Leadership in our Hot New World

It is so important, first, to grieve those lost to these deadly fires and especially those lost in service to protecting others from their wrath; to reflect on the immense toll on animal life and endangered species, and to offer solidarity with those whose lives have been upended as homes, businesses, farms, towns and communities burn across Australia.

We must offer our deepest thanks to those working in emergency services to protect life.

And we must also acknowledge that it is a crisis still unfolding, with rain still weeks off at best; that perhaps we have not yet seen the worst of it. We must prepare mentally for the grinding exhaustion of this long-running disaster, before we can even begin to look to supporting the recovery of our scorched communities.

Yet we must stare clear-eyed at the task in front of us.

The deep decarbonisation of our nation within the next decade is non-negotiable – Australia is too big an economy, emitter and supplier of fossil fuels for the global emissions reduction efforts to succeed without us. And as the hottest, driest continent on the planet, we are among the most exposed to the effects of a changing climate, all to clearly illuminated in the fire light.

The physics task is what it is – to stabilize, and ultimately draw down greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere will be harder than it would have been had we moved when we knew; although likely easier than it might still prove to be if we delay. All said though, it is the task before us and it is no use pretending otherwise: 70-80% global decarbonisation by 2030, global net zero emissions no later than 2050 and net negative emissions down the back straight of the century.

That we will have a recalcitrant federal government for at least the first third of the decade is a given, and possibly there is a another lost ‘climate election’ still to come. Whatever we achieve, it will be largely achieved with the federal power structures that exist today.

The technology we have is probably up to the task – whether in energy, transportation or agriculture; enough certainly to make substantive progress as we progress the R&D task in industry and waste management. We do not fail for lack of technological options.

We are amongst the wealthiest nations in the world per capita, with the capacity to raise capital at historically low rates. Across our economy, we do not lack for the financial resources to effect major and rapid change. Our failure cannot be put at the door of poverty.

And yet, we remain stuck through the historical power of one sector – fossil fuel extraction – and a culture war waged through media and conservative politics that has found in climate inaction a tribal rallying point that has helped deliver political power.

In policy and advocacy terms, our task is to use whatever means we have at our disposal to establish a political and investment environment that holds us to a steep trajectory – keeping carbon in the ground, modernising the energy and transportation systems, ruggedizing our built environment, supporting the resilience of our communities and re-thinking how we produce food. Those very things that so enrage the ideological and commercial opponents to action, opponents that have so skilfully used their power to control the narrative to their benefit for 30 years.

Which brings me, at last, to the point of this post: understanding, and deploying power.

For if we are to deliver the task this decade, it will be through our ability to focus the power we have, to harness the latent power within those with the most to lose from a changing climate and to focus it on those policy-makers and investors who hold the keys to ambitious action.

We must understand that while there is clearly one sector that will gain through thwarting effective climate action – the fossil fuel sector and those who enjoy its patronage; virtually every other sector of the economy and society at large stands to lose a great deal.

Our tourism sector, predicted to lose hundreds of millions through this event itself; the financial services and insurance industry aligned with the property industry with billions of dollars of built assets at risk; our education sector, so reliant on foreign students and the perception of Australia as a place of global leadership; our agriculture sector shaped by declining productivity through drought events and long-term changing rainfall patterns.

So much of what makes the lucky country lucky is on the line.

And also so much promised: an emerging technology sector supporting our future jobs, where the global quest to attract talent and investment hinges upon delivering the lifestyle and values alignment of the emerging millennial global labour market – the antithesis of our smoky cities and global pariah status at the COPs.

While the fossil fuel industry is large and has tentacles of influence through Australia’s public and private institutions, it does not have a monopoly on special interests; indeed, not even a majority.

The rest of the community are doing what they can - our scientists are doing the good research and have warned for decades, our communities have been out in the streets and some of our business leaders have been right out in front, supporting new renewable energy projects of scale. But these have all been constrained to positions of demonstration or intellectual influence – they have not come from a position of power and have proven ineffectual in countering the well-funded efforts of the coal and gas giants.

I say to our community leaders – keep fighting, keep demonstrating and keep the story alive that we can, and must, move fast. Build the political pressure in the lead-up to our next election that we do not miss the opportunity. But also recognise that it is not enough – this task cannot be completed by the true believers alone.

What we have lacked is the wholesale mobilisation of business’s lobby effort on behalf of climate – a centre of real power in how we conduct our society in 2020.  

