Name
Emma Dade
Job title
Principal Strategic Consultant / Technical Director – Sustainable Futures
Organisation
Jacobs
Speaker biography
A Technical Director and sustainability specialist with extensive experience delivering sustainability, ESG and climate‑related integration across major infrastructure programs. Emma works across water, transport, cities, energy and resources, helping embed sustainability outcomes through structured frameworks, clear governance and practical delivery mechanisms.
Renowned for highly effective facilitation and communication, Emma engages confidently with Boards, executives and multidisciplinary project teams to align perspectives, resolve complexity and build organisational capability. She applies systems thinking to map relationships, drivers and trade‑offs across programs and organisations, enabling coherent strategies and more effective sustainability integration.
Renowned for highly effective facilitation and communication, Emma engages confidently with Boards, executives and multidisciplinary project teams to align perspectives, resolve complexity and build organisational capability. She applies systems thinking to map relationships, drivers and trade‑offs across programs and organisations, enabling coherent strategies and more effective sustainability integration.
Speaking At
Presentation title
The Winds of Change: Decommissioning Australia’s Wind Turbines in the Circular Economy
Presentation summary
Australia stands at a crossroads in wind energy decommissioning. As the first onshore wind farms near the end-of-life, decommissioning is a strategic opportunity to embed circular economy innovation. Scotland has emerged as a leader, with the Zero Waste Scotland report The Future of Onshore Wind Decommissioning in Scotland (compiled by Jacobs) offering lessons beyond national borders. Together with the Clean Energy Council’s Winding Up: Decommissioning, Recycling and Resource Recovery of Australian Wind Turbines report, these studies provide a framework for Australia to move past fragmented practice and embed resource recovery into policy, standards, and sector leadership. For Australia, the parallels are clear: geographic isolation, fragmented regulation, and emerging recycling technologies demand rapid evolution of end of life management. Dispersed wind farms intensify logistical challenges, underscoring the need for regional recycling hubs and adaptive supply chains. While metals and concrete have recovery pathways, composite blades remain the most urgent issue, with up to 15,000 tonnes at risk of landfill by 2034. This presentation explores how Scotland’s wind turbine circular economy framework - extending lifespans, designing for reuse, and maximising recovery - can guide Australia’s transition. These lessons reinforce the waste hierarchy by prioritising prevention, reuse, and recycling over disposal. By embedding design for disassembly, enabling secondary markets, and scaling advanced recycling, Australia can transform wind decommissioning into a catalyst for circular innovation - delivering environmental and economic benefits while positioning the sector as a global leader in sustainable infrastructure renewal.
