2020 Vision for a Sustainable Society by Phoebe Bond

2020 VISION FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

MELBOURNE SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY INSTITUTE

Cite as: Pearson, C.J. (editor) (2012). 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society. Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne Published by Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute in 2012 Ground Floor Alice Hoy Building (Blg 162) Monash Road The University of Melbourne, Parkville Victoria 3010, Australia Text and copyright © Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher. A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the catalogue of the National Library of Australia at www.nla.gov.au 2020: Vision for a Sustainable Society ISBN: 978-0-7340-4773-1 (pbk) Cover and text design by Anne-Marie Reeves www.annemariereeves.com Illustrations on pages 228–231 by Michael Weldon www.michaelweldon.com Cover image © Brad Calkins | Dreamstime.com Proudly printed in Australia by BPA Print Group

The Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI) at the University of Melbourne, Australia, brings together researchers from different disciplines to help create a more sustainable society. It acts as an information portal for research at the University of Melbourne, and as a collaborative platform where researchers and communities can work together to affect positive change. This book can be freely accessed from MSSI’s website: www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au.

For our grandchildren.

Thanks. I am very grateful to Phoebe Bond, MSSI, and Martin Hughes and Belle Place, Affirm Press, for their creativity and hard work that made this book possible. Craig J. Pearson Director, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne.

Foreword

he last two centuries have seen extraordinary improvements in the quality of human lives. Most people on earth today enjoy access to the necessities of life that was once available only to the elites. Most people enjoy longevity, health, education, information and opportunities to experience the variety of life on earth that was denied even to the rulers of yesteryear. The proportion of humanity living in absolute poverty remains daunting, but continues to fall decade by decade. The early 21st century has delivered an acceleration of the growth in living standards in the most populous developing countries and an historic lift in the trend of economic growth in the regions that had lagged behind, notably in Africa. These beneficent developments are accompanied by another reality. The improvements are not sustainable unless we make qualitative changes in the content of economic growth. The continuation of the current relationship between growth in the material standard of living and pressures on the natural environment will undermine economic growth, political

stability and the foundations of human achievement. The good news is that humanity has already discovered and begun to apply the knowledge that can reconcile continued improvements in the standard of living with reduction of pressures on the natural environment. The bad news is that the changes that are necessary to make high and rising standards of living sustainable are hard to achieve within our current political cultures and systems. Hard, but not impossible. That is a central message from this book, drawn out in Craig Pearsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s concluding chapter. This book introduces the reader to the many dimesions of sustainability, through wellqualified authors. Climate change is only one mechanism through which current patterns of economic growth threaten the natural systems on which our prosperity depend. It is simply the most urgent of the existential threats. Climate change is a special challenge for Australians. We are the most vulnerable of the

developed countries to climate change. And we are the developed country with the highest level of greenhouse gas emissions per person. There are roles for private ethical decisions as well as public policy choices in dealing with the climate change challenge. This book is released at the time of ‘Rio+20’, a conference in Brazil to review the relatively poor progress we have made towards sustainability in the past 20 years, and soon after the introduction of Australia’s first comprehensive policy response to the global challenge of climate change. Australia’s emissions trading scheme with an initially fixed price for emissions permits comes into effect on 1 July 2012. The new policy discourages activities that generate greenhouse gases by putting a price on emissions. The revenue raised by carbon pricing will be returned to households and businesses in ways that retain incentives to reduce emissions. Part of the revenue will be used to encourage production and use of goods and services that embody low emissions. The policy has been launched in controversy. Interests that stand to gain from the discrediting of the policy argue that it is unnecessary either because the case for global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the associated climate change has not been proven, or that the new policy places a disproportionate burden on Australians. The health of our civilisation requires us to bring scientific knowledge to account in public policy. Everyone who shares the knowledge that is the common heritage of humanity has

a responsibility to explain the realities to others wherever and whenever they can. The argument that the new policy places a disproportionate burden on Australians can be answered by seeking honestly to understand what others are doing. The critics of Australian policy argue that the world’s two largest national emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, are doing little or nothing to reduce emissions, so that it is either pointless or unnecessary for us to do so. China has advanced a long way towards achieving its target of reducing emissions as a proportion of economic output by 40 to 45 per cent between 2005 and 2020. It has done this by forcing the closure of emissions-intensive plants and processes that have exceptionally high levels of emissions per unit of output, by imposing high emissions standards on new plants and processes, by charging emissionsintensive activities higher electricity prices, by subsidising the introduction of low-emissions activities, and by new and higher taxes on fossil fuels. China has introduced trials of an emissions trading system in five major cities and two provinces. This adds up to a cost on business and the community that exceeds any burden placed on Australians by the new policies – bearing in mind that the revenue from Australian carbon pricing is returned to households and businesses. The US Government has advised the international community of its domestic policy target to reduce 2005 emissions by 17 per cent by 2020. President Barack Obama said