At best, token; for the most part, silent; and at worst, complicit; that the Business Council of Australia welcomed the removal of the carbon tax in 2013 will stand as one of the most short-sighted notices of a short-sighted decade. And yet within the Australian business community, there exists the power in relation to this government to coerce it to change course.

Australia is perhaps the developed nation most economically exposed to climate change. It’s not just a case of our property industry with assets at risk in the late century or our agriculture sector grappling with drought. The inherent economic risks of climate change have been identified by our major financial institutions – APRA and the RBA. But the full power of our businesses has remained sitting on the fence.

There are perhaps 30-40 CEOs with the power to train their sights on meaningful policy change and with direct leverage over the fossil fuel industry; five financial services CEOs able to slow lending and investment, fifteen professional services CEOs in audit, engineering and law able to withdraw services, five property development CEOs able to bring the power of Property Council of Australia to bear and ten to twenty vice chancellors able to influence our entire knowledge sector.

Many would like to think of themselves as leaders. Well, if this emergency is not a catalyst to show your leadership, then nothing will. This fire emergency is a tipping point for our society in Australia. Those who have stood against climate action now stand on the side of fire, destruction and broken communities.

If you enjoy the fruits of fossil fuel profits, you are complicit in these fires that so ravage our communities.

If you cannot see that while profitable today, any involvement with the extraction of fossil fuels puts your future business at risk; puts all business at risk, you are wilfully blind.

And if you are a business leader in Australia, and you do not throw the weight of your organisation in direct opposition to the fossil fuel sector and its obstruction of climate policy, you are a coward.

However, if you seize this moment, recognise the influence and power that you hold and choose to lead – tangibly, practically and with effect; then history beckons.

Things We Build

One of the hallmarks of civilisation is building things. We build things and we grow things. Since our ancestors first settled to farm and live, the signs of our advance as a species can be traced through the things we have built – our homes, our roads, our viaducts, our plazas and squares; our high-speed rail lines and 5G networks and sewers and our great galleries, libraries and towers.

We can see the stories of civilisation traced in the dust and the rubble of Aleppo – our oldest city; and in the lights and sparkle of Tokyo, our biggest. And now, for the first time in history, as digital technology injects exponential change into our cities, what we build is shaping the planetary systems on which we rely – the climate system, the oceans and the ecosystems that support Life.

Our built world is changing fast, and that change is accelerating. What it changes to will determine the success of our species.

A question I have grappled with is that when the things you design determine the fate of the world, what is the role that engineers, thinkers and advisors should play in shaping them?

Who do we serve?

How do we make decisions and decide priorities?

I suppose ultimately I have been trying to answer: “are we culpable?”.

And the only conclusion I can come to is that in our industry at this junction of history, we have unprecedented leverage, the power even, to meaningfully shape the Things We Build to support the systems that support life. There are things we must start doing, things we must do better and things we must cease to do at all. The challenges for the built environment have never been bigger, the importance of high quality, innovative and creative design never more urgent and the opportunity to truly shape a world that works, never greater.

The responsibility to do better is ours. In the words of John E. Lewis: If not us, then who; if not now, then when?

This has led me to consider how a professional and design services community can materially addresses the social and environmental challenges facing humanity through the built environment.

What might such a community look like and who might it serve?

What is its purpose?

I remember when choosing the engineering path, how the concept of professionalism was brought to the forefront of my mind. Not just delivering to a brief, but accepting a duty of care to society – a custodial responsibility that transcended the transactional relationship of service-provider and client.

I believe that at the core of this professionalism, in this place and at this time, should be the public interest – a recognition of the leverage we have as designers to put a liveable future world at the centre of our ambitions.

I believe we need an industry that can consider public interest issues as a priority as well as the needs of shareholders, clients and staff and invest in the thinking and innovation to change trajectory. An industry that is committed to collaboration over transaction.

To build an industry like this, we must draw long lines of logic, choosing to deliver shared value over time and have the courage to set a bold vision for a better future and the determination to pursue that vision with every ounce of grit and creativity we possess.

Sexy Resilience for All Hallow's Night 31/10/2017

“For Halloween,” went the suggestive tweet, “put ‘sexy’ in front of your scariest thing…”

And so I did.

Sexy ecosystem collapse. Sexy uninsurable risk. Sexy unmanaged retreat. Sexy concurrent breadbasket failure. Sexy urban displacement. Sexy flooded sewer systems. Sexy microbial resistance. Sexy heatwaves. Sexy bushfires. Sexy floods. Sexy category 5 hurricanes, all in a row. Sexy drought. Sexy climate change.

