Woodhead

Earth Hour Every Hour at Woodhead in March

Woodhead champions sustainability in the lead up to Earth Hour

Woodhead’s Australian Offices are actively promoting the importance of sustainable design in a month focused around environmental awareness.

Woodhead’s Melbourne office is holding a ‘Zero-Waste’ lunch for staff within their office, where everyone brings in food to share, the catch is there can be no packaging that would need to be thrown out. Melbourne is also running a recycled stationary competition, to design products made from waste paper in the office to be reused in innovative and attractive ways.

In Sydney, the focus was on sustainable power sources, with Ross Harding from Built Ecology giving an insightful and thought provoking presentation on alternative power sources ranging from solar, wind, wave, geothermal and tidal power as well as more controversial methods, illustrating best case examples of their utilisation around the world. This was followed the next day by a presentation from Arup about the benefits of 3D Modelling and the benefits of using Revit.

Internally in the Sydney office there is a Design Competition running for the entire office to submit a concept to build a ‘Green Wall’ on the balcony space, with the winners design being constructed in the last week of March. Sydney is also competing in the ‘Green Games’, a friendly competition to see which part of the office can reduce their waste and energy usage the most over the next four weeks.

In Adelaide plans are underway for a cocktail party with Phil Donaldson, Senior Manager Sustainability Policy and Programs from Land Management Corp. Land Management Corp is a subsidiary of the Government of South Australia, which manages a significant portfolio of land assets on behalf of the State Government.

In Brisbane the office is organising a range of site visits to 5 and 6 star Green Star (GBCA) accredited buildings to further explore sustainable design concepts in practice. They are also looking forward to a guest presentation from Norman Disney Young as well as a fundraising breakfast in the office to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund. Ongoing throughout the month is an analysis of how the Brisbane office gets too and from work, calculating the carbon footprints of each team member in an effort to encourage more sustainable means of transportation.

In Perth the team is planning a picnic in Kings Park which aims to be entirely zero-waste. This will be for staff and clients and take place later in the month. The Perth office is also lucky enough to be having local artists give presentations to the office. On St. Patricks day the office with be a sea of ‘green’ where everyone is invited to dress in green and bring ‘green food’ to further encourage discussion on sustainability.

On Friday 26th March the Darwin office will be having ‘candle lit’ drinks at the office with clients and a guest speaker from the Environment Protection Authority to talk about sustainability.

In Singapore the team has set up a board in their office where they are posting inspiring and thought provoking articles and images promoting sustainability. They are trialling setting the air-con at a warmer temperature and using ceiling fans to see if they can maintain a comfortable work environment whilst reducing energy use. The Green Games will start in Singapore on the 15^th of March with the office split into teams to see who can reduce energy and paper wastage. Later in the month the Singapore office will be having a gardening afternoon in the office to refresh their landscaping, and a morning on the beach where they will be picking up rubbish along the coastline.

Stay tuned for further events and activities as our ‘Earth Hour’ month continues through March.