to the Australian Parliament that all countries should take seriously the targets that they had reported to the international community, and made it clear that the United States did so. United States efforts to reduce emissions are diffuse but far-reaching. They now include controls on emissions from electricity generators, announced in March 2012, effectively excluding any new coal-based power generation after the end of this year unless it embodies carbon capture and storage. From the beginning of next year they will include an emissions trading system in the most populous and economically largest state, California. The United States is making reasonable progress towards reaching its emissions reduction goals, with some actions imposing high costs on domestic households and businesses. Australia has now taken steps through which we can do our fair share in the international effort, at reasonable cost. It would be much harder and more costly to do our fair share without the policies that are soon to take effect. What Australians do over the next few years will have a significant influence on humanityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s prospects for handing on the benefits of modern civilisation to future generations. This book will help Australians to understand their part in the global effort for sustainability. Ross Garnaut University of Melbourne 15 April 2012

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Contents Foreword by Ross Garnaut Table of Contents

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Author Biographies

Drivers

1 Population

2 Equity

3 Consumption

4 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change

5 Energy

People

Ethics

Culture

Awareness and Behaviour

Local Matters Matter

10 Public Wisdom

11 Mental Health

12 Disease

13 Corporate Sustainability

104

14 Governance

114

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Natural Resources

123

15 Ecosystem-Based Adaptation

124

16 Water

132

17 Food

141

18 Zero Carbon Land-Use

150

Cities

161

19 Changing Cities

162

20 Affordable Living

170

21 Built Environment

177

22 Infrastructure

184

23 Transport

192

24 Adaptive Design

200

25 Handling Disasters

210

Outcomes

221

26 Twenty Actions

222

Further Reading

234

Index

241

Author Biographies • Identifies authors who are staff, executives or associates of MSSI, University of Melbourne Kate Auty• Professor Kate Auty is Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, Victoria. Working with Victorians, she seeks to enhance knowledge and understanding of issues relating to the social, economic and environmental aspects of an ecologically sustainable future for our state. She holds tertiary qualifications in environmental science, law and history. Grant Blashki• Grant Blashki is a GP, an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne and an honorary lecturer at Kings College London. He is a Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, a clinical advisor to Beyondblue, a co-founder of Doctors for the Environment Australia and a Member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Climate Institute. John Brumby• Hon. John Brumby is a Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at both Melbourne and Monash Universities. He was Premier of Victoria from 2007 to 2010 and previously Treasurer from 2000 to 2007. Mr Brumby oversaw the introduction of Australia’s first mandatory renewable energy and energy efficiency targets, as well as the nation’s most comprehensive climate change legislation. Monique Conheady• Monique Conheady is Chair of the Moreland Energy Foundation Limited, a Fellow of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership, and co-founder and CEO of car-sharing company Flexicar. In 1998 she was awarded the National Association of Women in Construction Young Achiever Award. In 2009 she was the recipient of a Churchill Fellowship to research sustainable urban transport. Peter Doherty• Professor Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in 1996 for the discovery of how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells. He was voted Australian of the Year in 1997. Peter is the author of several books, including A Light History of Hot Air and The Beginners Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize.

Brian Davidson Brian Davidson is a Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne School of Land and Environment. He is a past member of the CRC for Irrigation Futures, the eWater CRC and the CRC for Catchment Hydrology. His research interests currently include the economic evaluation of managed water systems, which he has applied in numerous multidisciplinary studies undertaken in India, China, Vietnam and Australia. Colin Duffield• Colin Duffield is an Associate Professor in Engineering Project Management, University of Melbourne. His recent research has focused on the efficient procurement of major infrastructure. In 2012 he won the Australian National Infrastructure Award for ‘The quantification of design innovation for infrastructure projects’. Rebecca Ford• Associate Professor Ford, University of Melbourne, is an expert in applied molecular plant pathology and breeding technologies to secure food crop production under changing environments. Her research aims at unravelling the genetics of biotic and abiotic tolerances in temperate grain legumes and other broad acre crop species. Ray Green• Associate Professor Ray Green’s research is primarily concerned with assessing the impacts of landscape change as perceived by the user public and development of methods for facilitating community participation in the planning process. He is currently exploring how individual and household behaviours relate to greenhouse gas emissions with the aim of informing the planning and design of future urban settlements. Carolyn Ingvarson• Carolyn Ingvarson has a background in Victorian government and has always worked in her local community, for some time as a councillor, and more recently by establishing Lighter Footprints, a local climate action group. She was awarded the Australian Freight Industry Personality of the Year in 2003.

