Conference Agenda 2026

As organisations strive to improve safety performance in an increasingly complex and fast-paced environment, leadership remains one of the most influential factors in shaping outcomes. While policies, procedures and technologies play an important role, lasting safety culture is often driven from the top, through clear accountability, visible commitment and consistent decision-making. Effective leaders help create environments where safety is embedded into everyday operations, empowering individuals and teams to identify risks, raise concerns and prioritise wellbeing.

The session will examine how leadership influences safety culture across the built environment and explore the role of communication, governance and organisational values in driving positive change. As expectations around safety continue to evolve, it will consider how strong leadership can help build more resilient organisations, improve performance and ensure that safety remains a core business priority at every level.

As the drive towards net zero accelerates, low-carbon construction is rapidly transforming the way buildings are designed, procured and delivered. From engineered timber and recycled materials to new insulation systems and innovative construction methods, sustainable alternatives are creating opportunities to reduce environmental impact across the building lifecycle. At the same time, these emerging materials and approaches are raising important questions around fire performance, risk assessment and regulatory compliance in an evolving built environment.

The session will examine the relationship between sustainability and fire safety, exploring how the industry can balance ambitious carbon reduction goals with the need to protect people, assets and communities. It will consider the challenges of evaluating new materials, adapting standards and maintaining public confidence, while highlighting the importance of evidence-based design, innovation and collaboration in delivering buildings that are both sustainable and safe.

As buildings become taller, more complex and increasingly diverse in how they are used, designing effective evacuation strategies has never been more important. While building codes, technologies and modelling tools continue to evolve, real-world emergencies often highlight the unpredictable nature of human behaviour under stress. Factors such as decision-making, mobility, communication and crowd dynamics can significantly influence how safely and efficiently occupants respond during an evacuation.

The session will examine whether current approaches to building design, fire safety and emergency planning adequately reflect how people actually behave in crisis situations. It will explore the challenges of creating evacuation strategies that are inclusive, adaptable and resilient, while considering the implications of changing building typologies, population demographics and occupant expectations. As the built environment continues to evolve, the discussion will consider how design can better support safe, effective and human-centred evacuation outcomes.

As fire incidents continue to provide valuable lessons for the built environment, each event offers critical insights into the strengths and weaknesses of current safety systems, building practices and emergency response strategies. From design and construction through to maintenance, compliance and occupant behaviour, recent incidents have highlighted the importance of vigilance, preparedness and continuous improvement across every stage of a building’s lifecycle. Understanding what went wrong, what worked well and what can be done differently is essential to reducing future risks and improving resilience.

The session will examine key lessons emerging from recent fire incidents and explore how these experiences are influencing industry standards, regulations and best practice. It will consider the opportunities to strengthen fire safety through better design, improved compliance, enhanced training and a more proactive approach to risk management, helping to create safer buildings and communities for the future.

Australia's fire industry is evolving. Discover how AI and new technologies are strengthening compliance processes, driving better outcomes and helping the industry benefit from greater accuracy, efficiency, and confidence.

As Australia’s approach to fire safety continues to evolve, the focus is increasingly shifting from regulatory compliance alone towards building a culture where safety is embedded at every level of an organisation. While stronger standards, improved enforcement and greater industry awareness have driven meaningful progress, questions remain about whether compliance frameworks are consistently translating into safer behaviours, better decision-making and stronger outcomes in practice. Creating a truly resilient fire safety environment requires more than meeting regulatory obligations; it demands leadership, accountability and a shared commitment to continuous improvement.

The session will examine how Australia’s fire safety landscape is changing and explore whether the industry is successfully moving from a compliance-driven mindset to a culture-driven approach. It will consider the challenges of maintaining standards across the building lifecycle, strengthening responsibility and fostering greater collaboration, while highlighting the role of culture in creating safer buildings, more resilient organisations and better long-term safety outcomes.

As regulatory scrutiny across the built environment continues to intensify, compliance is no longer simply about meeting minimum requirements—it is about demonstrating accountability, transparency and a proactive approach to risk management. With evolving standards, increasing stakeholder expectations and greater focus on building safety, organisations are under growing pressure to ensure their systems, processes and documentation can withstand detailed examination.

