Meet Our Facilitator
Ian Adams
Director
Ian Adams is an experienced public speaker, facilitator and trainer, regularly providing training at the highest level in the building industry. He is a Certified Assessor for over 300 Green Star projects and is trainer for the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). Ian has experience teaching at RMIT and Melbourne Universities on sustainable design and green city infrastructure. Ian has experience in helping develop industry toolkits such as BESS planning assessment tool, Green Star, and InSite Water and he has an in-depth knowledge of how to implement sustainable design in buildings.
Formerly he worked as Sustainability Coordinator for Frasers guiding their implementation of ESD into over 1,000 housing, industrial, commercial and apartment buildings. Ian has worked as a planning sustainability referrals officer at Knox and Whitehorse Councils, and he has assisted many metropolitan Councils with establishing their sustainability assessment in planning and capital words programs. Ian also has extensive experience implementing Green Star for many projects, and in training and facilitation of workshops for the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA).
Online Training: Sustainable Design Assessment for Planners
This free course is an introduction to sustainable design assessment in the planning system for Planners and ESD professionals, and Sustainability referrals officers. We look at the Sustainable Design Assessments in Victorian councils, as well as how sustainability toolkits can be used to efficiently generate and assess the sustainability of planning permit applications. This course can be purchased for both individuals and council access.
Stormwater in Planning and Building approvals
This training is a quick introduction to Water Sensitive Urban Design and how to design for best practice urban stormwater outcomes on smaller development and redevelopment sites. Often projects are asked to achieve good stormwater outcomes by Councils, and this training will look at how that can be best achieved. We provide in-house training for Council teams.
We have extensive experience facilitating Water Sensitive Urban Design workshops and training to the planning, asset maintenance, and engineering teams in many Australian Councils including: Knox, Frankston, Greater Dandenong, Casey, Maroondah, Manningham, Whitehorse, Yarra Ranges, Moreland and Maribyrnong.
For example for the City of Greater Dandenong we delivered a comprehensive project on implementing the sustainable water strategy through development industry engagement. The project involved documenting and improving planning and building permit assessment processes, providing integrated water management training to the planning, assets and engineering teams and rolling out the InSite water toolkit to facilitate the design and assessment of IWM through the planning system and on the municipality’s development sites.
Net Zero Policy and Strategy workshop
This is the critical decade to transform your organisation. Sustainability is a key factor for your customers, staff, investors and stakeholders. What is your strategy? What are your goals and KPI's? How are you going to transition your property, operations and products to zero emissions?
If you are not clear on how your organisation will maintain social license and stay ahead of the demands of the market, then let us facilitate that discussion with your leadership team. Using our proven 4 step strategy, we will deliver clarity + purpose and document organisational strategic goals and policy.
We have 20 years experience developing sustainability policy and strategy for over a dozen large organisations. We Have worked with many government and corporate organisations negotiating win-win solutions around sensitive sustainability issues, including AMP, ISPT, Sustainability Victoria, Frasers, Mirvac, The Victorian Government DEECA, and the MFB.
We have extensive experience with other complex organisations such as the Department of Defence where we developed Defence’s Green Building Policies, where competing priorities and diverse stakeholders needed to be brought together in agreement on sustainability policy, actions and management systems.
How assessment tools and software can be used efficiently
SDA, SMP and Stormwater Reports
Local Council MSs, local activity centre, VPP and LPP policies
Council In-House ESD training support
We can provide in-house training support for Sustainable Design for Victorian councils, as well as how Sustainability Toolkits can be used to efficiently report on and assess the sustainability of planning permit applications or in the Capital Works program.
We will provide a technically accurate, comprehensive training package delivered in a professional and engaging manner at each training session, enabling and supporting planners to understand and assess the SDA and SMP reports .
We will look at local Council MSS, local activity centre, VPP and LPP policies that support and require sustainability assessment of applications. We will workshop with planners the most efficient way to assess smaller applications, and discuss how to refer more complex applications for assessment.
The training will look at example SDA, SMP and stormwater reports and discuss how to determine if a submission meets Council requirements. We will also discuss where to find further information and assistance.
For local government, we developed ESD and capital works policy and delivered training for Whittlesea Council Manningham City Council, Moreland City Council, Yarra City Council, Greater Dandenong, Casey, Whittlesea, Manningham, Monash, Banule, Whitehorse, Port Phillip and Knox Councils in Victoria. We have also worked with thought leading NSW Councils on building ESD such as Penrith, Queanbeyan, Georges River and Blue Mountains Councils.
Testimonials for Ian’s facilitation
“One word - Informative”
“Very well presented with good balance of visuals, concepts and using relevant examples.”
“Excellent. I had no knowledge about the area. Ian made it interesting even for the novice. He also made it clear that there are no simple solutions. I enjoyed learning from an expert that appreciated complexity.”