These things terrify me because we live in a world where the statistical assumptions that underpin our decisions are no longer reflective of the world we will inhabit - when 1-in-500 year (the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season) and 1-in-1000 year (the Cape Town drought) events occur concurrently, ‘normal’ no longer applies.

The foundational basis of our design and investment decisions over the life of the things we build is wrong. And we have little idea of how wrong it will prove to be, no clear picture of the unknown and unknowable risks that the cities we build, and the communities they house, will face.

The glimpses of the future that climate models give us tell us that we will be living in a profoundly different world in the second half of this century and beyond.

People have always feared the unknown, the dark, the afterlife. In the past, we’ve used religion and myth and legend to light that dark (our Halloween traditions), and more recently science, technology and data. But none of these alone give us the tools for the unknowable interaction of complex earth system changes that appear to be our collective future.

If we’re to navigate these very real risks, we need to build resilient cities - there is no doubt to the imperative. Cities with systems that absorb the shocks of a changing climate and maintain functional core services for communities.

But our current framing of resilience still tinkers at the edges and does little to build traction for fundamental change to our projects. At the level of the project, we talk about bigger HVAC systems, hail-proof building systems and wind-tolerant facades and at policy we speak of mobility diversity and community development; but seldom about the fundamentals of the urban form and planning.

I believe we need a combination of data and imagination to tell plausibly true stories of our future to shape the decisions of our present. We need to be uncompromising in describing a suite of possible and probable impact scenarios of a changing climate and draw the links between that world and the decisions we make today.

One example jumped out at me this past month - a question of insurability in the built environment.

Insurance has proven an excellent tool at managing risk by distributing the costs of disasters or accidents through premiums that reflect the likelihood of those events. But we’re seeing an increasingly large range of assets that are simply at too much risk to insure cost effectively - the New York subway relying on ‘disaster bonds’ (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/new-york-future-flooding-climate-change.html) and the low-lying suburbs of Houston relying upon federal disaster relief it make up the difference.

  

The insurance industry is founded on actuarial models that rely on good data from the past, and plausible models for its applicability to the future. But there are profound challenges to these models when the uncertainty of future conditions renders the data unrepresentative. If we can’t insure assets, we cannot finance them and then we cannot build and invest in the future cities we need.

Part of our response to resilience must be to build models that allow us to manage unknown future risks effectively through the insurance industry and to manage our retreat from areas where no matter our resilience measures, we are putting future communities at material risk.

Broadly speaking, we have not done an adequate job of describing our future in experiential and practical terms. We don’t think about what a heatwave of 50 degree days actually means; to our healthcare system with the concurrent possibility of air-conditioning systems failing and with an ageing population. We don’t describe metropolitan flood risks publicly and broadly to shape where people can choose to live and invest. There remains structural economic risk to both the direct and transitional risks from climate change (the carbon bubble) and we’ve not done enough to describe these risks in politically engaging ways.

So to build resilience, we need intellectual honesty in our work. We need the imagination to creatively put ourselves into an unknown future, and the technical skills to build our response to that future today.

We need to build on both our historic responses to the unknown - the stories and the data - to materially manage the very real risk exposure of our. communities.  

Because the earth system does not care what we think, it is only what we do that will count.

And we can only do what we can imagine.

Finding Leverage

Australian cities face unprecedented challenges. They’re continuing to grow but display the symptoms of chronic underinvestment in mass transit infrastructure. They operate under fragmented governance and are among the least affordable in the world. In the face of terrifying climate change acceleration in 2016, they continue an upward trajectory of carbon emissions. The urban sustainability movement has never been as important to our future prosperity as it is right now.

The narrative for urban sustainability has reinforced a compelling message for the past decade: incentivise the construction of higher quality buildings and the refurbishing of old buildings and we will materially address the sustainability challenges faced by our cities. This narrative has been applied broadly and successfully – green building rating tools are now fairly standard in the higher end of commercial property, mandatory disclosure has triggered building upgrades in CBDs across the country and energy efficiency is a regulatory consideration in both residential and commercial sectors.

But has it materially changed the trajectory of urban development to enable the competitive, equitable, resilient and sustainable cities that are so critical to our shared future?

