Accountable &
Collaborative Places

Landcom reports our alignment and contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Landcom’s Sustainable Places Strategy is aligned to all of the SDGs. Each year we will continue to track our progress against meeting the SDGs and their respective targets relevant to Landcom and our operations.

To see our full alignment against the SDGs, and our targets and actions in FY21 to address them, refer to APPENDIX D: Sustainable Development Goals Alignment.

The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) took effect on 1 January 2019. The Act requires entities with an annual revenue of $100 million or more based or operating in Australia to prepare annual statements on potential modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains and disclose the steps they have taken in addressing those risks. As of FY20, Landcom is a reporting entity under this Act. Landcom’s Modern Slavery Statement is presented at Appendix C: Modern Slavery Statement.

In FY20 Landcom adopted a Modern Slavery Management Plan to guide the way our organisation identifies, mitigates and remediates the risks of modern slavery within our operations and supply chain.

During the reporting period updated modern slavery compliance training was rolled out to all staff which built on the previous training modules with more detail on grievance mechanisms for reporting incidents of modern slavery.

Landcom also continued our membership of the Property Council Modern Slavery Working Group throughout the reporting period. The group is represented by risk, sustainability and procurement experts. In this reporting period the consortium facilitated research and guidance reports led by academia and industry experts on grievance mechanisms, emerging trends in supply chain risk for materials and products, and industry led feedback on improving Modern Slavery Statements.

In 2019 the cohort formed a consortium to design and deliver the ‘Supplier Platform’. The Platform provides a consistent approach to engagement on modern slavery across the industry’s shared supply chain, and leverages the consortium’s collective influence to mitigate or remediate instances of modern slavery. Suppliers complete a single questionnaire that is accessible through an online dashboard to the consortium members for whom they work, or wish to work. The Platform also provides capacity building links and resources to suppliers, and is intended to encourage and track continuous improvement, enabling consortium members to collect and evaluate data, or monitor skills gaps and supply chain advances.

In FY22 Landcom enhanced our supplier pre-qualification requirement for contracts with a value over $150,0000, with all new Landcom contracts over the threshold required to complete the Platform questionnaire. We also implemented a new process for verification of completion on the Supplier Platform linking to the Procurement function.

During the year we had 23 suppliers either complete or update their existing modern slavery questionnaire, providing Landcom a deeper understanding of the inherent risks within our immediate supply chain. The questionnaire results confirmed the majority of participating suppliers included the following risk profile attributes, making their operations or supply chain susceptible to modern slavery:

• very high proportion of sub-contractors
• outsourced recruitment practices
• high volume of labour hire
• little or no oversight of suppliers’ sub-contractors or third-parties
• products and materials sourced from overseas, with little or no oversight of their production
• varying degrees of investigation into their own operations or supply chains.

These findings are consistent with where the property and construction industry is likely to encounter modern slavery. Low skilled, manual, low-waged work is an area where workers are more likely to be subjected to forced labour, and where the risk of harm to people may increase. These workers may be poorly educated, lack decent work options and be more likely to be migrants from high-risk countries. This is relevant to both operations in Australia, and the overseas supply chain.

In response to this, Landcom has updated our existing integrated management system, used for work, health and safety or environmental notifications. We have leveraged this to include a modern slavery option, which automatically alerts key Landcom staff when an incident is lodged. Compliance training for staff on modern slavery was updated this year to include an instructional video on how to log an incident of modern slavery in this system. The training also outlined the process we have adopted for a new grievance mechanism which allows for anonymous reporting of modern slavery incidents internally via a bespoke Fraud, Corruption & Modern Slavery Notification Box.

As the property and construction industry is also characterised by long and complex supply chains, stretching across many countries, we have also adopted new contract clauses for all works or engagements requiring our principal contractors or consultants to notify Landcom of any suspected or confirmed incidents of modern slavery, and to collaborate with us in any investigation or remedy.

We’re committed to driving accountability and performance along our supply chain. This means proactively engaging with our suppliers, particularly those we partner with to deliver our projects. As part of our management approach Landcom is a member of the Australian Supply Chain Sustainability School. In FY22 as a first step in Landcom’s approach to remediation, we implemented mandatory supplier training on modern slavery through the Supply Chain School. The training modules are self-guided and outline details of the inherent risks of incidents of modern slavery in the construction industry.

