Australia State of the Environment (SoE) Report 2001 produced by the Australian State of Environment Committee was tabled in Federal parliament by Minister Kemp in March 2002 (http://www.ea.gov.au/soe). This Note provides a summary of key points contained in Human Settlements (Newton et al, 2001), one of seven theme reports that were prepared as background to the SoE 2001 main report. Related publications with a focus on sustainability and on measuring Australia's progress respectively are Environment Australia (2002) Are we sustaining Australia? and Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002) Measuring Australia's progress. This summary has been developed to highlight the key issues and challenges identified in the SoE 2001 Report that Australia's building design professionals face in relation to planning, design and managing the nation's built environment. It also identifies some practical strategies to address these issues based on the author's knowledge of the field.