Building, Rebuilding & Building - Rory Martin on The Life & Lessons of a Sustainability Leader

Today's friend of the pod is Rory Martin. Rory has a great title - Vice President of Group Sustainability for Frasers Property, based in Melbourne here in Australia. That is probably the least interesting thing about him though, and the life he's lived til now and the stories he reveals in this chat about his incredible life to date - the highs and the lows - reveal how he has come to be one of Australia's leading corporate sustainability thinkers and practitioners.

Rory grew up in Ireland and trained as an architect, before curiosity got the better of him and he moved to Australia and then evolved his career into the sustainability field, where he's been awarded many recognitions and made even more valuable contributions to many areas of his and our shared professional lives - sustainable finance, climate risk and resilience, passive Haus and australia's terrible home building standards, biophilic design, carbon abatement and how to think about and build buildings that enhance human health and wellbeing. For over ten years Rory has had fingers in a lot of pies, and the achievements and awards he and the teams he has been a part of is recognition of the quality of his thinking, his actions and the person that he is.

I didn't expect this conversation to go into just about every area we did, and Rory shares a remarkable, vulnerable and life changing experience from when he was 21 and travelling across the world from Ireland to Australia before becoming dangerously unwell in Thailand.

I've known Rory for the best part of ten years and what he shares I didn't know about, and most others don't. This conversation is about the gifts of tragedy, the power of curiosity and the virtue of humility.

There was so much that I enjoyed chatting to Rory about as we're about the same age and similar points in our career trajectory, and the ability to reflect upon and contemplate where the corporate sustainability movement and individual is at now, where it has come from and what may lie ahead is such a fascinating one for me. I was reminded that this work and the characteristics of the people who work in this space is part science but seemingly lots of magic too. To make sense of complexity, to build stories to influence and persuade, to constantly be learning, to be pushing the boundaries of what hasn't been done and the imagination involved in that - it's exciting to step back and realise my every day gets to exist in those realms and mindsets which I love and am grateful I found this profession, despite the challenges and disappointments it throws up on a near daily basis.

So with Rory's experience of Guillain Barre syndrome and the rapid onset of paralysis it induced and the life he has lived since, and with the theme of meaning in mind, this quote from Victor Frankl seems apt “We can discover meaning in three ways; firstly, by doing a deed, secondly, by experiencing a value, and thirdly, by suffering.

This was a special conversation, and I was moved by Rory's personal and professional reflections. I hope you are too.

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