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22 May 2020
Sustainability Awards 2020 Ambassadors
For the first time in its 14-year history, the Sustainability Awards will have ambassadors to help promote what has become Australia’s largest and most popular sustainability event for the built industry. These Ambassadors that we have chosen are not only leaders in their field, they are at the same time, veritable icons of the industry who have each contributed in their own unique way in helping and promoting sustainability and a better environmental outcome for all. Following are the bios of all five of our 2020 Sustainability Awards Ambassadors.
Natasha Mulcahy
Sustainability & Engagement manager, Sekisui House Australia
Natasha Mulcahy is the Sustainability & Engagement Manager for West Village, the $1 billion urban regeneration project by Sekisui House Australia, and in 2019 became the inaugural winner of the Women in Sustainability award.
For the past 15 years Mulcahy has worked across government and private industry, with a focus on delivering property projects with triple bottom line outcomes. Her experience includes the site acquisition and strategic planning for a new university campus, planning for sustainability and community infrastructure in urban growth precincts, and driving shared value through urban renewal.
Through her role at West Village, she has been instrumental in precinct sustainability planning and has driven ambitious initiatives, resulting in a 6 Star Green Star Communities rating for the development – the highest recognition for a master-planned precinct in Australia.
HY William Chan
Urbanist, Entrepreneur, University of Sydney
HY William Chan is an entrepreneur and urbanist with a passion in innovating our cities and communities. Chan has designed for Cox Architecture, Hassell, Arup Foresight and Innovation, and the Australian Government Department of the Environment.
An outspoken advocate, Chan is a Forbes ’30 Under 30’ innovator and TEDx speaker. His sustainable development projects have been showcased across 40 cities. This year, he was inducted into the Australian of the Year Honour Roll, named as one of Pro Bono Australia’s top 25 most influential Australians in the social sector, and features in the Qantas Centenary publication of ‘100 Inspiring Australians’.
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Nicci Leung
Founder and Facilitator, Lifepod Evolution
Creator and Design Lead, The Lifepod Project
Nicci Leung began her career providing design and project services to the discerning Clients of two of the most highly regarded architectural and interior design practices in Melbourne. As her interests broadened, Leung’s career evolved to embrace the incredible potential for innovation that new and emerging technologies offered.
Lifepod Evolution facilitates exploration and experimentation for clients and collaborators. Combining her passions for design, innovation and technology, Leung assembles multi-disciplinary teams to ‘prototype’ pathways and solutions that inspire constructive change; putting the needs of our people and our planet front and centre and rethinking the way we design, build and live.
The Lifepod Project is one of these investigations, focused to find the housing solutions of the future.
Leung’s vision for the future is a positive one and involves Australian talent in across sector collaboration to create real solutions to the many challenges and complexities associated with increasing population and urbanization across the globe.
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Christian Hampson
Co-founder and Director (Woiwurrung | Maneroo), Yerrabingin
Christian Hampson is a proud Woiwurrung and Maneroo Aboriginal man interweaving Indigenous tacit knowledge and collaborative design thinking to walk a new path, away from conventional approaches. Yerrabingin has launched the world’s first Indigenous rooftop farm in 2019, located high above Sydney on the roof of Yerrabingin House in South Eveleigh with over 2,500 Australian native plants.
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Jefa Greenaway
Director, RAIA (Wailwan | Kamilaroi), Greenaway Architects
Jefa Greenaway is Director of Greenaway Architects, a University of Melbourne senior academic, and a regular design commentator on ABC Radio Melbourne. He’s championed Indigenous led design thinking for over 25 years, including as co-founder of Indigenous Architecture + Design Victoria, as co-author of the International Indigenous Design Charter, and as Regional Ambassador (Oceania) of INDIGO (International Indigenous Design Network). He’s a founding signatory of Architects Declare Australia an initiative foregrounding architecture’s role in to tackling the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss, is co-curator (with Tristan Wong) of the Australian exhibition at La Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2020 and is a recent 2020 DIA Hall of Fame inductee.
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John Gertsakis
Sustainability | Stewardship | Advocacy | Communications, Cambium Communications
John Gertsakis is an experienced sustainability, policy and communications practitioner across diverse industries, sectors and portfolios. He operates at the highest levels with ministers, members of parliament, government officials and other industry associations.
Gertsakis served as executive director of Product Stewardship Australia representing global consumer electronics brands in the design of the Product Stewardship Act. As an Honorary Fellow of the Design Institute of Australia, he understands the issues confronting the design industry.
His work has covered appliances, electronics, furniture, floor-coverings and textiles. Design management has often been at the centre of these engagements including greater attention to how we transition to a circular economy. His early work on cradle to cradle thinking represents a pioneering phase at RMIT’s Centre for Design.
Gertsakis is also director of Communications with Equilibrium consultants, senior policy adviser with the DIA, and an adjunct professor with the Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS.
Jean Graham
Jean Graham is the founding director of Winter Architecture, a collaborative architecture practice located in Fitzroy and Torquay. Translating the quiet, introspective, site-specific qualities of Winter – the season – into an Architectural dictum. Varied budgets and a range of client backgrounds, Winter Architecture has opened up the possibility of architecture to a number of clients who did not feel architecture was accessible to then, due to low budgets, difficult site restrictions, and the desire to build themselves.
She is also is the recipient of the 2018 Sustainability Awards ‘ Emerging Architect of the Year’.
Graham has maintained her relationship with Deakin University teaching architecture design studios, alongside teaching interior architecture studios at Swinburne University and guest critiquing at the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