The research presented by ASBEC and Climateworks in the Low Carbon High Performance report – showing only marginal carbon emissions intensity reductions across commercial and residential sectors over the past decade (2% and 5% respectively) – would suggest not. It is only one indicator, but it points to a growing malaise within the sustainability community that our efforts are not bringing about the change we hope for and need. Our efforts do not appear to be of a scale or speed to meaningfully shift our cities to be the places we need.

Transforming our cities requires net reduction in emissions (ultimately to zero). Marginal improvements in emissions intensity do not cut the mustard. Our movement has targeted the top quartile of the industry, and this trickle-down approach to sustainability has not worked to transform the market across the board.

We need a sustainability discourse that seeks levers to accelerate our progress. This piece discusses three emerging opportunities to reframe the urban sustainability narrative: how we transition to a clean urban grid, an amenity-based approach to affordable density and a metropolitan approach to enhancing our urban biodiversity.

Zero-Carbon | Grid Transformation

Progressing toward zero-carbon is a core compact between global green building councils in response to the Paris Agreement of COP21.

There are fundamental reasons why buildings cannot achieve this on their own terms – through efficiency and on-site generation. At current business as usual consumption, the ratio of solar generation footprint to building area is approximately 1:1. Even with deep cuts in efficiency (60-70%) – those same cuts we have failed to achieve universally in a decade of trying – the ratio only improves to about 3:1. We simply cannot resolve our challenges for in-fill development, transport connectivity, affordable housing and a high quality public realm at that level of density.

Our only hope to achieve a zero-carbon built environment is to transform our grid. And fast.

Right now there are substantial barriers to achieving a zero-carbon built environment. On-site generation is insufficient to meet demand. Selling power across site boundaries is difficult (and often impossible) under the current regulations. Power Purchase Agreements don’t alleviate the infrastructure burden on tariffs (which can make up more than half the costs for building owners). Regulatory change is slow and complex – as the recent efforts for rule changes for distributed generation with the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) attest. Transitioning to zero carbon is urgent.

Private and embedded networks present the best current opportunity to by-pass some of the challenges of current energy regulation. By increasing the scale and diversity of demand on the private side of the meter, the ability for embedded generation to be fully utilised is substantially increased. And broadly our cities need flexible intermediate frameworks for generating renewable energy, distributing it over short distances and selling it across property boundaries.

If we’re serious about zero carbon cities, this is a current and urgent need. It demands our collective effort – lobbyist, advocates, designers, engineers, planners – to the building of a national consensus for a transformed urban grid.

Density, Amenity and Affordability

We need to have a compact connected city. People need to live close to where they work. People need to be able to afford a home. These two issues – proximity and affordability – are imperatives for a competitive city that demand greater density. But there is a social licence battle to be fought about our requisite density and the balance of private and public amenity. NIMBYism is rife and vested interests hold massive sway over planning and development outcomes – either refusing development altogether or pursuing density without addressing either public amenity or affordability.

At present, private amenity is addressed through SEPP 65 and the Apartment Design Guide in NSW. However, responsibility for public amenity is held by a fragmented local government structure. Uniquely for a rich, progressive country, housing affordability doesn’t seem to be held by anyone.

Asa result densification beyond current planning allowances is an ad hoc affair of hastily negotiated voluntary planning agreements and financial contributions that seldom deliver the public amenity or social infrastructure needed to support the urban intensification.

There remains a huge gap in our industry in developing planning guidelines for the quantity and quality of accessible public space, private space and social infrastructure needed to support the substantial densification of parts of our cities. Coupled with requirements for affordable housing, an innovative planning framework to enable density on the basis of amenity and social infrastructure is one of our biggest unrealised opportunities.

We need to fight the NIMBYs, fight FOR urban amenity (our parks, our trees, our sunny squares) and we need to make a case for high quality, affordable, compact development.

Urban Habitat and Biodiversity

Finally, we must address urban ecology – we cannot afford to have a city dead to the natural world.

Habitat functionality is not just a function of it being big. Or green. Or even native.  But rather it’s a complex arrangement of size, level of degradation, and perhaps most critically – connection to other high quality habitat.

If we’re serious about creating cities that are resilient, attractive and competitive, we need to enable coexistence with the life systems that underpin our human existence. We ignore them at our peril. This means establishing green corridors across our cities, connecting nodes of parks and gardens. It means re-purposing the veins of our cities – our roads and transport corridors – and rewilding our urban spaces.

