"2050 exists to drive national initiatives towards a more sustainable Australia with passion, commitment and youthful energy."

2050 are grateful for the support and positive association that exists between it and the built environment professional bodies that funded and supported the initial Youthquake event, particularly The Royal Australian Institute of Architects, The Planning Institute of Australia and The Property Council of Australia.

The 2050 committee and its members are lobbyists and advocates from all backgrounds dedicated to change in the way Australia's built environment is developed. By leading our representative professions' youth committees, 2050 is able to comprehensively penetrate the built environment sector and seek generational change towards more sustainable development policy and practice.

• Age : 21 - 35
• Sex : 55% male, 45% female
• Education : over 95% tertiary qualified
• Employment : over 90% full time, over 40% in management positions

For Australia, 2004 was officially the National Year of the Built Environment. Of the year's many events that sought to focus the people and their leaders on the subject, Youthquake was perhaps the most daring and ambitious.

On the last weekend of November 2004 seventy-three young Australians, drawn from the various organisations and institutions that regulate and contribute to the form and function of the nations' built environment, were gathered in Newcastle, New South Wales. Their extraordinary two-day task, carried out in a workshop environment, was to imagine, crystallize and record the shape and quality of Australia's future living environment. To create a vision of what Australia might look like and live like in the year 2050 - if the nation began immediately to build ambitiously and unstintingly toward it.

For more information about Youthquake you can download the summary document here.

This second annual 2050 event was held in Brisbane from November 25 - 27, 2005. Future Shock saw Young Professionals from across Australia come together in a forum like no other seen before. 2050 is about making a change, this change includes the way we think about our Nation's future. This change therefore required a unique forum whereby the delegates become the facilitators and asked the big questions to turn lobbying as we know it on it's head! The Agenda for the conference was derived from the key outcomes of Youthquake:

1. A Virtuous Cycle of Sustainability & 100% Energy
2. Broad Based Civic Responsibility, Community Based Government & Government Reform
3. Sustainable Economic Growth, Constant Life Improvement & Growth Policy
4. World Peace Leader & Peace-making
5. Educating for a Sustainable Future & National Sustainable Policy

The primary support for 2050 comes from the Property Council of Australia, The Royal Australian Institute of Architects and the Planning Institute of Australia. Other professional associations and sustainability minded bodies also provide assistance to the 2050 network and its goals. Many of the 2050 committee are active members of these associations and are supported to drive change and seek sustainable outcomes for Australia's development as future leaders of the built environment.

For more information about the associations, click on the links below:

Property Council of Australia (PCA)
Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA)
Planning Institute of Australia (PIA)
Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (AIQS)
Environment Institute of Australia and New Zealand (EIANZ)
Australian Institute of Building (AIB)
Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA)
Australia Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA)

For information about current events offered by these associations see our News and Events section.

2050 has also been supported by a number of organisations within the development industry, who acknowledge and recognise the importance of the move toward a more sustainable Australia by 2050. These organisations are listed below:

Bluescope Steel (major 2050 sponsor, supporter and website host)

In 2006, 2050 will be seeking to raise our political profile through parliamentary submissions such as the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry intoChildren, Young People and the Built Environment and the Federal Government Inquiry into the Sustainability Charter and providing cross-disciplinary networks in the form of our third annual conference in Melbourne in November. Informal activities on a state by state basis are held throughout the year, newsletters are also distributed to the entire database and have regular features articles in the industries leading publications. Most importantly, 2050 members seek to support and implement sustainable change in built environment policy and practice in their workplace.

2050 will continue these activities into the future by holding our national conference on an annual basis at a different location across Australia. This will help ensure the continuation of a cross-disciplinary network for all young professionals working in the built environment. Our agenda is to inform 2050 members about matters effecting sustainability and the built environment, providing all 2050 members an opportunity to have their voices heard and continue to drive national sustainability initiatives.

By the year 2050, most of our members will be in their 60s, and most likely have created another two generations of people to populate the earth. Our network is concerned with the speed at which our built environment is contributing towards a poor future for ourselves, and future generations. This is occurring through environmental degradation, absence of social equity and economic equality. Each of our members have the education, knowledge, awareness and industry position to influence policy and practice in the various industries of the built environment and ensure that this issue is being addressed. 2050 aims to bring together these individuals and create a driving force, both through sharing knowledge and creating networks, to live and work toward sustainable development as an example to those around us.

As a conference delegate at the 2005 Future Shock conference put it, "our passion is like the milk in a cup of tea, gradually dispersing our knowledge and experience until the entire industry sees sustainable development as the norm".

We aim to devote our energy, passion and educated minds towards achieving this goal by the year 2050. And most importantly, we aim to have FUN doing it!