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.
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