Stefanie Oakes is General Manager of Services for Asia-Pacific at Honeywell
Background
Stefanie Oakes is General Manager of Services for Asia-Pacific at Honeywell, based in Melbourne. She has almost 20 years’ experience in identifying and executing business expansion, underscored by strategic, tactical and people-focused leadership. Stefanie has developed and delivered strategies that drive customer experience, organisational improvement, and profitability. Prior to joining Honeywell in June 2021, she held various senior roles at BP.
Honeywell sees environmental sustainability as a major priority – both in terms of the solutions it provides to its customers, and in the way the company operates.
According to CEO Vimal Kapur, Honeywell is ready to equip its customers with innovative technologies to fight the impacts of climate change and become more sustainable. Kapur notes in Honeywell’s 2023 ESG Report that the company continues to spend about 60 per cent of its research and development funding on ESG-oriented solutions, and is bringing to market cutting-edge offerings for vast numbers of markets and industries, and helping solve some of the world’s most complex challenges.
Examples of Honeywell’s technologies which contribute to environmental sustainability include renewable fuels, Solstice hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) with lower GHG emission for cooling applications, and Forge software solutions to reduce energy consumption in commercial buildings.
In a local context, Honeywell made various contributions that helped the Sydney Opera House achieve a 6 Star Green Star rating from the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA). Together, the parties worked to identify and implement solutions tailored to the unique needs of the Sydney Opera House, which included retrofitting the venue with Honeywell’s technology. The collaboration targeted improvements in: indoor air quality (IAQ) and relative humidity; energy and water usage; and broad-ranging energy savings, which featured the installation of more than 60 water meters and over 800 electrical meters.
From an internal perspective, Honeywell is targeting carbon neutrality in its operations and facilities by 2035. It reporter that in 2022, it worked on 240 projects that will address nearly 20 per cent of its 2021 carbon footprint.
Sydney Opera House
To provide insights into the building industry, Tim Langdon, publisher of Eco Voice, had the pleasure of facilitating a Q & A with Stefanie Oakes General Manager of Services for Asia-Pacific at Honeywell.
Q1. What is Honeywell focused on when it comes to sustainability?
Buildings themselves are often overlooked when it comes to sustainability and reducing carbon footprint, but in Australia commercial buildings account for around 25 per cent of all electricity use, and 10 per cent of carbon emissions. Our focus is on helping buildings and facilities managers help reduce that footprint by deploying a mix of technologies including scalable, autonomous software control platforms to create a baseline of energy consumption as well as the ability to monitor, control and optimize use to lessen carbon impact and energy costs.
Q2. What are the latest trends impacting the building industry?
There’s a different conversation happening around sustainability in the building industry now and it’s a positive one. Efficiency, ESG, sustainability – they’re no longer on the wish list or meaningless buzzwords. We’re working closely with all types of buildings including hospitals, data centres, museums, arts centres, correctional facilities and airports to help improve their buildings’ sustainability. Take the Australian National Maritime Museum (ANMM) for example – Honeywell worked with the Museum on its modernisation program to upgrade control systems and IoT sensing devices, install new cooling towers and to make other improvements. This led to a reduction in energy consumption using our Enterprise Building Integrator as well as AI-powered analytics to automate heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) controls. This is the kind of real innovation happening in buildings across Australia and it’s making a difference.
Q3. What does a 6-star building look like?
No two 6 Star Green Star buildings will look alike. The rating system itself evolves as it has to but also, every building’s needs are different. When it was built, its size, room density and occupancy levels, what it’s used for, and so many other factors drive what technologies should be implemented. We work with our customers to develop customised approaches to help meet the specific needs of their buildings and their organisational goals. The Sydney Opera House is an impressive case study for a 6 Star Green Star building and a prime example of our teams working together to collectively solve the organisation’s goals. Being a UNESCO World Heritage listed building limits what you can physically do, but the organisation’s incredibly skilled and dedicated engineers and sustainability team combined with Honeywell’s technologies and experts who work on site at the House everyday together made it one of the first of its kind to achieve this rating.
Q4. Why is sustainability important in the building industry?
It’s important that the building industry steps up and continues to raise its sustainability posture – not just in the types and volumes of materials needed in construction, but crucially in the everyday operations of buildings. Beyond helping to improve climate change issues, greater building sustainability can help lower operational costs. The National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS) estimates Australian buildings that measure their energy ratings have saved $1 billion in energy costs and reduced emissions by half since 1998. There are costs to inaction too – the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is cracking down on misleading ESG statements, meaning organisations need to achieve real, tangible milestones. Further, governments around Australia are setting mandatory energy efficiency targets for new and existing buildings, further driving the adoption of new standards and technologies.
Honeywell Environmental Sustainability Index 2023
Q5. Are your competitors increasingly thinking about sustainability in your business sector?
We’re certainly seeing more providers leverage the message of sustainability and either develop or retrofit their offerings towards sustainability. That’s a positive step to help make sustainability an all-encompassing priority. This is not new ground for Honeywell. We’ve been investing in and evolving building sustainability technology for far longer than it’s been a priority in the sector’s psyche.
Q6. Do you think that sustainability is a megatrend? Why?
Arguably, sustainability is an essential megatrend. No matter what else happens, our futures depend on whether we take care of the planet on which we live. -. We need to do a lot to improve our planet’s future, but we know that technology and innovation are going to play a vital role in sustainability
Q7. How can publications, such as Eco Voice, play their part in promoting a move to more sustainability in your business sector?
It’s so important that media outlets shine a light on the positive stories that are happening in the sustainability space. The more we see and understand the initiatives that are taking place across different industries, the more sustainability projects and initiatives we’ll see take off and succeed.
ABOUT ECO VOICE
First published in 2003, Eco Voice is your go-to publication for sustainability news in Australia. Eco Voice prides itself as an independent news platform with a clear focus on sustainability, with articles coming from a diverse range of contributors – all levels of government, corporations, not-for-profits, community groups, small to medium sized businesses, universities, research organisations, together with input from international sources. Eco Voice values community, conservation and commerce. Eco Voice is a media partner of the prestigious Australian Banksia Sustainability Awards – The Peak Sustainability Awards.
ABOUT HONEYWELL BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES
Honeywell Building Technologies is transforming the way every building operates to help improve the quality of life. We are a leading building controls company with operations in more than 75 countries supported by a global channel partner network. Commercial building owners and operators use our hardware, software and analytics to help create safer, more efficient and productive facilities. Our solutions and services are used in more than 10 million buildings worldwide.
