Conference

Veena Sahajwalla

Topic: Innovation and collaboration

Speaker Bio: Twenty years ago, Veena created a way to recycle tyres into the steel making process, aptly called green steel. Now, she’s invented a new product that combines the textiles from old clothes with glass and turns them into a range of hard green ceramics for floors and walls.

Professor Veena Sahajwalla is an internationally recognised materials scientist, engineer, and inventor revolutionising recycling science. Her work in sustainability has practical applications which can apply across every industry. She is the proverbial waste queen, a future forward thinker who is totally transforming the way in which we manage waste, in Australia and around the world.

Veena has a unique way of distilling everything down, so it’s understandable, practical, and actionable. Her passion to help people, communities, organisations and businesses of all sizes become more sustainable, is contagious. And she is driven help everyone reimagine themselves as global citizens who are inspired to do better for our planet.

Karen Mundine

Topic: Innovation and collaboration

Speaker Bio: Karen has more than 20 years’ experience in community engagement, public advocacy, communications and social marketing campaigns. She has worked in the public, corporate and community sectors across a range of portfolio areas including health, the arts, ICT, and Indigenous and foreign affairs. Holding a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from UTS, she is passionate about the work she does and the broad range of people she gets to engage with on a regular basis. As well as her day-job she also sits on the Boards of the Gondwana Children’s Choirs and the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre.

Robin Mellon

Speaker Bio: Robin Mellon is a leading expert on property, supply chains and sustainability in the built environment.

After years with private sector businesses, Robin worked with the Green Building Council of Australia from 2007-2015 to drive the adoption of the Green Star rating system. As Chief Operating Officer, his role involved spearheading the GBCA’s advocacy and international work, as well as leading education, events, marketing, and communications teams.

Robin sat on the World Green Building Council’s Policy Task Force, chairing its Asia Pacific Network. He collaborated with Austrade over many years to showcase Australian green building capabilities around the world and mentored a number of countries through the process of establishing their own green building councils.

From 2016-2019, Robin was Chief Executive Officer of Australia's Supply Chain Sustainability School. The School is an industry-led initiative that provides free learning resources to improve supply chains in the property, construction and infrastructure sectors.

Currently, Robin is CEO of Better Sydney, as well as NSW Program Manager for Better Building Finance, working with NSW councils to help them enable and run their Building Upgrade Finance programs; enabling this legislation makes it easy for businesses to upgrade buildings to be more sustainable.