Justyna Karakiewicz Associate Professor Justyna Karakiewicz, University of Melbourne, is an expert in high-density and parametric urbanism. She has designed and built several sustainable communities and won numerous design competitions, and her work has been exhibited in Royal Academy (London), New York, Kyoto, Barcelona and some twenty other venues. David Karoly• Professor David Karoly is an ARC Federation Fellow at the University of Melbourne. He is an expert in climate change and climate variability, including greenhouse climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and interannual climate variations due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation. He is a member of the Science Advisory Panel for the Australian Government, the Australian High Level Coordinating Group on Climate Change Science and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. Rodney Keenan• Professor Rodney Keenan is Director of the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research at a research partnership between Victorian universities. He has research interests in climate change, the role of forests in providing carbon sequestration, forest resource assessment and environmental policy. He is a member of the UN-FAO Advisory Group for the Global Forest Resource Assessment. Rimi Khan Dr Rimi Khan is a Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her current research focuses on cultural policies and cultural diversity, specifically how arts programs negotiate cultural difference in the context of neoliberal policy agendas. She has also been a sessional lecturer at the University of Melbourne since 2011. Rebecca Kippen• Demographer Rebecca Kippen is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Health and Society at the University of Melbourne. Since the 1990s, her work on population futures has been a key influence in population debate both in Australia and internationally.

Thomas Kvan• Professor Tom Kvan is Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. His co-authored publication, The Making of Hong Kong, reveals the emergence of a volumetric city as a sustainable urban form. His research interests include sustainable urbanisation, the management of design practice and the development of digital applications in design. Sunday McKay Sunday McKay is studying how to feed a carbon-constrained world for a doctoral degree. In 2010 she received a scholarship from the Sustainable Agricultural Fund to undertake this work. Previously she worked in state politics and is a Director of EQ Life Pty Ltd, a niche publishing company. Liza Maimone• Liza Maimone is a chemical engineer with postgraduate qualifications in energy and resources law. She is a partner and leader of PwC’s Sustainability and Climate Change practice in Australia. She is also a member of the firm’s Corporate Responsibility Council and its Global Governance Board for Sustainability and Climate Change. Liza advises energy and resources sector companies, including global oil and gas companies. Liza is a Director of ECO-Buy. Hector Malano• Professor Hector Malano is Professor of Water Resource Management and formerly Head of Department of Infrastructure Engineering. He is an agricultural engineer specialising in water resource planning and management, with emphasis on multidisciplinary approaches to sustainable management. He is a Fellow of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (MSSANZ). Alan March• Alan March, Senior Lecturer, University of Melbourne, has twice won the Global Planning Education Network’s prize for ‘Best Planning Paper’. He is particularly interested in the ways that planning and design can modify disaster risks, and chaired the Planning Institute of Australia’s submission to the Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian bushfires.

Peter McDonald Professor Peter McDonald, AM, FASSA, is Director of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute at the Australian National University, and President of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population. He is frequently consulted by governments internationally on issues of population futures, particularly labour supply policies for countries facing low fertility rates and rapid ageing.

Peter Seligman Professor Peter Seligman was a key member of the team that developed the Australian bionic ear. Since retirement from Cochlear, he has been able to spend more time on sustainable energy, in which he has been active for 35 years. He wrote Australian Sustainable Energy – by the numbers, published in 2010, inspired by David MacKay’s Sustainable Energy – without the hot air.

Peter Newman Peter Newman is the Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University. He is on the Board of Infrastructure Australia. In Perth, Peter is best known for his work in saving, reviving and extending the city’s rail system. Peter invented the term ‘automobile dependence’, which is now part of most planning practice and theory.

Helen Sykes• Dr Helen Sykes is the Director of Future Leaders, President of the Trust for Young Australians and Chair of The Australian Collaboration. She is Chair of the Royal Children’s Hospital Mental Health Service Reference Group and a Member of the Future Justice Executive. She has edited and published eleven books.

Angela Paladino• Associate Professor Angela Paladino, University of Melbourne, researches strategic marketing, innovation management and environmental consumer behaviours. She is a member of the Harvard Business Review Advisory Council and a fellow of numerous international marketing associations.

Chris Taylor• Chris Taylor is a Research Fellow with MSSI and Beyond Zero Emissions to develop a Land-Use Plan to achieve a net drawdown of atmospheric carbon within the Australian agriculture and forestry sectors. He was part of a collaborative effort to protect habitat for the critically endangered Baw Baw frog in Victoria and worked in timber projects including the procurement of the veneer panels for the Melbourne Convention Centre.

