About

Early on in her career Claire Hashman was determined that she wanted to become a real estate and construction lawyer specialising in sustainability and green buildings. She has been fortunate enough to be able pursue this with Dexus and Sparke Helmore and make contributions to industry in this space. More recently she has also been working on corporate matters with the Dexus funds management team. After working for Blake Dawson (now Ashurst) and Kinesis, a climate change consultancy, Hashman joined Dexus in 2010 to work on a $35m AUD project upgrading Dexus’ office portfolio to achieve an average of 4.5-star NABERS Energy ratings.

On completion, she left Dexus to join Sparke Helmore as a construction lawyer in 2012. In 2015 she returned to Dexus as legal counsel and is currently chair of the tenant and communities working group of the better buildings partnership (BBP), a collaboration between major building owners in Australian property, working to improve the performance and sustainability of existing commercial buildings. She has worked closely with the BBP since 2011 and, as a lawyer, has been in a unique position to contribute to the creation of numerous resources designed to encourage and incentivise more sustainable practices across the property industry. These include the Better Buildings Partnership Template Lease Clauses which she co-drafted in 2014, making green leasing easier, cheaper and better understood.

She represents Dexus on the Property Council of Australia (PCA), NSW Asset Management and Sustainable Development Committee and sits on the Green Building Council of Australia’s Building Contracts Expert Reference panel. Hashman assisted with the creation of the $370m AUD Healthcare Wholesale Property Fund in 2017, which enabled her to further develop her skills in the corporate and funds management space and learn more about Dexus as a business. Hashman highlights that she ‘particularly enjoyed working with two key investors, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Australian Ethical Investments, and am pleased to see investors seeking sustainable outcomes in the property sector’. Additionally, Hashman has created and managed a number of precedents and legal support tools including tenant guidelines accompanying Dexus’ market-leading “Simple & Easy Lease”, streamlining content from 121 to 24 pages and embedding green leasing principles; re-drafting the Dexus procurement procedures, moving them to an easy-to-use online format; and Dexus Legal Lowdown (DLL), an internal online resource answering frequently asked legal questions in a simple, fun format.

Over the last 18 months she has also chaired Dexus’ professional development community, a team of 12 professionals from across Dexus working to foster a culture of learning and engagement and promote diversity of thought within the organisation.