The session will examine the priorities, concerns and expectations shaping regulatory oversight in 2026, providing insight into what auditors and regulators are really looking for when assessing compliance and performance. It will explore common areas of non-conformance, emerging industry trends and the importance of maintaining robust governance and continuous improvement practices. As compliance obligations become more complex, the discussion will consider how organisations can move beyond a box-ticking approach to build confidence, resilience and trust across the built environment.

As fire safety standards continue to evolve, AS 1851 has become a cornerstone of inspection, testing and maintenance practices across Australia’s built environment. Introduced to improve the reliability and performance of essential fire safety measures, the standard has helped establish greater consistency, accountability and awareness throughout the industry.

Yet despite significant progress, challenges remain around compliance, interpretation, enforcement and the practical realities of implementation across diverse building types and asset portfolios. The session will examine the impact AS 1851 has had since its introduction, explore where gaps and opportunities still exist, and consider how the industry can continue to strengthen fire safety outcomes through effective maintenance, management and ongoing compliance.

Discover why passive fire protection is the building safety system most often found defective and what genuine compliance actually looks like.

As bushfire seasons become longer, more intense and increasingly unpredictable, the interface between urban development and wildfire-prone landscapes is emerging as one of the built environment’s most pressing challenges. Population growth at the urban fringe, changing land use patterns and a warming climate are intensifying the risks faced by communities, infrastructure and the natural environment.

Balancing resilience, liveability and development will require a coordinated approach that brings together planning, design, policy and emergency management. The session will examine how the built environment can better respond to bushfire risk, and what strategies are needed to create safer, more resilient communities where urban growth and wildfire risk increasingly collide.

Sustainable materials are reshaping how we build - this session traces them from the research lab to the building system, and asks the question that matters most: will they hold up in a fire?

The drive to decarbonise construction is rapidly changing what we build with. A new generation of sustainable and novel materials is entering the built environment - often faster than our understanding of how they perform in fire. These materials promise real environmental and productivity benefits, yet they raise pressing questions about combustibility, reaction-to-fire performance and structural resistance, and about how they behave not in isolation but as part of a complete building system.

This workshop follows that challenge across the value chain through three connected presentations and a Q&A. It opens in the research lab, with the latest developments in novel and sustainable materials and where the science is heading. It then moves to the building itself - what these materials mean for fire safety in practice, the risks engineers and designers must weigh, and how products behave within real building systems, where junctions, penetrations, passive fire protection and firestopping govern overall performance. Finally, it takes a manufacturer's and supplier's perspective on testing and certification: the evidence pathways used to characterise new products, and how they meet the National Construction Code, including the interplay between Deemed-to-Satisfy provisions and performance-based design.

Participants will leave with a clearer view of the opportunities and risks of sustainable construction materials, the practical realities of integrating them into code-compliant designs, and the collaboration - from research through to installation - needed to deliver buildings that are safe, productive and sustainable. The session is designed for fire safety engineers, structural and civil engineers, building designers, certifiers, regulators and anyone shaping the future of low-carbon, fire-safe construction.

This workshop is organised by the Society of Fire Safety (SFS), a technical society of Engineers Australia. SFS is the peak professional body for fire safety engineering in Australia, representing and supporting practitioners across the discipline. It promotes excellence and integrity in the practice of fire safety engineering through professional development, technical guidance, and the advancement of knowledge, and plays a leading role in shaping standards, competency and best practice for the profession. Through events such as this workshop, the SFS provides a forum for engineers, researchers, regulators and industry to share knowledge and advance safe, sustainable outcomes in the built environment.

As Australia faces rising temperatures, more extreme weather events and an increasingly complex risk landscape, fire safety is becoming a critical consideration across the built environment. From urban growth and higher-density developments to evolving building materials and expanding infrastructure networks, safeguarding people, property and communities requires new approaches to prevention, preparedness and resilience. The challenges are no longer limited to responding to fire events, but also anticipating and mitigating risks in a rapidly changing environment. The session will examine how innovation, regulation and cross-sector collaboration can strengthen fire safety outcomes and help protect Australia’s built environment in an increasingly hotter and more complex world.