Alan Hickinbotham is justifiably proud of his company's environmental record, and was protecting wildflowers, native trees and creeks as well as under-grounding power lines 40 years ago at Foxfield estate, Athelstone, long before the green band wagon came into being. At a time when most developers denuded the landscape, Alan went to great pains to build roads around majestic gums. When you ask him why, he talks about respect.

"The Foxfield estate was at the base of Black Hill at the beginning of the Heysen Trail. Compared to Europe or America, you'd pay large sums to be close to a major city with unspoilt nature on your doorstep. The land had never been ploughed or grazed so consequently it was a piece of Australia in its original state and I saw it as our responsibility to treat it with respect," says Alan.

The Adelaide University science graduate and former South Adelaide and Geelong footballer grew up north of Adelaide at Roseworthy College and attributes his appreciation of the environment to his semi-rural upbringing.

Alan explains that at Foxfield, encumbrances were introduced to prevent views being built out, preserve creeks and trees and to protect the native flora, and there were no front fences.

"Forty years on, we still get calls from upset residents wanting us to stop someone from chopping down a native tree on the estate," he says almost proudly.

Foxfield received the first Civic Trust award granted for a residential subdivision in Australia. (The company's environmental leadership has won a total of three Civic Trust awards for commitment to the natural environment.)

Hickinbotham has created some 50 estates in Adelaide and Brisbane, each development featuring innovations in planning. Alan explains his general philosophy: "we try and use some of the best land for reserves, roads should follow the natural contours, allotments should be located as to be private, secluded and face north if possible, while taking advantage of existing trees and views - blocks should preferably drain to natural water courses and back to easements, and streets and roadways and foot-paths should be designed according to use, especially as to width, roads should be ring routed and so on..."

Over the years he trialled many innovative building techniques and materials, including the successfully patented Grillage Raft footing system, which effectively limited house cracking on clay soils, especially houses built with brick on edge.

In 1979 Hickinbotham also developed the first truly open-plan design at Old Spot, Salisbury, with movable walls so the floor plan could be altered as families changed - the home was also gutterless to allow plants to benefit from water runoff.

Alan and his son David built an innovative "earth shelter" house in 1981 at the family's vineyard in the Clarendon foothills. Built from rocks collected on the property and with a grassed roof, the house embodies Alan's desire to blend the built with the natural environment and was voted one of Australia's best by Belle magazine.

Another matter he is passionate about is the wasteful flushing of large volumes of water out to sea. An internationally-unique water conservation project was trialled at Hickinbotham's Andrews Farm estate in 1992. Hickinbotham, in conjunction with the Department of Mines and Energy and CSIRO, worked with the City of Playford to store run-off stormwater in the underground aquifer. Hickinbotham financed the drilling of six pilot injection wells, paving the way for successful recharge of the Andrews Farm aquifer with detained runoff stormwater, while developing national standards for aquifer storage and recovery projects. The reclaimed water now irrigates St Columba College's oval and also local parks and gardens at less than half the cost of SA Water rates. The project has been honoured internationally.

The company's concern to develop efficient water management techniques led Alan's son Michael, (now managing director), to visit 10 countries over 6 months gathering information on innovative systems then untried in Australia. Like his father, Michael too became passionate about the environment, and as a result the company built a waste-water reclamation plant for the township of Renmark in 1996. The system filters and purifies the community's effluent, which is then used for municipal watering and environmental projects. The project was one of the first of its kind in Australia.

Ideally, Alan would like to capitalise on 50 years experience in building, estate development and water reclamation to create a truly advanced Australian urban development. His plan is for environmentally-sustainable villages of between 500 and 5,000 residents, like European towns which grew up before the car. These villages would be a total departure from our typical metropolitan urban sprawl, which is an environmentally unsustainable and wasteful use of resources. "In the tradition of small European-style towns, it would give primacy back to the people - there would be an old-style town square ringed with shops. Housing would be high quality and energy efficient. The town's wastewater would be reclaimed and reused by households, but would also irrigate public spaces as well as intensive agriculture - excess water would be stored in the aquifer during winter for reuse in drier months" says Alan.

"The current method of development is to use expensive large diameter sewage pipes to remove the community's waste-water to a centralised treatment facility often very far away. This is a shame because a community's waste water should be treated as a valuable resource and utilised for the benefit of that community. "

In the 1990s, Alan developed plans for a string of nodal villages on the Adelaide Plains but encountered strong opposition from the agencies that provide the traditional infrastructure for urban development.

As society becomes more environmentally aware, Alan's ideas are garnering increasing interest. "My feeling is that this is an idea whose time has come. At the end of the day, we have no alternative but to treat our environment with respect, and to create a better and more sustainable living model while allowing for expansion."