AORA Conference 2026: Moving Beyond Conversation to Industry-Wide Delivery
Events like the Australian Organics Recycling Association Limited annual conference are often framed as opportunities to showcase innovation, new technologies, improved data, and case studies demonstrating incremental progress. All of that was present last week.
But the more useful lens is not what the sector is capable of. It is what is preventing that capability from being consistently translated into delivery at scale.
Attending the conference with Selena Ferguson, the conversations that stood out were not about what is working well. They were about where the system continues to struggle, despite years of focus and investment.
Several themes emerged.
Contamination remains a structural issue rather than a temporary one. While there have been improvements in education and processing, it continues to affect output quality, increase operational costs, and constrain market confidence in recovered products.
At the same time, emerging contaminants are reshaping risk profiles across the sector. Substances such as PFAS are not only technical challenges, but also regulatory and reputational ones. Their presence is forcing a reassessment of existing processes, standards and assumptions.
There is also growing tension in the regulatory environment. Policy settings are becoming more complex, but not always more enabling. In some cases, they are adding friction to delivery without necessarily improving outcomes. This creates a disconnect between intent and implementation.
What links these issues is that they do not sit neatly within a single part of the system. Waste, wastewater, energy, transport and policy are tightly interconnected, yet they are still largely planned and delivered in isolation. That fragmentation continues to limit progress.
Within that context, I spoke at the conference about commercial and procurement settings, and the role they play in either enabling or constraining infrastructure delivery.
The starting point is this: the sector does not lack ideas or technical capability. The constraint lies in how projects are structured, risk is allocated, and decisions are made.
Procurement, in particular, is still treated largely as a compliance exercise. Its primary function is often to demonstrate process integrity rather than to create the conditions for strong project outcomes. That approach favours the lowest upfront cost, transfers risk rather than managing it, and limits the formation of genuine delivery partnerships.
Risk allocation is a related issue. When risk is pushed down the chain without clear ownership or understanding, it does not disappear. It re-emerges as pricing uncertainty, contractual friction, and more conservative delivery approaches. Ultimately, this impacts both cost and performance.
Collaboration is frequently discussed but less consistently practised. There remains a tendency to protect information, relationships, and capabilities, even where greater openness would support better outcomes at the system level.
Communication is often positioned as a secondary consideration, but in practice, it is central. Misalignment between clients, contractors, operators and regulators is a recurring feature of underperforming projects. Addressing that requires more than increased frequency. It requires clarity, consistency and shared understanding of objectives.
None of these observations is new in isolation. What was notable at AORA was the level of alignment around them. There is a broad understanding of where the system is not working as effectively as it could.
The challenge now is not identifying the issues. It is making different decisions in response to them.
Sphere Infrastructure Partners has supported AORA for a number of years, and the value of forums like this lies in their ability to surface shared challenges and perspectives. The next step is to ensure that this alignment translates into how infrastructure is actually planned, procured, and delivered.
Moving beyond conversation requires a shift in behaviour, not just intent.
You can watch the full presentation here: [Watch the video]
The accompanying slide deck is available here: [Download the presentation]