Craig Pearson• Professor Craig Pearson, FAIAST, GAICD, is Foundation Director of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute. He has held professorships in Australia, Canada and China. An agricultural scientist, his expertise is in strategic planning, institutional change management, research evaluation and management. Craig Prebble• Craig Prebble is the Executive Officer of the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute. He studied comparative literature and cultural studies and has worked in the overseas aid and development sector. Pru Sanderson• Pru Sanderson is Global Business Leader – City Development – GHD. Her experience includes being the CEO of VicUrban, leading the design development of the $300 million Melbourne Museum, and being the Manager of Development and Operations for Melbourne’s $500 million Federation Square project. She is a Director of the Zoological Parks and Gardens Board.

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Tim van Gelder• Tim van Gelder is an applied epistemologist. As Principal Fellow, University of Melbourne, he conducts research in cognitive science and critical thinking. As a Principal with Austhink Consulting, a Melbourne consulting firm, he assists large organisations to improve knowledge processes and clarify complex issues, particularly complex argumentation. Adrian Whitehead• Adrian Whitehead is a researcher and project director with the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Land Use Project. He is a co-founder of Beyond Zero Emissions and the Otway Ranges Environment Network, and is a council member of the Sustainable Living Foundation. Audrey Yue• Audrey Yue is Head of Screen and Cultural Studies at the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Her research includes transnational Chinese cinema, cultural policy evaluation, new media and migrant cultures.

Drivers

01 Population Rebecca Kippen and Peter McDonald

he population of Australia and the world almost tripled from 1950 to 2012. Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population increased from 8 million to 23 million, while the global population rose from 2.5 billion to 7.1 billion. National and global population will continue to increase for at least several decades to come, a reality that must be met with policies for sustainable population. The 2011 Laxenburg Declaration on Population and Sustainable Development notes that levels of consumption internationally will rise as populations grow and efforts to reduce poverty continue, particularly in developing countries. The Declaration further argues that growth must be properly managed to avoid placing additional strain on the natural environment.

Global Population It is estimated that the world reached 1 billion people in 1804, that it took another 118 years to add the second billion, and only 37 years to hit the three billion mark in 1959. Since then, each billion has been added in 15 years or less; in fact, it took only 12 years to increase from 6 to 7 billion. This phenomenal rise in population has resulted largely from declining death rates. In

1900, the average world citizen could expect to live for around 30 years. By the middle of the 20th century, life expectancy had increased to 48 years, and by the early 21st century, the average life span is almost 70. Most of the decrease in mortality has occurred at younger ages, so that more babies are surviving to adulthood to have children of their own. Concerns in the mid-20th century that rapid population growth would threaten global security led to the introduction of familyplanning programs by international agencies and national governments. These programs successfully reduced the high birth rates of many developing countries. However, although birth rates have fallen dramatically in many countries, the world population will continue to grow as a result of young population age structures caused by past high birth rates. Growing populations are like large, heavy freight trains: they take a long time to stop once the brakes are applied. This is known as population momentum. It is projected that, globally, births will continue to exceed deaths for most of this century. The United Nations projects that the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s population could peak at around 10 billion by the end of the century. Bongaarts and

Population

Bulatao estimated that population momentum itself will be responsible for 56 per cent of population growth over the 21st century, with declining mortality contributing 27 per cent, and continuing high birth rates only 16 per cent. Growth is highly segregated by region. Developing countries with recent or continuing high birth rates will continue to experience rapid population growth, while many European and East Asian countries are facing or are already experiencing population decline due to past low birth rates. Sixty-one per cent of developed countries reported in the 2009 United Nations survey of World Population Policies that their national fertility rates are too low, and 55 per cent reported that they have policies in place to increase fertility rates. These countries do not consider their low birth rates, and the prospect (or reality) of population decline, to be sustainable. High population growth in some regions, while others face population falls, will almost certainly create an increased market for international migrants from the former to the latter. However, this shift will not be a cureall for either sending or receiving countries. Population growth in some regions will be so large that only a small proportion will be absorbed by countries prepared to increase their immigrant intake. In addition, political realities mean that most receiving countries will not accept large numbers of immigrants to the extent that they fundamentally change the ethnic composition of the population. Barring catastrophe, the world’s population will continue to grow through the 21st century,

perhaps grinding to a halt by the century’s end if average birth rates continue to fall. Policy should continue to focus on reducing high birth rates in developing countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Pacific. However, this is not a short-term solution. As stated previously, most global population growth over the current century is already built into the age structure of the world’s population. Policy must deal with the reality of continuing rapid population growth in many developing countries, and overall global growth.

