It is particularly important at this time, when we have lost the opportunity to connect with members face to face, that we ensure our communication is clear and consistent. Here are some of the activities that we, with the support of our staff and volunteers, have been working on, made possible by your membership contributions:

• The board will meet remotely this week and will meet with increased frequency during this challenging period.

• The health and wellbeing of our members, partners, staff and community is foremost, and we recently undertook a membership survey to better understand the concerns about the potential impact to the profession of the pandemic outbreak of COVID-19 (coronavirus). We have developed a resource page that will continue to be updated with important information to assist members during this time.

• Our new CEO Ben Stockwin has commenced his contract early to provide leadership to the AILA during the COVID-19 crisis. Ben is working two days a week at present and will start full time from the 6 April 2020. We thank all the AILA staff for their hard work between CEOs to ensure business continuity.

• We have supported a preliminary scoping meeting with Standards Australia to explore potential pathways to prepare a national framework (to develop a handbook and guidelines) for Australian Green Infrastructure linked to AS 5334-2013. We will update members as discussions progress.

• Board member Chris Tidswell recently attended on behalf of the AILA an Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) where they discussed the potential impact of COVID-19 on jobs in design and construction, climate adaptation and future proofing our built environment, Towards Net Zero and government leadership.

• Our membership committee is continuing to review registration applications and this round we received 40 applications.

• And this week we have made available to members our Climate Positive Design Position Statement , prepared by Martin O’Dea with contributions from our National Advocacy Committee, and The Bushfire Working Group terms of Reference have be announced calling for nominations.

Stay well and please contact [email protected] if you need COVID-19 support.

Kind regards,


Claire Martin, AILA National Director