A liveable future
Our director, Michael Haines spent last week in Melbourne, representing Strata Management SA at the SCA Australia & New Zealand conference titled Liveable Future.
With the conference opened with a keynote speech by Jon Dee, a leader in the Australian business and sustainability space (not to mention the co-founder of Planet Ark, Do Something and One Tree Per Child), Jon led the audience through how Net Zero strategies can often unleash new business opportunities and savings.
We certainly recommend taking a look at https://energysmartsaver.com.au/ where Jon’s book funded by the South Australian government is available for free to help you in your home.
Another highlight was the discussion with David Chandler, the NSW Building Commissioner who spoke of the strategies in place to improve building standards and return investor confidence following the series of high profile issues with Sydney apartment buildings a few years ago.
While we do not have the same legislation or oversight here in South Australia it we know that many in the strata industry would welcome greater regulation for the protection of our unit owners.
The conference was a great time for Michael to reconnect with many important figures in the strata industry and for Strata Management SA as a whole having not traveled for a few years now thanks to the scourge that is covid.
It was great to be able to spend time with fellow members of the South Australian SCA board, SCA staff discussing education, representatives of the bank holding our client accounts, the insurance broker, energy broker, software vendors and members of staff at the major strata insurers also (while Michael also enjoyed being able to catch up with his sister who lives in Melbourne and former colleagues now working interstate).
Unfortunately our director, Paul Stephenson was unable to attend cooped up at home with covid and while we have had some interruptions to staffing we thank those in the office for doing everything in their power to stay on top of client calls and concerns as wild weather lashed Adelaide.
Michael returned to take his son to a soccer game in Elizabeth which was unfortunately called off after driving across town with the ground under water and a mountain of emails which are being worked through along with multiple client meetings this week while dealing with emergency calls during this awful weather remains the priority.
The only regret from this conference in Michael’s opinion is that it didn’t do enough to explore the impact of EV’s (electric vehicles) which we see as an area that we see will greatly impact our client corporations over the next decade and we will continue to seek education in this area to be able to best support our clients through this dramatic change.