Conclusion

The sustainable design movement has won important ground this last decade. We have made consideration of environment, social and governance factors a fundamental part of property investment. We have enabled new low-impact products to find and consolidate a market. We have introduced a common language for urban sustainability. These initiatives, and many others, have transformed the discourse on sustainability in the property industry.

But let’s not pretend the wellness of bankers and lawyers, the rental premiums and returns in commercial property or the latest air conditioning system or fancy façade are material to the big environmental challenges of our day.

We need a zero carbon grid.

We need a substantial injection of affordable, amenable housing.

We need enabled biodiversity and amenity to supports living city.

Our industry must get its hands dirty with the (AEMC). We must engage with the planning profession and the Greater Sydney Commission on housing, density and the public domain. We must build capacity in supporting urban ecology and highly functional, connected habitat.

Addressing these key sectors and systems within the built environment offers us real leverage in transforming our cities. So let’s get our industry fighting these battles with everything they’ve got.

*This post first appeared in an edited form in The Urban Developer: http://www.theurbandeveloper.com/urban-sustainability-its-time-to-lift-our-game/

Navigating the complexity of urban precincts

Current investment in urban precincts and infrastructure across NSW showcases the importance of an integrated planning and delivery approach across vertical and horizontal infrastructure (buildings integrated with transport and utilities) in support of the drive to create more liveable, sustainable and resilient cities.

A new Plan for Growing Sydney, the Greater Sydney Commission established with real regulatory power to see it effected and an emerging political willingness to engage pro-actively with urban renewal are all positive signs. But it also requires the design and construction sectors to deliver buildings, infrastructure and our shared public spaces in an integrated manner.

In the case of Sydney the Government’s vision for a strong global city, a great place to live will be achieved through:

• -a competitive economy with world-class services and transport;
•  a city of housing choice with homes that meet our needs and lifestyles;
•  a great place to live with communities that are strong, healthy and well connected; and
•  a sustainable and resilient city that protects the natural environment and has a balanced approach to the use of land and resources.

-        A Plan for Growing Sydney, 2015

These goals cannot even be successfully contemplated, let alone achieved, without joined-up thinking in design and engineering.

The challenges

Our urban world is undergoing rapid change. Faced with substantial challenges to our environmental, social and economic systems, we are being forced to adapt quickly and our cities provide clear proof of this.

Addressing climate change  both in terms of mitigating and being resilient to its effects, delivering prosperity, supporting biodiversity, reducing resource consumption and enabling human health are urgent priorities for our cities, as they compete for global investment and for an increasing urban dweller base.

The COP21 climate talks and the subsequent agreement reached, received unprecedented support from civic and administrative city leaders from across the globe as urban renewal has come to play an increasingly strategic role in planning policy for development, housing and infrastructure.

In the area of urban renewal, precincts provide a rare combination of commercial, technical and social attributes that can balance social and environmental requirements with the need to maintain a prosperous and competitive cityscape. In order to create precincts that will power our future cities, planners, designers and engineers must first successfully navigate the complexity of integrating vertical and horizontal infrastructure.

City needs

In broad terms, we understand a lot about what our cities need for a successful future.

We know that our cities need to be more dense, enabled by multi-modal public transit systems. We know that this will provide better commercial outcomes by increasing land value, and if done appropriately can also qualitatively improve housing through increased accessibility and an improved public amenity.

We know that ecological systems and biodiversity are critical to both amenity and resilience. High quality green space and a renewed urban habitat can support ecological, social and economic outcomes.

We know that we cannot rely on fossil fuels forever or continue to deplete non-renewable resources. We need to transition to a zero-carbon economy. Abundant recycled water is central to mitigating climate-related heatwaves and to supporting urban amenity.

We know that development, transit, amenity, public space, water, biodiversity, carbon, energy, investment, politics and planning policy are intricately linked. 

Managing the complexity of all these issues requires integration of our services to a degree that has never proven necessary until now.

Our response

The transformation of our cities demands an integrated approach to urban renewal in focused development precincts – effectively enabling complimentary development of property, public domain, utilities and transport infrastructure.

Our move to connected, amenable, future-focused cities can be supported by planning reform, equitable housing policy and through innovative, value capture models for infrastructure project finance. All of this calls for visionary thinking across the project lifecycle to inform feasibility, planning, design, construction, operation and end-of-life across a wide range of asset classes.

Our approach to design must inhabit this space integrating multidisciplinary services across environment and planning; transport and utilities engineering; building engineering and sustainability across the built environment. It must be stitched together with collaborative governance – bringing a range of stakeholders into the creative delivery and occupation of our new places.

