Sustainable Builders Yak

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Australia is the seventh most forested country on earth, yet it imports around $5 billion more timber than it sells, and the gap grows every year. Matt de Jongh, a forester of about 25 years and now with Responsible Wood, the body behind timber certification in Australia and New Zealand, explains how that happened. His blunt version: at home, we have run out of wood.
Most of the conversation digs into what "sustainably managed" actually means on the ground. Matt breaks down the difference between certified and uncertified timber, how the "no deforestation" rule works when trees are still being cut, and why independent third-party auditing, not a landholder's word, is what sits behind a Responsible Wood or PEFC label.
From there it turns political. Matt argues that ending native forest logging in Victoria and WA has pushed demand onto Tasmania and onto imports from countries with weaker rules, and he uses the Pilliga koala population as his example of what happens after active management stops. The episode also covers mass timber, the carbon locked inside a timber product, and why architects keep coming back to wood.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Why the seventh most forested country still imports about $5 billion more timber than it exports
What "no deforestation" actually means: permanent land-use change, not selective harvest and regrowth
Certified vs uncertified timber, and how independent auditing backs a Responsible Wood or PEFC label
The Pilliga koala argument, and what Matt says happened after a managed forest became a national park
Mass timber, stored carbon and the case for building in wood
CHAPTERS
0:00 - Meet Matt de Jongh, and the science of forestry
4:33 - What "sustainably managed" actually means
5:17 - Plantations, native forests and how thinning works
7:33 - "No deforestation" defined, and who checks it
13:22 - Forest certification, PEFC and Responsible Wood
18:25 - Certified vs uncertified timber, and the illegal logging laws
24:08 - Why timber is the ultimate renewable, and biogenic carbon
26:55 - The forests that aren't certified, and small landholders
30:25 - WA's gum plantations and the scheme that planted in the wrong place
35:05 - The $5 billion question: a forested country that still imports timber
39:12 - A shrinking forest estate and the housing crisis
43:24 - Engineered timber, mass timber and traceability
46:17 - Is there a fix, and why it is political
49:09 - Victoria, Tasmania and the media story
51:19 - The Pilliga, koalas and what happens when management stops
1:05:47 - The silver bullet: procurement and wood encouragement policies
1:11:15 - Quickfire
ABOUT THE GUEST
Matt de Jongh is a forester with around 25 years in the industry, from operational forestry across New South Wales to policy roles with the Australian government, and he is a director of Forestry Australia. He now works with Responsible Wood, the standards body that runs forest and chain-of-custody certification in Australia and New Zealand and represents PEFC locally.
LEARN MORE
Responsible Wood: https://www.responsiblewood.org.au
Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au
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Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

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Australia's National Construction Code climate zones and NatHERS and PHPP models built on them, are calculated from climate averages that are no longer holding. When Brian raises this, Monash University climate scientist Ailie Gallant stops and admits it's a gap: she hadn't considered the building code angle, and says she'll take it back to her team to look into.

The bulk of the episode is a plain-language climate science primer, delivered without jargon by someone who does this for a living. Ailie explains the greenhouse effect as a window that different gases open and close, walks through carbon dioxide moving from 280 to 432 parts per million, and puts that in context: roughly a 55% increase in eighty to a hundred years, where comparable past shifts took millions. She also explains why the scientific consensus holds despite researchers actively trying to discredit each other's work.

For builders and designers, the practical content is in what comes next. Ailie sets out the regional picture: drier winters and more time in drought across southern Australia, hotter and more humid up north, fewer cyclones but more intense ones, and rainfall arriving in short violent bursts rather than steadily, which is a drainage problem before it's anything else. She's also cautiously optimistic: the worst emissions scenarios modelled a decade ago now look unrealistic, and the conversation lands on two to three degrees rather than five or six.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Whether NCC climate zones will shift and why a 100 year house in Melbourne might need to be built for central New South Wales
"This is not our new normal, this is our changing normal" why updating the code once won't be enough
Carbon dioxide from 280 to 432 parts per million: a 55% jump in a century, where past shifts took millions of years
Hotter and drier down south, hotter and more humid up north, and cyclones that come less often but hit harder
Rain arriving in short violent bursts instead of steadily: a drainage problem waiting to happen
LEARN MORE
Monash University: Ailie Gallant: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ailie-gallant-b36839a9/
ARC Centre of Excellence for Weather of the 21st Century: https://www.21centuryweather.org.au/
Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

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Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

