Announcing our Sustainability Action Plan

At Gray Puksand, we believe the industry must also be part of the solution and we are committed to taking real climate action. We are pleased to announce our inaugural Sustainability Action Plan (SAP), which outlines our response to the climate crisis by incorporating sustainability initiatives into our business over the next three years.

“We acknowledge that as both people and a business, we’re in a climate crisis and we have a responsibility to act on what our future will look like through the implementation of our Sustainability Action Plan,” said Sustainability Lead and Partner at our Melbourne studio, Dale O’Brien, who led the strategy’s ideation.

Developed with input from staff across our four national studios and guided by industry experts from Let Me Be Frank and Development Victoria, our SAP outlines our cultural and operational response to sustainability, setting four measurable goals that we will track our progress against.

1. Build sustainability knowledge across our organisation

Gray Puksand will be undertaking a business-wide sustainability skills and knowledge audit to gain a comprehensive understanding of our current strengths and the highlighted areas to improve upon.

These findings will guide the development of a new staff education and engagement program which will provide access to cutting-edge tools, resources, and knowledge, aiding our staff to achieve the best possible sustainability outcomes.

We engaged with our teams because having a sustainability plan is something they’re really passionate about and want to be involved in. This new program intends to wholly encourage the entire team to expand on their sustainability knowledge, and as a result, be able to deliver more sustainable outcomes in our designs,” said Dale.

2. Deliver projects that begin to set new benchmarks for building performance

A key priority for the immediate future will be developing and embedding a project sustainability framework to act as a set of guiding principles around what sustainable design looks like at Gray Puksand.

Inspired by sustainable processes incorporated into projects such as the CIT Woden Campus, 412 St Kilda Road, and Launch Housing, the principles will work in tandem with our recently implemented design framework to engrain sustainability into our design ethos for every project regardless of budget, sector, and scale.

At CIT Woden, one of GP’s leading sustainable projects to date, the implementation of a hybrid timber and concrete structure resulted in a significant drop in embodied carbon usage across the project. This was one major factor that contributed to the 6-star Green Star design of the campus.

“The design process undertaken for CIT Woden resulted in numerous sustainable design ideas, influenced by a forward-thinking developer and a client that allowed us to shift our thinking dramatically in the way we design for sustainability across all of our projects,” added Dale.

3. Develop a pathway to net zero for our operations

Gray Puksand’s business activities across all studios will be certified carbon neutral through the purchase of carbon offsets, a practice that we will seek to certify with a trusted authority like Climate Active. However, we know this alone is not enough. We are committed to determining the necessary steps to achieve certified net zero emissions between now and well into the future.

“We are making an earnest and genuine commitment to determining our pathway towards net zero. Engaging with professional bodies to help us assess where we’re at and what we can do better will form the foundation of this plan,” said Dale.

4. Track and share our sustainability progress and outcomes

We will be implementing a robust system to measure and report on our progress towards our key goals on an annual basis. Gray Puksand is committed to transparency as we work to further embed sustainability into our day-to-day operations.

“Gray Puksand has a real responsibility to take meaningful action and contribute to the conversations around sustainability in the industry. Transparency and accountability to both internal and external stakeholders will enable success as we work towards our goals,”

Announcing our Sustainability Action Plan

Accounting for nearly 40% of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, the building and construction industry is a leading contributor to the current climate and biodiversity crisis.

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