Concrete is an essential material that underpins our economy and daily life. With Australia’s population expected to reach 30 million by 2030, there will be an increased demand for new homes, roads and supporting infrastructure – demands that concrete is essential in fulfilling. However, using traditional concrete increasingly poses challenges, as it accounts for approximately 8% of global CO2 emissions. As the building and construction sector strives for net zero emissions, innovative concrete technologies, smart materials and sustainable construction practices are emerging on the market.

This webinar will explore innovative sustainable concrete solutions and their practical applications, empowering architects, designers and builders to seize opportunities for sustainable alternatives. By taking a holistic approach to the construction process, from design to end-of-life, the webinar aims to identify pathways for designing and building with sustainable concrete, and accelerate its adoption.

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Discover sustainable concrete and how its application will lead to more sustainable buildings
• Understand why specifications for concrete need to change to allow and encourage the use of sustainable / lower carbon concrete
• Understand how detailing is the same or different from traditional concrete
• Hear how sustainable concrete impacts the build and lifecycle of a building
• Learn about costing differences

SPEAKERS

Clare Tubolets 

CEO, SmartCrete CRC 

 

SmartCrete CRC’s mission is to deliver the long-term viability of vital concrete infrastructure in Australia. As Chief Executive Officer, Clare has set up the CRC as an industry innovation collaborator that invests in sustainable concrete R&D to help align and transform Australia’s concrete ecosystem to meet its net zero obligation.  

 

Clare has extensive CRC expertise, having worked as Industry and Research participant, CRC manager and Government program manager. She is an agile practitioner, passionate about unlocking the collaborative potential by bringing together world leading research and industry specialists to solve real-world problems. 

 

Before joining SmartCrete in 2022, Clare worked as Chief Operating Officer with the Food Agility CRC where she demonstrated her strong networking and people management skills. She was instrumental in securing government and industry investment to run research projects to improve the sustainability, productivity and profitability of Australia’s food supply chain.

Professor Vute Sirivivatnanon 

Research Director, SmartCrete CRC 

Professor of Concrete Engineering at UTS 

 

As Research Director, Vute leads SmartCrete CRC’s research ambition. Working closely with industry and research organisations, he is instrumental in designing SmartCrete’s industry challenges and supervising research projects that support the net-zero transformation of Australian concrete.  

 

Vute is also a Professor of Concrete Engineering at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where he works with the Construction Materials and Structures (CMS) research team to advance concrete technology, focusing on improving durability of concrete, investigating limit-states service-life design and utilising industrial by-products.  

 

Throughout his extensive career in industry and research, Vute has been committed to knowledge and technology transfer and training the next generation in concrete experts. He actively supports organisations such as Engineers Australia, Standards Australian, Australian Society for Concrete Pavements (ASCP), Concrete Institute of Australia (CIA) and was awarded an honorary CIA membership in 2019. In 2020, he became the co-director of UTS-Boral Centre for Sustainable Building. 

 

Jason Chandler 

Director Concrete Insights 

 

With over 20 years of experience in the construction materials industry, Concrete Insights founder and director, Jason Chandler, has a passion for continuous improvement and finding innovative solutions to any problem. He is an invited speaker and active contributor to various industry boards and associations with previous roles on the executive of Australian Society for Concrete Pavements (ASCP) and as a Cement Concrete & Aggregates Australia (CCAA) representative to Standards Australia for BD49 tasked with overseeing the AS1379 Standard (Specification and Supply of Concrete). He currently serves as a director on the board of the Institute of Quarrying Australia and as a member of the NSW subcommittee for Concrete Institute of Australia.

Lauren Howe
Senior Materials Engineer at Arup

Lauren is a Senior Materials Engineer at Arup based in Melbourne. During her career at Arup she has worked on diverse projects, from inspections and failure investigations, to working on large, complex infrastructure and buildings projects, providing advice on material specification, durability and sustainability.

Over the last four years she has been focusing on materials and sustainability, supporting projects to understand the embodied carbon and potential application of circular economy principles. Lauren and the Arup materials team are working on projects across the materials supply chain from updates to policy and specifications through to supporting suppliers to bring new sustainable products to market.

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