Launched in Australia in 2015, the School works to develop the sustainability skills and knowledge of those working in complex property and construction supply chains. Through self-assessment tools and free resources, it helps organisations of all sizes address issues such as modern slavery, sustainable procurement and materials innovation.

In FY22 Landcom engaged the Director, Australian Human Rights Institute Faculty of Law & Justice at UNSW to assist in the development of our approach to grievance mechanisms and to further our initial approach to remediation strategies.

In FY23 Landcom will continue to deliver against our Modern Slavery Management Plan, including adopting recommendations on formalising grievance mechanisms and will build on our remediation approach beyond the mandatory supplier training implemented in FY22.

For more detail on Landcom’s disclosures on the mandatory reporting criteria for the The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth), please see Appendix C: Modern Slavery Statement.

In FY22 Landcom confirmed our commitment to fostering respectful and meaningful relationships with Traditional Owners and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in our sphere of operation, by creating and finalising our first Reflect Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).

The Reflect RAP, which was developed in consultation with Indigenous consultants Murawin and in collaboration with Reconciliation Australia, outlines the meaningful actions that Landcom will take as a business to support the national reconciliation movement.

As part of the mandatory inclusions within the guidance framework from Reconciliation Australia, Landcom was required to formalise a working group to drive the governance and creation of the Reflect RAP. The working group, called the RAP Collaborative, is made up of members from each Landcom business unit and across the entire organisation.

The RAP Collaborative’s main function throughout the year, was to crystalise the ideas and actions suggested in workshops held with all staff at the end of FY21. The resulting framework within the Reflect RAP has these commitments outlined and this document has been endorsed by Reconciliation Australia.

Recognising the need for awareness and staff engagement, part of the Reflect RAP process was implementing a series of cultural awareness training sessions for staff which were held in the form of ‘Yarning Circles’ for six months in FY22. Further cultural awareness training will be implemented as mandatory compliance training in FY23 as we progress this action item in the Reflect RAP.

Delivering on the actions and commitments within the Reflect RAP will be key in FY23 as we turn our focus to implementation and governance. See our case study: Landcom’s First Reconciliation Action Plan.

Landcom has continued to promote diversity and inclusion (D&I) across our business throughout FY22.

Our D&I Policy outlines our commitment to providing a workplace culture that embraces equity, diversity and inclusion at all levels of our organisation enabling staff to thrive and do their best work.

In February 2022, we updated Landcom’s D&I Action Plan, which focuses on the following key goals:

• create an environment that values diversity and inclusion
• increase attraction, retention, and development of staff from diverse backgrounds, initially prioritising women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, culturally and linguistically diverse people, people with disability, generational diversity and LGBTQIA+
• reduce bias and embed diverse and inclusive practices into how we work.

As part of the Action Plan, and to help enable the above goals, Landcom has adopted a suite of D&I measures and metrics, benchmarked against several Australian datasets. Our FY22 results are presented in Landcom’s Annual Report.

Landcom has also participated in the following initiatives as part of its commitment to D&I in FY22:

• delivered the third cohort of Women Leading at Landcom, a talent program designed to build future female leaders
• conducted a Gender Pay Audit, which resulted in a further reduction in Landcom’s Gender Pay Gap
• participated in Harmony Week and International Women’s Day with a number of hybrid events with both on-line and in person participants
• launched an all-staff webinar, covering Practical Reconciliation as part of Reconciliation Week.

Landcom recognises that managing work, relationships, caring responsibilities, finances and other life needs can be challenging at times for us all. Landcom partners with LifeStreet – an Employee Assistance Program focused on wellbeing and an individual’s life as a whole.

Accessible to all staff, LifeStreet offers usual assistance services to employees and immediate family members, and has resources and tools for staff to use in their lives more broadly.

Users can access their own digitally-based LifeStreet profile via a secure login, and use self-assessment tools to help direct them to the appropriate resources on their platform. Topics span health and wellness, family and relationships, work and career, psychological and emotional wellbeing, carers needs, financial management and planning and purpose and contribution. Users can also be connected to coaches or medical professionals – such as sleep psychologists if that is an area of personal wellbeing improvement a user may need support with.

In FY22 Landcom responded to the impacts of COVID-19 by encouraging higher engagement with LifeStreet, and making health and wellbeing classes available to staff online.

Further detail of our FY22 activities are presented in our Annual Report.