Helping with the green adjustment

GREEN Building Council of Australia WA state manager Nadja Kampfhenkel says the most important part of her role is changing attitudes in the property industry.

An engineer by background, Ms Kampfhenkel moved to Western Australia from Germany in 2008 to combine her passion for science and engineering with her interest in sustainable building.

Ms Kampfhenkel said entering the male-dominated property industry was a challenge, but maintained she could offer a new perspective to exploit opportunities.

“Women have a very different approach in how they do things; I won’t say better or worse, it’s just a different way of thinking, of logic sometimes,” she said.

At GBCA, Ms Kampfhenkel is responsible for government relations, member services and Green Star project support, but she said her most important role was to change the way Western Australians approached green building.

“People have to step out of their comfort zone; I guess nobody likes changes, especially if they can’t really see the effects,” Ms Kampfhenkel told WA Business News.

“With regards to green building people ask: ‘why should we care, the air is clean in Perth, it doesn’t seem to be polluted.’

“They take for granted that they have energy, they have water supplied to them, and that’s the biggest problem.

“It’s a fact that we’ll one day run out of resources, that’s one great reason to make our buildings greener.”

While Ms Kampfhenkel said WA was lagging other developed nations with regard to sustainable building, she fed off of that challenge.

“Compared to where Europe is and where the US sits, Australia is behind the curve,” she said.

“But there are a lot of opportunities and potential here; when the opportunity came up for me to work at the green building council I grabbed it.”