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Saturday




Peter Carroll:

SCRAP began over nineteen years ago when three teachers (including John Burn our current Deputy Chairman and Peter Carroll our Company Secretary) decided they had seen enough paper thrown out with the garbage to last a lifetime. They approached the big paper recycling companies to organise a proper system for paper recycling in schools. SCRAP Ltd is a Public Company Limited by Guarantee - that means we are not listed on the stock exchange and we are non-profit. Any money we make is put back into helping schools and other non-profit community bodies improve their environmental programs and to create jobs. Starting with just eight schools in 1991, SCRAP grew quickly, reaching 100 schools within eighteen months of starting. By 2003 SCRAP's membership had reached around 1500 active, recycling educational bodies including schools, colleges, child care centres and universities and over 1000 other non-profit and government bodies and businesses. SCRAP covered around one half of all schools in NSW and the ACT but unfortunately the big company we working with at the time decided they could do without us and our involvement with the education and day to day management of the government recycling contract ended. Today we recycle white paper through around three dozen customers (mostly schools) and help co-ordinate mixed paper recycling through our industry partner - Remondis. SCRAP does far more than just recycle paper however... it also helps schools and other organisations to understand more about helping the environment.


Mahalath Halperin:

Mahalath Halperin is an ESD architect and sustainability consultant who has been living and working in regional NSW for over 24 years. All projects have a strong ESD focus of building for a responsible environment, as well as Mahalath being involved in education, publication and information dissemination. Mahalath is an accredited assessor for various Energy ratings schemes, and has been a key trainer for the Federal Government's recently launched Housing Sustainability Assessment Green Loans program. She is also a VP for ISES (International Solar Energy Society), a director of CANA (Climate Action Network Australia), an active member of the RAIA Country Division, and also active within her local community on environmental issues, especially SLA (Sustainable Living Armidale - a Transition Town initiative), 'walking the talk' with a holistic approach to all aspects of work, home and family, living and working in an 80 year old house rapidly approaching carbon-neutral status, with a green office and a very big veggie patch.

Mahalath Halperin


James Arvanitakis:

Dr James Arvanitakis is a lecturer in the Humanities at the University of Western Sydney and is a member of the University's Centre for Cultural Research. James has worked as a human rights activist throughout the Pacific, Indonesia and Europe. He is currently working with the Whitlam Institute looking at issues confronting Australia's democracy. A regular media commentator James' latest book, Contemporary Society: A sociological analysis of everyday life, was launched with Oxford University Press in February 2009. James has worked extensively with a number of non-government organizations and his blog can be found at www.jamesarvanitakis.net. His believes that 'climate change deniers' should swap places with peoples from low lying islands...

James Arvanitakis


Michael Du Plessis:

Michael has more than 20 years of experience in innovation, R&D, new product development and technology commercialisation. His previous roles in industry include a long career with ICI and later Orica, where he was Senior Research Scientist, Technical Manager and Commercialisation Manager. More recently he was Innovation and R&D Manager for Sydney Water Corporation. He has worked in a variety of countries including South Africa, United Kingdom and Australia.

Michael Du Plessis


Craig Linn:

Craig Linn has been active in the environmental movement for close to 40 years, and has been a GM-Free campaigner for many of those years. He currently coordinates the GM-Free Working Group of the Blue Mountains Food Coop and is the principal author of the Coop's well received guide to Eating Naturally and Avoiding GM Foods. In earlier professional incarnations Craig has been a senior scientific officer for the NSW State Pollution Control Commission (subsequently the EPA), and most recently a Senior Lecturer at university. While Craig has more than 30 national and international peer-reviewed publications, he regards his life long commitment to organic gardening as far more significant.


Michael Burlace:


Mark Diesendorf:

Dr Mark Diesendorf is Deputy Director of the Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW, where he does interdisciplinary teaching and research. Previous he was a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO and then Professor of Environmental Science at UTS. At various times he was also President of the Australia New Zealand Society for Ecological Economics and President of the original Australasian Wind Energy Association. His most recent books are "Greenhouse Solutions with Sustainable Energy" and "Climate Action: A campaign manual for greenhouse solutions", which he is selling here at big discounts.

