Martin has over 40 years’ experience in the sport and leisure industry and provides extensive sports management, programming, planning knowledge and insights into the design, procurement, management and maintenance of sports fields and facilities.

He is the CO-Chair of IAKS Expert Circle on Sports Surfaces and currently the Technical Consultant for Football Australia, the NRL, Rugby Australia and Hockey Australia, and has written numerous books on synthetic sports surfaces for the industry.

He has worked in local government in UK and Australia, and for the past 15 years has been integral to the adoption of synthetic sports surfaces in Australia and the improvements in quality.

These experiences influence the practical approach and pragmatic design, procurement and programming guidance he shares. Understanding the use of synthetic sports field technology to cope with the demands that sports are now asking for in terms of number of hours and intensity that community fields being placed upon them.

Over the past decade he has seen small pockets of the community adopt a stronger voice to stop synthetic fields being installed in Australia and believes that we need to give the Government decision makers better advice and support for them to consider sustainability as more than climate change and environmental protectionism. We need to protect the health of our nations by getting more children active and synthetic surfaces can help in that strategy. Hard decisions need to be made by our civic leaders and we need to empower them to be leaders by providing them with the best information to make decisions on behalf of future generations.

Martin will share his views and insights today on how by embracing the UN’s Sustainability Goals we can take our civic leaders on a journey that could protect our industry and place the community activists in a more balanced perspective.