which is a rating tool designed to support the creation of more sustainable interior fitouts – and what excites me is its potential to act as an incentive for behaviour change.
From incorporating more reused stuff in spaces (not picking products made of virgin materials as the default), to reducing the materials wasted every time a new fitout is created, to having a fitout that is fully electric and powered by renewables. These are all massive changes to the status quo.
What challenges have you encountered advocating for stronger sustainability outcomes, and how have you navigated them?
The most common pushback is “it’s too hard” or “it’s not our job”. But almost everything is hard the first time. Plus, trying new things is rewarding and exciting. I think it’s important to help people see the excitement and opportunity in trying something new and moving the needle.
Think: You need a piece of joinery for a client. How do you design and build it so it’s easy to disassemble and useful to someone else once this client no longer needs it? Needs change – that’s inevitable – so design and build with that in mind. That’s a creative challenge.
How do you prioritise or reconcile climate, social, and economic pressures simultaneously?
A tight budget, taken seriously, can become a sustainability asset. If you’re working in an existing building, how much of what’s there can you keep? Can “less is more” become a genuine project principle rather than a consolation? Does it all need to be new?
Resource efficiency and cost or time efficiency is usually framed as being in tension, but a lot of the time we’re just looking at the wrong moment in the program. If you retain an existing element in your building, you can avoid cost, procurement lead times and upfront carbon at the same time.
The savings are real; they just show up in a different place, and that calls for a slightly different kind of client conversation. Working at the GBCA has sharpened all of this – you get a clear picture of where the industry is losing ground, and where it has genuine leverage.
When real trade-offs do exist, I think you just have to get clear on your goals early and get the team aligned around them. Sacrifice is inevitable (in design and in life, right?) so pick what matters most for this project and hold the line. And don’t reduce sustainability to carbon or ratings. The social dimension matters too – the wellbeing of the people building a space, using it, living near it. That’s all part of whether a project genuinely serves people now and into the future.
Looking ahead, what areas of sustainability require the most urgent innovation or attention?
The most urgent shift isn’t a new technology, it’s a new default assumption: that not everything needs to be new. Make ‘sufficiency’ part of your brief.
Specify reused materials. Refurbish what you have. If you don’t need stuff anymore, find someone else who does, or find a way for it to be used for something else. Think about how things come apart at end of use – fewer adhesives, less built-in, more consideration of what happens next.
When a fitout, for example, is being stripped out, spend a moment longer defitting carefully, even reselling, rather than sending everything to landfill. And when you are specifying new products, make sustainability credentials non-negotiable.
These are not just project decisions, they are market signal that moves supply chains. Don’t underestimate the power and impact of each decision you make.
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Article written by Clemence Carayol and originally published on www.architectureanddesign.com.au
Main image: Gabrielle Pavicic, Winner of the Emerging Sustainable Architect/Designer – Sustainability Awards 2025.
