Fancy a Career in Sustainability?
Driving Sustainability at Lake Macquarie
Council
To many,
sustainability has become the talk of the town in recent years. Yet while many
seem to be doing more speaking than doing, Dr. Alice Howe has been leading the
charge in sustainability at Lake Macquarie City Council for many years. As the
Manager of Planning and Sustainability, Dr Howe oversees everything from
biodiversity initiatives, to community engagement and climate change adaptation
(and everything in between).
So, we
caught up with Dr. Howe, to uncover their secrets to success and find out what
exactly it would be like to work in picturesque Lake Macquarie. This story is
another piece in our series ‘Jobs in Focus’, where we explore exciting new
roles in Local Government to give our subscribers an insight into a career in
Council.
Who is Dr. Alice Howe?
Dr. Howe
didn’t take the conventional route in her Council career. Rather than entering public
service, she worked in consulting, in the non-government sector and at the
University of Newcastle as a post-doctoral researcher in environmental
engineering. Upon seeing the opportunity to take a more active approach to
sustainability, she made the leap to local government and never looked back.
Dr. Howe’s
career choice was driven by her undying passion for the environment and
practical nature. On top of that, both grandfathers were engineers and thus her
path became a match made in heaven. Years later, she is now leading the team
and has seen the Council’s sustainability division grow in leaps and bounds.
It appears
that there is no better environment for sustainability than Lake Macquarie.
Community engagement is increasing rapidly and the Council itself has always
been quite progressive and innovative. The community in Lake Macquarie
understands the need for sustainable initiatives and are vocal in their support
and participation in environmental programs. The Council has a strong track
record of actively seeking the opinions of community members and reflectively
those opinions and values in the programs they undertake. In doing so, Dr. Howe
ensures that the Council does what it was created to do; serve the interests of
the community.
The Glass Sand Program
One of Lake
Macquarie’s most heralded sustainability initiatives is undoubtedly its new
Glass Sand program. The Council provides recycling services for over 80,000
households and noticed a decline in markets for recycled products. Dr. Howe and
her team looked for innovative ways to address this ‘perfect storm’ where
declining demand met rapidly growing supply. The team worked with recycling contractors
and engineers to develop new techniques to use recycled glass in civil works.
The program is based on the process of grinding up glass to be used as a
substitute for sand in construction. For more insight, head to the Lake
Macquarie City Council website here.
In essence,
the program is most effective in the way that it closes the recycling loop. The
council had no troubles with the supply of recycled material but had a more
difficult time ensuring that all the recycled material was processed into a
product that went to good use. Establishing this new avenue for recycling
demand helps ensure the long-term sustainability of recycling programs in Lake
Macquarie.
Dr. Howe
credits the NSW Container Deposit Scheme as a major driver of programs such as
the Glass Sand initiative. The scheme ‘provided all the ingredients that we’ve
needed to get this product back into our program’. Like any council, Lake
Macquarie is limited by its budget and needs to ensure they’re using it in a
responsible way. The Deposit scheme increases the value of kerbside glass which
improves the economics of its reuse in construction.
The NSW Container Deposit Scheme
The new
container deposit scheme, Return and Earn, has not necessarily been a smooth
process. Implementation challenges and vocal critics have reduced the
effectiveness of the scheme. Yet the scheme has been quite successful in
setting a precedent for sustainability initiatives. The program signals the NSW
Government’s desires to tackle waste issues, which paves the way for local
government to start their own initiatives.
Preparing for a Changing Climate
Another key
facet of Dr. Howe’s role is the threat of climate change and the need to make
preparations. Given current predictions, Lake Macquarie City stands to be
affected more so than most, due to rising lake levels. The local community is
built around the lake and will need to adapt to higher water levels.
While of
course, residents want to ensure that climate change is minimized as much as
possible, by reducing their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions the
council understands that impacts on the global climate will not be contained by
local action alone. Unfortunately, they need to be prepared for all
possibilities.
Recruitment at Lake Macquarie Council
In terms of
recruitment, Dr. Howe never places too much emphasis on technical skills,
instead stressing the need for new employees to be able to work well as part of
a team and to think laterally. While the interview process itself is still quite
traditional, the council routinely uses more behavioral style interview
questions and occasionally ask for a scenario analysis. The underlying
objective is always to identify the most passionate and service-oriented
recruits, rather than those with the most advanced technical skills.
And
contrary to popular belief, there’s no preferential treatment for local
applicants. There’s a focus on identifying applicants who have an appreciation
for the culture and aspirations of the community, but that doesn’t necessarily
mean they’re a ‘local’s only’ council.
To
highlight the point, Dr. Howe told us the story of one applicant they had from
Sydney. He came into the interview having done extensive research on the
council, community and programs. He came into the interview with specific
questions about the role and its legacy.
It is
exactly that kind of applicant they want at Lake Macquarie City Council.
Applicants who want to drive positive change.
What’s in Store for the Future?
Looking
forward, Dr. Howe sees her field growing and growing as community awareness
grows and the threat of climate change becomes more immediate. Lake Macquarie
is likely to undergo intense urban development over the next five to ten years,
which will bring with it a new range of sustainability challenges and
opportunities. The council has recently shifted its focus to be more inclusive
in its operations. Dr. Howe refers to this as deliberative democracy, which
involves sharing responsibility for decision making with community members who
are eager to get involved. This will only serve to grow community awareness.
Of course,
like every other industry, new technology developments are rapidly changing the
way the council operates and enables them to do so much more. They’ve been able
to put more resources into remote systems management and build optimization
systems for council facilities. This will only continue to develop as the
council leans into innovative projects. Yet, Dr. Howe offers a word of caution,
while positive change is achievable, it is crucial to be patient; lasting change
takes time and commitment.
Comments
Post a Comment