Open Letter to St Andrew’s Rhodes Scholarship Candidates

Update: 31 October 2015

I have received welcome feedback on this post - supportive and critical. In response to this feedback, the following change have been made.

1. The unfairness of targeting Will personally is acknowledged unreservedly. While I believe personal reflection from those privileged is essential, the manner of this letter was not appropriate. Will - my apologies, I certainly don't intend any malice. The letter is now addressed to future scholarship candidates. I also don't pretend to understand your specific circumstances, and as was pointed out to me by my wife among others, it is not reasonable to expect you to turn down such an opportunity.

2. It was noted that it is perhaps not within the power of the candidates to transfer their scholarship once awarded. On that basis (if it is so) I urge potential candidates to apply for the national scholarship and the Schools to find a middle ground where the school candidates are interviewed for national scholarships. 

3. Most negative comments were about my motivations in writing this. To clarify: there are few dissenting voices within the OA community on our privileged position. I believe dissenting positions, voiced publicly and accountably are an essential component of the discourse. This conversation needs perspectives from within the system identifying the inequities of the system.

4. Ideally, St Andrew's (and the other named schools) would take steps to address the equity of their privileged position. I do not hold much hope of that. And so this appeal is to the scholarship candidates (and scholars-elect in general) - use the platform you have to drive change.

RP

Amended letter:

Dear St Andrew's/DSG Rhodes scholar candidates,

Congratulations on your selection/short-listing forthe St Andrew’s/DSG Rhodes Scholarship – it is a commendable achievement.

I’m going to ask you to consider something difficult; no, implore you to do something very difficult: to decline the opportunity and interview for it alongside the national scholarship candidates, even interview again for it yourself in a national context - by all accounts you would be a very strong candidate.

There are three main reasons for my request; Impact, Equity and Growth.

Impact

Your selection makes clear you have both substantial capability and the desire to impact South Africa for the better. I believe you will achieve far more in this regard by taking a stand against entrenched privilege, then by any additional benefit you will gain from an further study at at Oxford.

Through St Andrew’s and university, your start in life is without peer, globally. You do not need Oxford to give you an edge in achieving the goals you appear to have set yourself.

If your desire was to get picked up by a global bank, tech company or corporate consultancy; then the scholarship is for you. But if you want to seriously impact sustainability and energy, you can achieve that with the education you have. 

And on the other hand, you have before you an opportunity to take an unprecedented stand against entrenched privilege. A stand that would set you on a path to transcend the petty self-interest that infects so much of South Africa’s talent.

You are in a privileged position – you have at your fingertips both the platform to make a public statement about privilege and also to hand an opportunity to someone for whom Oxford will make a life-time’s difference.

Were you to be the ‘Scholar-Who-Walked-Away’, you could have Impact. As just the next St Andrew’s Rhodie, you’ll have to work much much harder for that same impact, and the years you spend at Oxford might not help you on the journey.

Equity

The Schools scholarships remain one of the strongest examples of entrenched privilege within the South African (and the Rhodes Trust) education system.

There is no meritocratic reason for four highly privileged schools to have dedicated scholarships in this modern time. No matter how the Institutions themselves portray their own, and their students’ merits, this is largely undebatable (even within the Rhodes Scholar community at Oxford).

And yet the schools scholarships are untouchable as they are written into the will of Cecil Rhodes by name.

The schools themselves are unlikely to forgo their rights in law – having a dedicated Rhodes scholarship is a major drawcard to prospective parents. And so the responsibility falls to the scholars-elect; this year to you; to take a stand for equity.

I cannot overstate the importance of symbolic and material gestures of equity and the breaking of entrenched privilege are to the social fabric of South Africa – something that is clearly under immense strain.

Again, you have the opportunity to take that stand.

I would add here, that the cost to you is real, but not severely damaging. Oxford is very cool and you would miss out on that experience. But the education aspect is replaceable and the kudos you would receive for taking a stand would exceed the plaudits you have already received for being the successful candidate. You would always have the CV that notes you were a successful candidate and that you voluntarily gave up the opportunity to take a stand for equity.

I think you would come out ahead.

Growth

The final point I’d ask you to ponder relates to personal growth.

St Andrew’s and Africa's Universities set us up very well on many fronts, but neither challenged our preconceptions about who we are as people nor our place in this world. If anything they entrenched the belief that we are owed something by the world, that through our privilege we are somehow special.

