16 Dec 2021

A message from our Founding Directors

As we approach the end of 2021 and 10 years in business, we caught up with Jason Afford and Laurent Deleu to chat about the highs and lows of the last 18 months and why the future is looking so positive for ADP.

It’s been a challenging yet exciting 18 months for the team at ADP.

Covid-19 hit our industry hard, particularly from a construction perspective, with site shutdowns causing a significant knock-on effect throughout the industry.

Initially, navigating the uncertainty was difficult. We had to make hard decisions balancing what was right for the business, our team, and our clients, and at the same time try to predict what was around the corner, prepping for plans A, B and C!

With the uncertainty came opportunities and learnings. We became increasingly aware of the care, time, and investment we needed to make in our people. As a result, we are making hybrid working more accessible, have set up a well-being working group, and are helping our people set appropriate boundaries for a healthy work-life balance.

After the latest lockdowns were lifted, we gifted our staff an additional week’s leave to give them the opportunity to catch up on missed time and physical connection with families and friends.

Our team has been fantastic, embracing flexible working proactively and navigating change to deliver to our client’s needs.

As a result, we are being invited to bid on some of the most exciting and pre-eminent projects in today’s market. Feedback from clients on our design and approach has been overwhelmingly positive. Being a privately owned company has allowed our people the flexibility, agility, and autonomy to deliver to such a high standard.

From conception of ADP Consulting, a key aspiration has always been to work with those with similar values and principles. We are grateful and proud to be working with industry-leading clients both local and global, who are passionate about innovation, design excellence and importantly, our impact on the planet.

One of the most significant advances we’ve seen in the last five years has probably been the industry’s maturity around carbon accounting, with substantial uptake of sustainability tools and initiatives in the built environment and a genuine desire to build a better world.

Burwood Brickworks: The world’s most sustainable shopping centre is aiming to become the first retail Living Building Challenge development in the world.
Chadstone Place: Anticipated to be Australia’s first certified International Living Future Institute (ILFI) Zero Carbon building.

Recently, we signed the WorldGBC’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment, and are founding members of Engineers Declare. Our people are incredibly passionate about driving sustainability across all our projects, are nimble and can act quickly when there is opportunity. We have a strong strategic plan in place to further expand our service offering and geographical footprint and will continue to build our expertise across Health, Education and Life Sciences and Research sectors.

This year we saw five of our directors’ become shareholders, which has been another significant step to help ADP truly realise our vision of “creating great environments with great people.”

As we approach the end of an interesting 18 months, we want to thank all our team and their families, clients, partners and colleagues. 

Have a safe and wonderful break, and we’ll see you in 2022!

To learn more get in touch:

Founding Director

Jason Afford

P: +61 3 9521 1195
M: +61 400 966 599
E: [email protected]

Founding Director

Laurent Deleu

P: +61 3 9521 1195
M: +61 417 399 301
E: [email protected]