leadership in sustainability prize
About the Prize
leadership in sustainability prize
This prize recognises individuals and/or groups demonstrating exceptional leadership and an outstanding contribution to the advancement of sustainability of the built environment.
Entrants must be financial members of the Institute.
2025 Entries closed Wednesday 31 July 2024 at 11.59pm (AEST).
find out more
Entrants can be nominated or may self nominate for the prize.
Entry is via an online form.
Find out more about what the judges are looking for.
Eligibility
Who can participate
Entrants can be nominated or may apply (self-nominate) for this prize.
Individuals and/or groups will need to demonstrate their exceptional leadership and outstanding contribution to the advancement of sustainability of the built environment.
2025 Entries closed Wednesday 31 July 2024 at 11.59pm (AEST).
Nominate
About the Process
To enter, please provide the following materials via the online entry form:
- A statement of excellence addressing one or more of the above criteria.
- Curriculum vitae of no more than two A4 pages, which describe the nominee’s educational qualifications, relevant, career history and experience.
- The name and contact details of a minimum of two nominees, or referees, with declaration of interest.
judging criteria
what the Judges look for
Nominations should meet the following criteria:
- creation of and advancement of knowledge through research and education
- development and deployment of effective advocacy and policy
- development and implementation of effective practice
- engagement of industry and the community with this knowledge, advocacy or practice.
2024 Winner
CONGRATULATIONS ABBIE GALVIN & Paulo Macchia
The Government Architect NSW team, led by Abbie Galvin and Paulo Macchia, has showcased exceptional leadership in all aspects of sustainability. Their display of courage and leadership in implementing sustainable practices and policies aligns with the broader governmental principles. This achievement not only demonstrates their commitment to environmental stewardship but also serves as an inspiration for others striving for sustainable development and progressive urban strategy. This team has worked closely with the NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating System) team to establish a bold and elegant method of standardizing the measurement of embodied carbon – the foundational step to solving the carbon problem. By exercising judicious soft power with wisdom and perseverance, Abbie Galvin, Paulo Macchia and team – especially Jillian Hopkins and Lucy Rimmer – have ensured that leading planning reform was not lost. Instead, they carefully wove it into a new form, delivering national leadership as New South Wales became the first state to require architects and developers to calculate the embodied carbon in their designs.
Jury:
Stuart Tanner FRAIA (Chair) | National President, Australian Institute of Architects | Tanner Architects TM
Sander de Vries | National Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Representative
Caroline Pidcock LFRAIA | Pidcock Architecture + Sustainability
Tamara Veltre | Breathe Architecture
2023 Winner
DR IRIS SE YOUNG HWANG
The 2023 Leadership in Sustainability Prize is awarded to Dr Iris Se Young Hwang, who has committed her career to thought leadership, research and education, including a dedication to allowing engineering to enhance design rather than to dictate it. Hwang’s contribution to sustainability in the built fabric of our megacities is undeniable., with her influence extending not only across international cities but also across environmental design disciplines.
Hwang has demonstrated innovation in multiple areas, including in the design of a green building assessment tool currently being used in Hong Kong, and the implementation of incentives that attempt to effect mass change and inspire further research. She takes the knowledge and experience gained through her work into other professions and into the education of future generations, which speaks to her greater goal of giving back to society.
“Architects should have fundamental understandings of all aspects of building, including engineering and sustainability, in order to push the boundary and establish collaborative partnerships with engineers rather than engineering being sidelined in the creative process of architecture,” said Alec Tzannes, one of Hwang’s early teachers and mentors. Clearly, Hwang has not only heard these words, but executed them with commendable success and impact.
Jury:
Shannon Battisson FRAIA (Chair) | National President, Australian Institute of Architects | The Mill: Architecture + Design
Paul Memmott LFRAIA | The University of Queensland
Andrew Pickard | Powerhaus Engineering
Sarah Lebner RAIA | Cooee Architecture
2022 Winner
Dr Kenneth Yeang
The Australian Institute of Architects recognises that the advancement of sustainability in architecture and urban design can, and is, happening through a range of inputs, all of which play their unique and valuable part. The 2022 Leadership in Sustainability Prize is awarded to Dr Kenneth Yeang, who for decades, has responded to the twin planetary emergencies of climate change and biodiversity loss, and who–through his pioneering actions–has led a paradigm shift in sustainable built environment research and practice, inspiring a generation of architects, planners, and engineers in Australia and worldwide.
As an architect, planner, prolific author, and ecologist, Yeang’s early experiments with bioclimatic and passive design bucked trends. In the last decades of last century, when so many large-scale buildings were the by-product of mechanical and artificial systems, Yeang instead sought greater harmony between architecture and nature. Yet access to nature, use of vegetation and natural ventilation within skyscrapers presented many challenges. His career might, therefore, be considered a series of experiments to decarbonise large-scale projects through passive and ecological design strategies–theorised, implemented, tested, and disseminated through his extensive publication and teaching–including by invitation to Australian universities.
Yeang has been recognised through the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1996), the Institute’s International Architecture Award (1998), the Prinz Claus Award (1999) and the UIA Auguste Perret Prize (1999). “His pioneering research and buildings, combining architecture and nature, have provided inspiration for a generation of architects and planners concerned with ecology and the future of the built environment.”1
Footnotes
1. Mohsen Mostafavi (Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design 2008–2019), aptly explains Yeang’s contribution in a review of his book: Saving the Planet by Design (Routledge, 2019).
Jury
Tony Giannone FRAIA – Australian Institute of Architects National President | Director, Tectvs
Sarah Lyn Rees RAIA Grad. – Australian Institute of Architects First Nations Advisory Working Group Chair | Jackson Clements Burrows Architects
Dr Melinda Dodson LFRAIA – Australian Institute of Architects Past National and ACT President | Canberra Low Carbon Housing Challenge Founder | Director, Melinda Dodson Architects
Mark Lusis Affiliate RAIA – Associate Principal, Arup
2021 winners
joint winners, Caroline Pidcock & Tone Wheeler
The 2021 award for Leadership in Sustainability is jointly awarded to Caroline Pidcock and Tone Wheeler as they were considered to be inseparable in their contributions. They are founders of the movement in Australia to demonstrate how sustainability can be delivered in the built environment. They are both outstanding in the time, energy and creativity they have provided to the profession and to the broader community over several decades. They have led the profession by showing that there is hope in tackling the structures that impede sustainability and by their involvement in demonstration projects that enable everyone to see that sustainability can be cost-effective, inclusive and beautiful.
By contributing to almost every professional and community-based group in New South Wales that has had a sustainability agenda for the built environment, Caroline Pidcock has shown that architects must attack the agenda through civil society. As a result, she has contributed to many government changes in regulations and guidelines, as well as being an effective media spokesperson. Caroline has had academic and professional positions that have enabled her to deliver sustainability outcomes and demonstrate leadership for future generations. She has many awards at state level and has now earned this national recognition.
Tone Wheeler has contributed to leadership in sustainability in education, research, advocacy, community engagement and policy development on a national level. As an academic and researcher, he has helped create many of the guidelines for how to achieve sustainability in the built environment, including the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme (NatHERS) and the Building Sustainability Index (BASIX). In advocacy, community engagement and policy development, he has become the voice of architecture through his public speaking, media interviews and regular “Tone on Tuesday” column. Through his architectural practice, Tone has continued to deliver projects that demonstrate his leadership and to be a contributor to the Australian Institute of Architects.
2020 Winner
Stephen Choi
Stephen Choi has an extremely diverse career, from education, advocacy and practice. Stephen has been extremely engaged to enable delivery of change within sustainability across multiple areas of the value chain.
Stephen’s academic involvement commenced with the University of East London, continued with UTS before a pivot research project with University of Wollongong and Macquarie University in this Australian-first research managing the retrofit of 185 individual homes, all occupied by low income pensioners. This project has been a key pillar to demonstrate the human face of energy poverty, and the social impact of energy efficiency. Stephen is now an Honorary Fellow of the Sustainable Buildings Research Centre, University of Wollongong.
Stephen has been a long term advocate for sustainability and has been focused from sustainability and design conferences to media such as Australian Financial Review, Sky News and the Guardian. Stephen is focused on “those in society who are usually forgotten, those with the most unmet needs, and those who usually have no access to architects or any professionals more broadly”. This advocacy is part of Stephen’s role as the Executive Director of Living Future Institute of Australia.
What impressed the jury, in particular, was Stephen’s ability to take the principles to practice. Stephen is the Living Building Challenge Manager for Fraser’s Brickworks which is aiming to be the world’s most sustainable shopping centre, and first to achieve the Living Building Challenge™. Brickworks has been recognised with a 6 Star Green Star Design and As-Built v1.1 (Design Review) rating which features Australia’s first rooftop Urban Farm within a shopping centre am is self-sufficient for energy and recycling its own water.
2019 Winner
2019: Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living
The Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living has been one of Australia’s pivotal research and innovation hubs, focused on driving our sector towards not only more sustainable development, but also a globally competitive low-carbon future. The Cooperative Research Centre’s advancement of knowledge through research and education has included training more than one hundred higher-degree research students, developing a much-needed evidence base for policy and planning, and growing an extensive partner network with sustainable built environment peak bodies, ensuring that the research undertaken has real-world impact at building and precinct scales.
From working with councils, property developers and utilities companies to enable better developments and faster approvals to establishing low-carbon programs for schools and businesses, the Cooperative Research Centre for Low Carbon Living’s leadership in the field has been well recognised. What impressed the jury in particular was its ongoing policy work, including proposed revisions to the building sustainability index, and its collective advocacy work, which has included a number of forums and publications covering local renewables, cooling cities and low-carbon homes for low-income households. The Cooperative Research Centre, in a reasonably short time, has touched a large number of those in the built environment in a positive way.’– Jury Citation
