City of Greater Geelong

Recognising the fact that many critical environmental issues were rapidly changing across its municipality, the City of Greater Geelong engaged Tony to undertake a review and renewal of the City’s Environment Strategy. Tony reviewed the previous Strategy and research trends and then conducted an extensive stakeholder engagement process to inform the preparation of the renewed Strategy. Engagement activities included cross-organisational staff workshops, community forums and drop-in sessions. The Strategy also underwent a comprehensive peer review process to ensure its business relevance and was endorsed by Council after a public consultation period.

The Strategy identifies five strategic goals to improve environmental condition while simultaneously striving to protect the lifestyle the municipal community enjoys. The Strategy is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and is reported against the Global Reporting Initiative Environmental Standards.

Deakin University

Deakin University is committed to protecting, enhancing and restoring native biodiversity across its three larger campuses, Waurn Ponds, Warrnambool and Burwood. To ensure a more coordinated, strategic approach to biodiversity across the University, Deakin engaged Tony to work with internal and external stakeholders to form a common understanding of biodiversity-related issues and create a strategic action plan, consistent with Deakin 2030, Ideas to Impact.

The Strategy has helped Deakin staff focus on targeted stewardship actions to protect and enhance specific biodiversity values of each campus, leverage these values to strengthen learning and outreach and create and share knowledge for collective impact towards biodiversity conservation.

Corangamite Shire

The Corangamite Shire in South-West Victoria showcases a variety of natural environments from the Great Ocean Road coastline to the lakes and craters of the Victorian Volcanic Plains. The Council is committed to achieving a flourishing, healthy environment and engaged TOverman Sustainability to engage with the community to co-design a Draft Strategy guiding the Shires efforts in environmental management and sustainable practices over the next ten years.

The engagement process collated over 400 responses and resulted in a Draft Strategy that identified those areas where the Council could improve its internal practices as well as where it could influence change by supporting the community, business and other partners' efforts.

https://www.corangamite.vic.gov.au/Council/Have-Your-Say/EnvironmentSustainabilityStrategy

Corangamite CMA, City of Greater Geelong, Parks Victoria, DELWP, Barwon Water, Barwon Coast

In 2006 the Barwon River Parklands initiative proposed collaborative management of a continuous linked recreational and ecological reserve along the Barwon River from Geelong to Barwon Heads. The respective partners involved developed a strategic plan for the corridor in 2010. Tony was engaged in facilitating a review of that Strategic Plan. The review included literature research, stakeholder interviews, information analysis and two multi-stakeholder workshops. The strategic review laid the foundations for the Kitjarra-dja-bul bullarto langi-ut initiative, representing a new maturity phase for the collaboration.

Primary Industries and Regions South Australia

The Northern Adelaide Plains region is a nationally significant horticultural district comprising both existing and new irrigation districts. The region is changing rapidly, with technological advancements and geographic expansion, posing many potential sustainability challenges spanning land, water and agribusiness systems. Recognising the need for a shared understanding of these challenges and the system interactions, PIRSA and its partners engaged Tony to develop an Integrated Management Framework (IMF) to plan and manage the region's land, water and agribusiness systems.

The three-phase process involved identifying the critical system issues where collaborative solutions are most needed, developing shared goals and preferred solutions to address these issues, and a mobilisation phase to encourage and support coordinated actions. The process has helped galvanise the commitment of regional stakeholders, councils, government agencies and irrigators to collaborative responses to complex regional challenges.