With sustainability becoming an ever more pressing concern in the built environment, the appointment of Liam Wallis, Founder of HIP V. HYPE, to the Property Council of Australia’s (PCA) Victorian Sustainability Committee marks a significant step towards fostering innovative, responsible, and lasting change.

Tasked with shaping and prioritising sustainability strategies within the property sector, Wallis joins a team of leading advocates committed to addressing key challenges such as climate resilience, waste management, and decarbonisation.

In this exclusive interview, Architecture & Design’s Digital Editor Clémence Carayol speaks with Wallis about the most urgent sustainability issues facing Victoria’s built environment, the role of collaboration in achieving meaningful progress, and how his experience at HIP V. HYPE will inform his contributions to the committee.

Architecture & Design: What do you see as the most pressing sustainability challenges facing the built environment in Victoria, and how do you plan to address them as part of the committee?

Liam Wallis: The built environment in Victoria faces several pressing sustainability challenges, including climate resilience, waste management, and the need for decarbonisation.

Addressing these issues requires a greater focus on consensus and a narrowing of the debate around the importance of sustainability.

The need to think longer term, to use what we have more efficiently, to avoid unnecessary harm and to hold ourselves to account is not an issue of political ideology, it is an issue of protecting and enhancing our way of life.

Key sustainability challenges include:

Climate resilience: Victorian cities and regions are vulnerable to climate-related events such as bushfires, heatwaves, and flooding. Enhancing the ability of buildings and infrastructure to withstand and recover from climate-related events is essential to maintaining the liveability and economic stability of our cities and regions.
Waste management: Circular design principles offer a way to reframe waste as a resource. Already we are seeing their potential to harness human ingenuity and creativity, diverting significant resources from landfill.
Decarbonisation: Aligning the property sector with net-zero targets by 2045 presents a challenge and an opportunity. Adopting low embodied carbon and sustainable materials such as timber and energy-efficient approaches to design such as Passivhaus, provide immense opportunity to improve the quality and resilience of our built environment all whilst reducing its carbon footprint significantly.

How will your experience as the founder of HIP V. HYPE influence your contributions to the Victorian Sustainability Committee’s initiatives?

As the founder of HIP V. HYPE, my experience crosses from seeing the barriers and opportunities for sustainable development through my experience in delivering and seeking to deliver exemplar buildings as Development Director of our Projects business whilst at the same time seeing the barriers and opportunities for sustainable development through my experience as Managing Director of our sustainability consultancy now collaborating with clients nationally at all scales.

This broad-based exposure will inform my contributions to the Victorian Sustainability Committee and equips me with insights into effective approaches that can be implemented and scaled to protect and improve our built environment.

What role do you believe collaboration between developers, policymakers, and communities plays in achieving sustainable outcomes in the built environment?

Collaboration is crucial for achieving better outcomes for more people and the environment. A better job needs to be done engaging all stakeholders in the debate, especially those with divergent views. Developers play an integral role in shaping our cities and regions and many are taking that role seriously. An important role for the Victorian Sustainability Committee is to seek to rebuild understanding and trust in the property sector’s efforts to respond to the sustainability challenges facing the built environment in Victoria.

How do you envision the committee’s work shaping the future of sustainable practices within the property sector across Victoria?

The committee is made up of impressive individuals with exceptional experience and clear intent. Thanks to the work of many people before us, the property sector now has robust frameworks for environmentally sustainable development that are well established and have driven systemic change throughout the sector. I believe our challenge is to refine and simplify existing frameworks to increase adoption and improve effectiveness.

Another challenge is to gather broad-based evidence to support the commercial value proposition of more sustainable approaches. Finally, an opportunity is for the committee to play a role in connecting the individuals and businesses with existing sustainable products, services and knowledge to more effectively scale their positive impact. I am excited and honoured to be involved and look forward to contributing to the Property Council’s Victorian Sustainability Committee.

Image: Liam Wallis / HIP V. HYPE

Architecture & Design Team

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