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Andy Marlow's definition of efficiency in passive house and airtightness will annoy some people: it's doing the bare minimum required to clear the hurdle, which he says is much the same as being really bloody lazy. Andy is a director at Envirotecture, a long-time passive house advocate and former Australian Passive House Association board member — and he thinks the industry's obsession with beating its own numbers is costing builders money for no measurable gain.
The core of the conversation is where the point of diminishing returns actually sits for high performance. Once a building is genuinely airtight, the model becomes predictable (you can't model a sieve) and that predictability is what lets you cut back everything else. Andy walks through the UK apartment work presented at the Passive House Conference where parts of the building are deliberately built worse than code because the form factor absorbs it, the concrete footings nobody needs to perfect, and the one thing you can never compromise on: condensation risk.
Brian makes the same case from the other direction — that a decade of chasing certified air-tightness is what teaches you how much performance you can buy for far less. They get into the airtightness arms race between builders, the bloke who hit 0.06 and probably wasted his weekends doing it, achieving 2 ACH cheaply through the plasterboard line, and whether a tiered certification pathway would drag the volume market across the line. Andy also explains the relaunch of Passive House Design & Construct as pre-designed-only homes — the same logic applied to design fees.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
An educated way to cut corners.
The airtightness arms race — 0.6 versus 0.5 versus the 0.06 warehouse, and where the ego takes over from the engineering
Condensation risk as the one thing you don't get to compromise, and Andy's caution on loosening airtightness
Low Energy Building as the sensible tier down, and why a 300mm-plus wall isn't always financially sane
Health, comfort and longevity as the real product — "no one cares about energy efficiency"
Applying the same logic to design: the relaunch of Passive House Design & Construct as pre-designed homes you can't modify
LEARN MORE
Envirotecture: https://www.envirotecture.com.au/
Passive House Design & Construct: https://passivhausdc.com.au/
Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au
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Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

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Kyle Zanetto lost close to $400,000 in a single year working eighty-hour weeks. Luke Davies sat $75,000 in overdraft with a maxed-out mortgage and had to sell his house. Both now run successful Tasmanian building companies — and together founded Future Builder to stop other builders repeating their mistakes.

The core of the conversation is what sits between a good builder and a profitable building business: markup versus margin, estimating bottlenecks, recovering overheads, and how business structure determines the numbers. As Luke puts it, if someone tells you what your markup should be, they don't know your business.
Kyle explains how a 30-point client questionnaire now filters roughly fifty leads down to two, and why that shift — not cost-cutting — is what protects quality.

They also walk through Future Builder itself: the asset library, the courses, the Monday masterminds, and Alfie, the AI business companion Luke has been building for nine months that runs a 104-point health check across six business pillars and connects to Xero. 
The conversation moves into lean methodology on site, burnout and why builders won't ask for help, suicide in the industry, and what each of them would change in the NCC if given one shot.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
How a builders markup can make or break a business — and the difference between markup and net profit
Kyle's 30-point client entry questionnaire: open-book negotiated tenders, 30% cash, and turning down 48 of 50 leads
Luke's approach to saying yes to the right job even when the schedule is full
Alfie, the AI business companion: business life stages from start-up to prime, the 104-point health check
Lean methodology on the building site — spaghetti maps, rework, and the triple hit to the bottom line
Burnout, self-awareness and hustle culture: the routines to business owners use to keep operating at high load
LEARN MORE
Future Builder: https://www.futurebuilder.co/
Zanetto Builders: https://www.zanettobuilders.com.au/
Davies Construction: https://www.daviesconstruction.com.au/
Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

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Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

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Most builders are more exposed than they realise, and usually find out at the worst possible moment. 
In this episode, Daniel Webber of Webber Insurance, a broker who specialises in complex construction risk, walks through the cover a builder actually needs and what each policy really does.

The core of the conversation is the essentials — home warranty, contract works material damage, and public liability — then the covers builders routinely underestimate: statutory liability, professional indemnity, cyber, and key-person. Daniel is direct about where the gaps sit and why assuming you're covered is an expensive habit.
It also digs into the traps: worker-to-worker claims where an injured sub's insurer comes after the builder, insuring the existing structure on renovations, and how blown-out project values or timelines can quietly void a claim. The throughline is simple — more insurance isn't always the answer, but understanding your cover, running an annual health check, and getting your subcontractor contracts right are non-negotiable.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
The three core policies every residential builder needs — and what each actually covers
Why home warranty protects the homeowner, not the builder, and how your limit is tied to your finances
Worker-to-worker claims: how an injured subcontractor's insurer comes after the builder
Statutory liability, and why public liability won't cover SafeWork fines or investigations
Professional indemnity for builders — and the "design and construct" element people miss
Insuring the existing structure on renovations, and the home-insurance chat to have with clients
Why fixing your subcontractor contracts is the single biggest risk lever a builder has
LEARN MORE
Webber Insurance: https://www.webberinsurance.com.au
Sustainable Builders Alliance (SBA): https://www.thesba.com.au

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The Sustainable Builders Alliance