MECLA Radical Collaboration

The Materials Embodied Carbon Leaders' Alliance (MECLA) is a unique alliance of industry, government, and research driving embodied carbon reductions in the built environment. The alliance has over 450 active participants around Australia across over 160 member organisations. Member organisations represent a vast range of stakeholders along construction supply chains.

Construction is full of complicated supply chains with myriad companies and government bodies influencing projects in various ways. By extension, these different players also have different capabilities and roles in changing those supply chains and the assets they produce to become more sustainable.

There are two key pillars of MECLA's success: radical collaboration and systems thinking.

Through radical collaboration in a pre-competitive environment, MECLA brings together stakeholders to better understand the challenges and opportunities in embodied carbon for the industry, and move us toward a more sustainable future.

Systems thinking sits at the nexus of that problem solving. By better understanding the various roles construction organisations play, their capacity for change, and how they are embedded within the complex ecosystem, MECLA has been able to identify opportunities to drive sustainable outcomes and helped Australia progress the embodied carbon conversation.

In this event MECLA intends to host a conversation for industry, government and research professionals outside of the construction sector to explore what radical collaboration and systems thinking could do for other industries in Australia. Fashion, renewable fuels, renewable energy manufacturing, and circular economy (for example) all have their own systemic challenges that could be solved through collaboration. After a presentation exploring MECLA as a case study, a facilitated workshop will occur exploring the opportunities and barriers to change in other sectors.

MECLA will invite representatives from various industries to contribute to the conversation, and have a nominated industry professional for each focus area facilitating. By leveraging the networks of each industry professional nominated, MECLA hopes to create a lively discussion centred on systems thinking and collaboration across a range of different Australian sectors and challenges. A final list of the focus areas of the workshop will be released closer to the date.