Director of Sustainability and Environment in Melbourne

STACK INFRASTRUCTURE (STACK) is an award-winning industry leader in building, owning, and operating highly efficient, cost-effective wholesale, colocation, and cloud data centers. We provide digital infrastructure that enables the world’s most innovative companies to scale, with facilities that meet or exceed the highest industry standards for availability, security, connectivity, and physical resilience.

As a well-established data center business across APAC, the Americas, and Europe, STACK has successfully built several data centers in Melbourne and continues to expand its project portfolio with the goal of becoming a market leader in the hyperscale data center market. STACK offers the scale and geographic reach that rapidly growing hyperscale and enterprise companies need.

The Director, Sustainability and Environment APAC owns the sustainability and environmental strategy for STACK developments through design, consent, construction readiness and operations. The role also leads the integrated sustainability and building-services ESD workstreams. It ensures that authority requirements, environmental obligations, energy-performance objectives and sustainability commitments are understood early, translated into design requirements and closed through clear, defensible submissions and reporting.

Reporting to the Senior Vice President Engineering APAC, the role directs environmental, acoustic, sustainability and building-services ESD consultants; coordinates multidisciplinary technical reports, energy models and sustainability-rating submissions; and provides practical advice to Development, Engineering, Design Management, Delivery and Operations teams.

Key responsibilities

• Define the environmental approval pathway for new sites, campus expansions and major design changes.
• Lead environmental due diligence for prospective sites and identify approval risks, fatal flaws, mitigation measures and information needed before acquisition or design commitment.
• Develop project design documents for local development applications, Victorian planning approvals, New South Wales State Significant Development Applications and other state or Commonwealth pathways where applicable.
• Act as STACK's principal design-side interface with EPA Victoria, NSW EPA, local councils, state planning departments and other referral authorities.
• Set the scope, evidence standard and review process for environmental impact assessments, planning reports, sustainability management plans, acoustic assessments, General Environmental Duty and supporting technical studies.
• Lead responses to council, state and regulator comments on development technical submissions.
• Direct and critically review specialist studies covering operational and construction acoustics, air quality and emissions, contaminated land, surface water and groundwater, waste, ecology and biodiversity, cultural heritage, landscape and visual impact, climate risk and other project-specific matters.
• Lead the integrated project sustainability and building-services ESD strategy from site selection and concept design through construction, commissioning and operational handover.
• Set energy-performance objectives and direct energy modelling across design stages.
• Establish and manage the sustainability-rating and certification strategy, including target setting, consultant coordination, evidence registers, submissions, assessor or authority comments and achievement tracking.

About you

• A relevant tertiary qualification in environmental science, environmental engineering, planning, sustainability, law or a related discipline.
• At least 10 years of progressive experience in environmental and sustainable design.
• Substantial recent experience within a multidisciplinary or specialist environmental consultancy team, directing approvals and technical assessment work for major developments or infrastructure, or Client-side experience following a senior consulting career, or evidence of working as an extension of a developer or asset owner team.
• Approvals experience for data centres, power generation, energy infrastructure, logistics, industrial facilities or other developments with material noise, air quality, water and community interfaces.
• Experience across both development approval and post-consent compliance, including construction environmental management and operational monitoring commitments.
• Experience with recognised Australian or international sustainability-rating frameworks and sustainability performance reporting for data centres, major infrastructure, industrial facilities or other energy-intensive assets.
• Demonstrated experience with Victorian and New South Wales approval systems, including direct engagement with EPA, councils and state planning authorities.
• Strong working knowledge of environmental legislation, the General Environmental Duty, planning permit and development consent processes, regulator expectations and the management of approval conditions.
• Proven ability to direct and review multidisciplinary technical reports, including environmental impact assessments, acoustics, sustainability management plans, building-services ESD strategies, energy models, sustainability-rating submissions and performance reports.
• Strong written communication, negotiation and presentation skills, with the judgement to brief executives and resolve complex issues with authorities and technical specialists.

Equal Opportunity Employer

STACK provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions.