After a moment of sitting with Damien, it's easy to feel his gravitational pull of passion for a better, more sustainable world. Recently, we had the pleasure of doing so. His storied experience in this space began with an interest in property, an international Maintenance Engineering position in London where he saw first-hand how much energy buildings consume—and how much is wasted. Damien recognised an opportunity to improve the operational efficiency of buildings in his home country of Australia, particularly in learning the lessons of European sustainability pioneers and ESG deliverables on the continent.
Now based in Queensland, he’s spent the rest of his career bridging the gap between cost-effective property operations and reduced environmental impact, such as during a long stint at QIC as National Capital and Planning Manager. Here, in 2018, Damien initiated a rollout CIM’s analytics solution, the PEAK Platform, for continuous monitoring to drive operational efficiencies across a renowned retail portfolio.
“Having analytics at your fingertips as an operations team is crucial” says Damien, an inspired insight about the nature of measuring impact outcomes.
While at QIC, one of Damien’s most successful initiatives was simply proving that a robust understanding of building operations could uncover opportunities to improve performance.
“No building on this planet is doing exactly what it needs to be,” Damien said. “Equipment fails or breaks down. How do you know it’s broken down without the analytics? By getting a customer complaint. I like to be on the front foot and deal with the problem before a customer complains. With analytics, you’re doing proactive rather than reactive maintenance, which generally means it’s a lot cheaper to run.”
The question remains, what will it take to get buildings, and more broadly, the built environment, to a net zero position? “We’re still a bit behind in some areas; Europe has trialled a lot of things that didn’t work,” he said. “For example, they were doing wind turbines at a large scale before anyone else was considering it. It was very inefficient at the time, but they had the data to measure those turbines and improve them, or measure their performance against other technologies. We’re not innovating in that sense; we’re talking about things in 2024 that they’ve been doing for ten years.”
Nevertheless, Damien does see success stories across Australia, like incentivising energy efficiency certifications in Victoria. Additionally, Australia has excelled in recent years across global sustainability rankings such as GRESB (Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark) and the DJSI (Dow Jones Sustainability Index). Here in Australia, Damien now leads a team of highly skilled professionals at Green Key Environmental, a consultancy firm specialising in the delivery of comprehensive solutions that deliver energy-efficient commercial outcomes for property owners. Particularly, leveraging the success and failures of international efforts, of which Damien has lived working experience.
“Green Key can do anything operationally: writing budgets, asset audits, condition reports, 10-year capital plans, creating net-zero strategies for businesses—we’re always evolving to meet our customers’ needs,” said Damien. Green Key provides the tools, knowledge, and partnerships to help businesses create a financially sound sustainability roadmap that combines realistic spending with achievable targets.
To find out more about Green Key Environmental, visit https://gkenviro.com.au/ or contact Damien at dstacy@greenkeyenvironmental.com
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