Mark Diesendorf


Peter Andrews:

Peter Andrews is a grazier and race horse breeder from Bylong in the Upper Hunter Valley. He is a man who many believe is way ahead of his time. Peter has gained fundamental insights to the natural functioning of the Australian landscape that leave him almost without peer. He has applied these insights in restoring his and other properties to fertility levels that he says existed upon European arrival in this country. Over 30 years ago Peter, bought a run-down 2000 acre grazing property called Tarwyn Park, near Bylong in the Upper Hunter Valley. He then quietly set about testing the theories that he had been developing virtually ever since he was a child, growing up on a station near Broken Hill. By 1976 Peter Andrews claimed that the model he had set up on Tarwyn Park was an example of a sustainable agricultural system.

Peter Andrews


Stuart Hill:

Professor Stuart B. Hill was appointed Foundation Chair of Social Ecology at the University of Western Sydney in 1996. At UWS he taught units on Qualitative Research Methodology, Social Ecology Research, Transformative Learning, Leadership & Change, and Sustainability, Leadership & Change: A Social Ecology Perspective. His PhD was one of the first whole ecosystem studies that examined community and energy relationships (1969); and it was the earliest such study conducted by a single researcher. For this he received the awards for Best PhD Thesis and Best PhD Student. In 1977 he received a Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal for his community and social transformation work.

Stuart Hill


Sunday

Pauline Walker:

My connection to nature has been with me all my life. I walk into a jarrah forest and I am mesmerised by the unique Australian bush scents, the taste of eucalyptus dew, the vision and sound of the most beautiful birds and animals, in awe and wonder of the pure joy and magic in the nature that surrounds me.

My life’s work has been varied over the past three decades, from being involved in the Rural sector, Tourism industry, high end fashion design and retail, Broome pearls and Argyle diamonds and most recently moving into the area of Carbon Reduction and Offsetting with a real sense of purpose where I can be proactive in creating change for a healthy vibrant planet for our future generations.

The environment I have now chosen to live in and the space in my life I have found, has inspired me to share with the world my life’s purpose - ‘to re-connect people to their feelings through nature’ and in doing so develop a higher awareness of how precious and beautiful this planet is.

I understand that in every choice we make, there is a far reaching consequence. In sharing with others an awareness and understanding of the footprint we create, the principles of ‘connect, feel, choose’, is a way new of living that will contribute to the enriching of people’s lives and the planet.

Pauline Walker


James Lewis:

Senior Account Manager


James' background combines account management and business development with research and consultancy experience across a range of sustainability-related issues. He gained a MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London after several years in sales-based roles in both London and Sydney. James worked recently at The Institute for Sustainable Futures at The University of Technology, Sydney where he completed research and consultancy projects for a variety of private companies, Government departments and NGOs. These projects covered various sectors and themes, including research into the wind power industry, development of sustainability strategies, creation of training programs to improve energy efficiency and carbon footprinting services.



Julian Crawford:

Julian is a pioneer in sustainability in Australia, and has been at the helm of EcoSTEPS since its inception ten years ago. Julian has a science and business background. Having originally studied zoology at Oxford University, England, he then worked internationally as a Chartered Accountant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he became National Training & Technical Manager. He has also owned and operated an international retail and marketing group and so understands first hand the challenges of managing a business in a complex and competitive environment. Julian has assisted clients across a wide range of sectors in developing sustainability strategies.

Julian Crawford



James Thier:

An executive director of Australian Ethical Investment and is a director of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Australian Ethical Superannuation. Australian Ethical is a pioneer in ethical fund management having been established in 1986. At that time, even internationally, there were only a handful of managers offering ethical investment options. Having helped establish Australian Ethical, James has seen it grow its funds under management to more than $600M. James is also a director of the not-for-profit Centre for Australian Ethical Research and was a founding board member of the Responsible Investment Association of Australia, an industry body. He previously held senior positions in local government and within peak bodies of the credit union movement. James is also a Churchill Fellow, having studied shareholder advocacy mechanisms in the United States and Europe, in particular resolutions proposed at annual general meetings.

James Thier



Adrianna Downie:

Technical Manager, BEST Australia Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (BEchem), Bachelor of Science (BSc) Previous product development and commercialization experience with Parchem
 

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