In a snapshot, can you tell us about Cundall?
Cundall is a multi-disciplinary consultancy with five offices in Australia: Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. We provide solutions for our clients including sustainability consulting, building services engineering, lighting design, building automation, acoustics design, and health and well-being advice.
More than that though, we are a company looking to change the way the construction industry approaches the built environment. Cundall have embedded sustainability into the fabric of all our services and are committed to driving our industry towards net zero carbon. Lots of companies say they are sustainable but don’t provide evidence to support this.
However, we believe in leading by example, which is why we became the first One Planet recognised company in the world in 2013. Our Sustainability Roadmap sets out our path to true sustainability and led us to become the consultancy to be certified carbon neutral globally by the Carbon Trust.
It is important to set yourself stretch targets, report successes and failures transparently and obtain third party verification of performance. Green washing will not stop climate change, real steps towards net zero will.
No doubt 2020 has thrown up some challenges. How has your team reacted to these and what has been the key takeaways from the year?
The impact of Covid has been felt across our industry, but I’m really proud of the way Cundall has come together to support each other and work hard to keep winning work and delivering excellent projects.
I think a great quality of our team across Australia and the wider world is how connected we were even prior to Covid. We have been helping to deliver work won in Hong Kong or Dubai in Brisbane, and in turn called on global colleagues to form expert project teams for local projects.
Prior to Covid, we have already introduced “One Cundall”, an initiative to promote a culture of accountability, transparency and collaboration across borders. It was even easier to communicate colleagues from around the world with enhanced IT infrastructure we have to set up at the onset of the pandemic. We have managed to work on projects in Hong Kong Singapore or Dubai and vice versa. I think this a great way to share knowledge, learn new things and manage resources which we have greatly benefited from.
Although 2020 has been tough, we are also closing out this year on a high note. We were recently named the winner of the World Green Building Council’s (World GBC) Asia-Pacific Sustainable Business Leadership Award for 2020.
The prestigious award celebrates companies that have made sustainability part of their core business model and are contributing to the transition towards a sustainable built environment. Being recognised in this way is a gratifying acknowledgement of the work we have done to model the best practices that we promote to our clients.
Ultimately my takeaway from this year is a more profound appreciation of my team and colleagues. It was by surrounding ourselves with good people who are dedicated and supportive that we have been able to rise to the challenge of this year.
What are Cundall’s goals for the upcoming year?
Our goals are to continue driving forward our sustainability targets and delivering top quality services to our clients. We have lots of exciting projects in the pipeline, that unfortunately we can’t talk about, but are showing the moves clients are making towards innovations in sustainability for their projects, with a strong focus on net zero carbon achievement.
At the moment we are compiling our next sustainability annual report as part of our transparency commitments, which will be available on our website once completed. Though this auditing process may not sound like the most engaging exercise, it is incredibly rewarding to see the concrete data improve every year. All the small changes we make add up to a big change.
We have been working on our business development strategy which is focused on the project we want to be delivering in 2025. 2021 will be a pivotal year in making this a reality where we are focused on data centre projects for big tech companies, the education sectors restructure, new corporate office space for our international clients, as well as services for net zero carbon developments and the upgrade of existing building.
A big year coming.
What role has WOTSO played in Cundall’s journey in Brisbane?
Our Brisbane office, operating out of WOTSO Fortitude Valley, is in it’s 3rd year of operations and we are slowly growing. We started with 2 people in the coworking space and have moved through various sized private offices to now having the penthouse office for 5 with a private balcony.
WOTSO has been great to support this by allowing us to be flexible and match our growth with the right type of office space. Additionally, the WOTSO setup allows us to concentrate on growing the business and not having to spend time on physical office management.
