Climate Action Week Sydney event

UNSW SMaRT Centre Director Prof Veena Sahajwalla will deliver a keynote speech at the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards (ASRS) event on 12 March 2026 as part of Climate Action Week Sydney.

Climate Action Week Sydney is a festival of community-led events across & beyond Sydney from 9-15 March 2026, and the ASRS event hosted by Unravel Carbon will hear about how companies are navigating mandatory climate reporting in Australia.

As keynote speaker for the day, Veena will highlight that using innovations such as UNSW SMaRT Centre's Green Steel^TM Polymer Injection Technology, which reforms waste rubber tyres and other waste polymers as alternative to coke and coal in electric arc steel making, and MICROfactorie^TM technologies that recover valuable materials from waste and reform them into new manufacturing feedstock and products through collaborators, are central to help achieve the sustainability needed for the future.

Veena says: “A key element of climate action is ensuring far greater sustainability for our existing waste and recycling management, and ensuring we start using waste as a valuable resource for remanufacturing, helping to create circular economies.”

“The growing recognition of the importance of recycling innovations - like our very own UNSW SMaRT Centre MICROfactorie^TM Technologies that recover and reform valuable materials from hard-to-recycle wastes into feedstock for remanufacturing and new products - is often a missing element of in the climate action narrative.”

“Instead of relegating waste to landfills, incinerators or stockpiles, it can help achieve decarbonisation by being used as a resource, thus driving innovation, supporting local industries, creating jobs while delivering environmental and social benefits. True sustainability demands we harness this potential and transform waste into a resource stream for advanced manufacturing.”

Event website and registration

Unravel Carbon says:

In the session you will hear from experts that will cover concrete examples, learning what worked, what didn’t, and how leading teams are handling data, governance and assurance in their first year of disclosure.

You’ll also see live AI agents for sustainability in action, and how they can help Group 1, 2 and 3 organisations stay on top of ASRS compliance while boosting the output of lean reporting and sustainability teams.

​You’ll hear first-hand lessons from Group 1 reporters, advisory insights, and a forward-looking perspective on the role of technology and AI in strengthening compliance and climate action.

​Date: Thursday 12 March 2026
Time: 12:00 pm – 2:15 pm AEDT

​Agenda

​-12:00 – 12:30 pm: Registration & Lunch (Greenhouse Lounge)

​-12:30 – 1:00 pm: Keynote
Professor Veena Sahajwalla AO, Director of Sustainable Materials Research & Technology at UNSW

​-1:00 – 1:30 pm: Panel – ASRS in Practice
moderated by Marc Allen, Co-Founder & Chief Sustainability Officer, Unravel Carbon

​Representing Group 1 ASRS reporters:

• ​Paolo Bevilacqua GAICD, Group Head of Sustainability, Frasers Property Limited.​
• ​James Gallus, Zero Emissions Buses (ZEB) Transition Manager at Ventura Bus.​

​Providing an advisory and assurance perspective:​

• ​Thierry Lotrian, Founder & CEO, Climate & Decisions.

​-1:30 – 1:45 pm: Agentic AI to support climate disclosure
Marc Allen, Co-Founder & Chief Sustainability Officer, Unravel Carbon
A demonstration of AI agents for sustainability, including ISSB / ASRS applications, followed by open discussion on how technology can support robust reporting and climate risk management.

​-1:45 – 2:00 pm: Closing Reflections

​2:00 – 2:15 pm: Networking

​About the speakers:

​Professor Veena Sahajwalla AO
Professor Veena Sahajwalla is an internationally recognised materials scientist, engineer, and inventor revolutionising recycling science. She is renowned for pioneering the high temperature transformation of waste in the production of a new generation of ‘green materials’ at the UNSW Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre, where she is Founding Director. Professor Veena is the inventor of polymer injection technology, known as green steel, an eco-friendly process for using recycled tyres in steel production. In 2025, Professor Veena was awarded the ‘Officer of the Order of Australia’ (AO) for distinguished service to science, sustainable materials research and technology and waste management on Australia Day.

​Paolo Bevilacqua GAICD
Paolo is Group Head of Sustainability at Frasers Property, overseeing its sustainability strategy across its multinational and multi-asset class portfolio in 20 countries. He has delivered industry leading programmes and solutions at both project and organisational levels across real estate and energy sectors in multiple markets.
Prior to his current role, Paolo was the founding General Manager and Chair of Real Utilities, a green energy retailer and utilities business of Frasers Property. Before joining Frasers Property, Paolo held various sustainability and renewable energy roles at Lendlease.
With two decades of experience in the real estate sector, Paolo’s sustainability leadership credentials include serving as a current Board member of the World Green Building Council, former Vice Chair of the International Living Future Institute and former Chair of the Property Council of Australia’s National Sustainability Roundtable.

James Gallus:
James Gallus is Zero Emissions Buses (ZEB) Transition Manager at Ventura Bus, responsible for the end-to-end delivery of Ventura’s transition to battery electric buses. Ventura is Victoria’s largest bus operator, operating a fleet of over 900 buses and employing more than 1,800 team members. In 2025, James led the deployment of a carbon accounting platform and strengthened internal systems and the governance framework to meet emerging regulatory requirements, including compliance with the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards. Prior to joining Ventura, James worked as a project delivery lead and management consultant across the energy retail, telecommunications, and government sectors, driving transformation and operational improvement initiatives.

Thierry Lotrian
Thierry Lotrian is the Founder and CEO of Climate & Decisions, a specialist advisory firm supporting organisations on climate risk, sustainability regulation, and strategic transition. He works with executive and board teams to prepare for ASRS mandatory disclosures, building the governance, data, and control frameworks required to deliver audit-ready, investor-grade reporting.
Thierry was a Partner at Deloitte and has held senior leadership roles at SAP and Capgemini, advising major organisations on risk, finance transformation, technology implementation, and regulatory change. He brings deep expertise at the intersection of sustainability, finance, and AI, helping organisations embed climate risk into enterprise risk management and strategic decision-making.

​Marc Allen
Marc is co-founder at Unravel Carbon, an agentic AI powered software solution for measuring, tracking, reducing and disclosing climate related data - and using that information to develop strategic responses to climate change and sustainability risks. He has been working in the climate space in Asia-Pacific for the last 18 years - helping large companies in Australia and South-East Asia decarbonise and reduce exposure to sustainability risks, across multiple sectors. A chemical engineer by training, he is focused on helping companies thrive through the transition to a net-zero economy and Unravel Carbon is a way for him to maximise his impact using technology.

​Location

​Greenhouse Tech Hub (Salesforce Tower)

​Level 3, 180 George Street

​Sydney NSW 2000

​Room: Telford Room