It has taken me a long time to begin to challenge those assumptions. But I guarantee you that without challenging them, making important contributions at the scale you seem to want to, is very hard.

Oxford will not help you challenge those assumptions about yourself. It will support the narrative that you have been told all your life. Becoming the first Schools scholar-elect to decline on the grounds of equity would put you on a path that you can perhaps scarcely imagine in terms of your own inner growth.

Closing Comments

So, who am I to be asking this of you…? Well, to a point, I’m not that dis-similar to you, just older and without quite the distinguished list of achievements you have.

I write to you as an OA - I attended St Andrew’s (pre-school to matric , class of ’99).

I write to you as a UCT Engineering Alumnus – I studied mechanical engineering at UCT (2000-2003).

I was, however, an unsuccessful Rhodes Scholarship candidate in 2003. And so I write to you as someone familiar with territory, if not the decision.

Finally I write to you as a professional in the sustainable design and low-carbon economy – I have been working in sustainability in the built environment in South Africa and Australia for a decade and currently lead the Sustainable Places teams within the WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff Aus/NZ business. In many ways, not winning that scholarship was the best thing happened to me, as it put me on the path I am on today.

Finally, I would ask that you speak to past scholars in South Africa in considering how you move forward (I can provide the details of some good people if you wanted to explore your thinking further). Get some perspective on your options now, for they are options unparalleled. And of course, I would be only too happy to talk as well.

And take your own council. Try not to be swayed by the conservative whisperers and doom-sayers. You have an opportunity to truly lead.

If you choose to take the opportunity at Oxford, then go well and make of it what you can. I really hope you have the will to achieve what you have set yourself and contribute in the way you dream to.

Good luck.

Kind regards

Richard Palmer

OA (1984-1999)

UCT Alumnus (2000-2003)

e| Rich.Palmer@wspgroup.com

Happier Cities

Cities are incredible things - perhaps humanity's crowning achievement on this planet; they contain some of the very best (and the very worst) of us, condensed. I am a sustainable urbanist - I believe cities offer our best shot at a sustainable future. They create the conditions for culture, innovation and interaction that are so core to our society.

For some, cities are a necessary evil to achieve the financial and career goals that deliver the fulfillment we've been conditioned to aspire to. Commuting. Traffic. Crowds. Ugly buildings. Concrete. Highways. Fly-overs. Slums. Crime. Fear. All tolerated for the cash.

For others, cities contain what makes life worth living. Culture. Architecture. Bars. Restaurants. Exciting opportunities. Serendipitous encounters. Education. Wealth. Anonymity. And People, People, People - the sheer human delight, need, craving for connection to other people.

And for others still, cities represent a pathway out of rural poverty entrapment. A chance at a better life. Jobs. Education. Services. Opportunity. For them and their families. Billions of rural poor swelling the emerging mega-cities of our future.

So obviously, creating happier cities exists at many levels. To increase happiness broadly, cities should cater to each of these and more.

But how?

I think most fundamentally, creating happier cities is about improving access to them. Housing affordability. Security and mobility. Rules that allow for informal engagement with society; trading, living, playing and learning. Making life in cities as accessible as possible to those who wish to live in them would be the biggest thing I can think of to make cities happier en masse. Critical to this is how we provide core services to slums; security, utilities and sanitation. Allowing people to light their homes and cook their food without threat of fire or asphyxiation, to shit with dignity and drink the water without fear.

At a more personally familiar level - that of the young(ish) professional with a family: access to world class work opportunities balanced with liveability (such as effective public transit, high quality green space and walkability). In short, providing the benefits of places like New York and Tokyo while mitigating some of the lifestyle impacts that often go with them. [Aside: There's a good post on assessing balanced city performance here.]

And then there's a level of cultural engagement and aesthetic appreciation of ones surroundings that lifts the spirit and connects us to other people.

Excellent design - architecture, open space and public art.

Opera, music and support for the performing arts.

Awesome neighborhoods, retaining some edginess (Woodstock or Muizenberg in Cape Town or Braamfontein in Joburg or what I understand Camden and Brixton once were in London), but also allowing for renewal and growth. Honoring history and community without stagnation.

Somewhere beautiful to think, to play, to share, to run, to eat, to drink, to love and to party.

So my happier city?

To know that everyone has safe lighting and heat, access to clean water and a toilet with privacy; affordable public transport and walkable neighborhoods; flexible rules; awesome, edgy, creative neighborhoods; beautiful buildings and parks; kick-ass jobs; a global reputation and a climate that lets me make my London-based friends jealous. 

