Estate Living Magazine Develop - Issue 44 August 2019 | Page 4

FROM THE TEAM FOUNDER/CEO Jaimé-Lee Gardner [email protected] COO/PUBLISHER Louise Martin [email protected] GROUP SALES DIRECTOR Michele Jones EDITOR Jennifer Stern GOLF EDITOR John Cockayne SENIOR SUBEDITOR Thea Grobbelaar CREATIVE Peter Batistich AMBASSADORS Jenelle Oosthuizen Shamiela Roubain CONTRIBUTORS Dr Anthony Turton Helen Grange Martin Hatchuel Brendan Dale Mark van Dijk Chantal Lailvaux Piper Montagu Darryn Faulds Di Brown Lisa Witepski ESTATE-LIVING.CO.ZA Danielle Biggar In September this year, heads of state and government will gather at the United Nations headquarters in New York to follow up and comprehensively review progress in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And that’s a big deal. The SDGs are all about creating a better, more equitable, more sustainable world, and – because they shape the world – we believe that developers can contribute to making these goals a reality. So we have focussed on ways that developers can ensure that the spaces they create are positive, life-enhancing ones, from using the most appropriate plants in the gardens and public spaces, and living in harmony with the resident animals – even if they are a tad cheeky – to encouraging residents to take note of, and take care of, their environment by contributing to citizen science projects. But it’s not just about bunny hugging and bird watching. We’ve taken a long, hard look at the state of municipal infrastructure, and what that means to us as developers, and we’ve reviewed a fantastically successful ecotourism and J12 development that shows that land claims are not something to be feared, but something to be embraced. And another scary spectre that – if you look at it with an open mind – is possibly the most fantastic opportunity ever – the creation of affordable housing, because getting that right will go a long way to solving some of the issues we face as a country. It’s all about working with nature, with people and with communities, rather than against them. And that is best illustrated in the acceptance – make that encouragement – of desire paths, which more than anything illustrate that all developments are about people, not property. But we haven’t forgotten that development is also about hard business decisions, so we’ve found a great opportunity to get in on – not the ground floor – the first floor of a great eco development in Hartbeespoort; we’ve looked at a clever small-scale way of getting on the retirement development bandwagon, and – as always – some great financial and technical partners to ensure that you create the best, most up-to-date and, yes, most sustainable estates and precincts. But remember, all work and no play leaves you with dull workers, dull teams and a dull future, so we’ve found a fun and fabulous team-building challenge in Madagascar, and – because the sky is so not the limit – we’ve related how investing in the moon made one clever ‘developer’ an astronomical profit. We can make the world more sustainable, more liveable and more fun. The limit is our imagination. JJ Currie COPYRIGHT 2019: Golden Acer (Pty) Ltd t/a Estate Living. The opinions and views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of Golden Acer (Pty) Ltd t/a Estate Living. The publisher and editor can regretfully not accept any liability for omissions or errors contained in this publication. The ownership of registered trademarks is duly acknowledged. No part of this publication or any of its content may be reproduced, digitally stored or transmitted in any format without the express permission of the publisher. Estate Living is a registered trademark of Kapital Investment (Pty) Ltd.