Future Workplace | Best Employers

What does it take to be a preferred employer; a workplace of choice in the ever more competitive quest for talent. What do you need to do to keep your top talent on board in the knowledge industries?

Perhaps a funky office fit-out, free lunch, pool tables or an x-box in the on-floor coffee bar? Corporate discounts, the newest smart phone, a seat in the corporate box at the football?

There are already so many think pieces on this in the business media from better thinkers than me, so rather than theorize, I'm just going to share. These are the things that I look for in a workplace, and which would help convince me to work for you.

In my view, strap-on benefits (gadgets, discounts and games) can help, but they can't make up for getting the fundamentals right: pay, time and culture. And I think, importantly, the communication of pay, time and culture...

Remuneration

When it comes to remuneration, I want to know that you, my prospective employers are not taking the piss.

It never ceases to amaze me how wrong companies can get it when it comes to remuneration and how the framework for performance and remuneration is managed. It is the one criticism that has recurred in every workplace I've ever been... And it is seldom just a question of how much people earn, but an understanding that they are being looked after.

Let's be clear: I am not interested in working for a company that does not pay competitively, does not provide transparency of how pay is addressed and does not conduct itself with integrity in how remuneration is managed with employees.

What remuneration transparency means to me is:

- a quantitative industry assessment of pay at my grade;

- company data for pay at each grade (not individuals, but useful statistical data, including level, gender and location);

- a high level breakdown of company costs; salaries, cost of doing business, other costs and profit target.

It must be clear that what I earn is commensurate with the industry, the broader company and that the balance of the business is such that the fruit of my labour is not wasted.

And when putting in place performance management processes, the link between performance assessment and remuneration must be crystal clear. There must be no 'black box' where some assessment of performance goes in, and out comes a remuneration outcome that cannot be explained.

With pay, context makes up for a lot. To be considered a preferred employer, you must show me how my remuneration is competitive; in the industry and the company.

Time

When it comes to time, I want to know that you value my time.

Time really, truly, is limited - it is the one thing that you can never get back. So a company that does not value my time, does not value me.

In the creative industries, overtime is a fact of life - we are not a strict 9-5 industry... Project workloads are not smooth, so there is an inevitable need for some time of pushing the edges to meet the requirements of the business. But if this is not balanced by an equivalent flexibility, then I remain unconvinced of a company's 'preferred employer' credentials.

A business that structurally requires extensive overtime to be profitable is not a business I want to work for. It is evidence of poor management that it is only profitable by extracting value from employees.

To show a respect for my time, an employer of choice would:

- avoid a culture of showing face - where assessment is based on how late employees stay, or proxy metrics like 'after hours pizza orders'; and

- seek to build a culture of delivery-based performance and assessment.

In many respects, efficiency and profitability run directly counter to excessive time at the office. A business that communicates its focus on delivery rather than time is on the path to preferred employer status.  

Culture

Culture is perhaps the biggest contributor to being a preferred employer as it encompasses both pay and time, but it is much broader than that. There are a few other key indicators that your company has the culture of a preferred employer:

-   diversity; you must disclose your employee breakdown along gender and minority representation lines (company-wide, within your executive suite and the gender current pay gap at each level);

-   sustainability; you must disclose your position on key sustainability issues and show how you address those issues in your operations;

If you do not have a progressive attitude to women, minority groups and the environment you cannot be considered a preferred employer. And woe betide you if your executives make racist or sexist jokes assuming I'm in on it - culture is always easier to spot than to describe, always easier to break than to make.

Once you have these core things in place - transparent remuneration processes, delivery-focused time management and an office culture that celebrates diversity - the other things can have their turn in the sun.

That being said, a few things to be wary of:

-   don't dress cross-corporate advertising up as benefits; marginal special offers on other corporate products (gym membership, insurance etc) is not a benefit, it's just a marketing gimmick. We all have enough of those. Benefits must have real value and no hidden agendas.

-   don't link benefits to charity events and other initiatives to enhance your corporate reputation. If we want to give, we will do so of our own accord. Corporate social responsibility is your responsibility, and while it's important, it is not a direct employee incentive.

-   make sure you have decent to coffee - there's really no excuse not to.

All this really just boils down to a creating and communicating culture of shared values and authenticity. These are things that are valuable to me and I value a transparent, authentic approach to them...