Australia’s Population In Australia, population growth since 1950 has resulted from a combination of relatively high levels of net migration, the post-World War II baby boom, and, to a lesser extent, increases in life expectancy. Levels of net overseas migration between 1950 and 2010 are shown in Figure 1. Evidently, net migration is subject to considerable fluctuation from year to year. The low points of migration to Australia tend to coincide with economic downturns in Australia, but the high points, while generally occurring in good economic times, are less directly associated with the economic cycle. Since 2005, net migration to Australia has rapidly increased, due to a rise in temporary residents consisting mainly of international students and temporary skilled workers. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship projects that net overseas migration over the five years from 2010 will stabilise at a lower level of around 180,000 to 190,000 per annum.

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Figure 1. Annual net overseas migration, Australia, 1950–2010. Figure 2. Total fertility rate, Australia, 1950–2010. Figure 3. Life expectancy at birth, Australia, 1950–2010.

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The peak in Australia’s fertility rate since 1950 was 3.6 children per woman in 1961 (Figure 2). The rate fell in the second half of the 1960s and then again in the second half of the 1970s to reach 1.9 children per woman by 1979. Since 1980, Australia’s fertility rate has remained relatively constant at between 1.7 and 1.9 births per woman. Although these birth rates are relatively low, they are sufficient to maintain growth in Australia’s population for several decades to come because of the high proportion of young, child-bearing people. Life expectancy in Australia rose during the 1950s, but levelled out in the 1960s (Figure 3). At that time, analysts speculated that we had come close to the limits of the human life span. However, since the 1960s, expectation of life in Australia has increased significantly, to 80 years for males and 84 years for females in 2008–10. More than 80 per cent of this increase is due to declines in mortality over the age of 50 years, since mortality at younger ages was already close to zero. Death rates under the age of 50 are now so low that complete elimination of mortality would have no noticeable effect on the size of the population at those ages. Figure 4 shows the age–sex structure of the Australian population in 2010, with each bar representing a single year of age. The large population at age 63, as compared to age 64, indicates the beginning of the post-World War II baby boom. The ‘bulges’ around 40 and in the late 40s result from peaks in births in the early 1960s and early 1970s. Recent high levels of net temporary migration of students and workers have caused the heaping centred

around age 25 years. And recent higher birth rates, combined with large numbers of people in the childbearing ages, have resulted in an increased cohort aged under five. Australia’s current ‘beehive’ age structure is healthy, with relatively high concentrations of people in the main working ages. Australia should seek to maintain the ‘beehive’ shape into the future. What it must avoid is the ‘coffin’ shape, which has wide shoulders (the older-age population) tapering down to a much smaller population at the base. This would result from very low birth rates and low levels of migration. It is the classic shape of a much older population that is decreasing in size, with declines particularly concentrated at the labour-force ages. This is the demographic future that many countries of Europe and East Asia are seeking to avoid by attempting to increase birth rates. As with the global population in general, Australia has a large momentum for population growth due to the relatively high proportions of people in younger age groups. Even if Australia experienced zero migration and maintained its birth rate at 1.9 births per woman (slightly below replacement level), the number of births would continue to exceed the number of deaths until at least 2040.

Australia’s Future Population Quantifying an optimum population for Australia is a national pastime. In 1999, the authors of this chapter examined various nominated optimum-population targets – from 12 million to 50 million – to determine

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Age (years)

if they were achievable. We found that both extremes of high and low population were ‘sheer demographic nonsense’, due to constraints of the population drivers of fertility, mortality and migration. Aside from the fact that nominated targets are often demographically unachievable, there is the problem of shifting goalposts. As stated in the Australian Government’s ‘Sustainable Population Strategy’, 2011: ‘It is clear that any perceived “optimum” population is likely to change in the future due to changes in the way resources are used and developments in technology.’ The report also notes that no Australian government-sponsored population

inquiry over the past 40 years has set a population target or identified a national carrying capacity. The Australian Government Treasury’s 2010 Intergenerational Report projects an Australian population of 36 million in 2050. This estimate is based on expected inputs – maintenance of Australia’s fertility rate at 1.9 births per woman, a net overseas migration rate of 0.6 per cent, and continuing increases in life expectancy – rather than a nominated ideal population. It is worth noting that the projection of 36 million in 2050 is much larger than the projection of 29 million in 2050 that the Treasury made only three years earlier, based on lower fertility and lower

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migration inputs. This illustrates the volatility of population projections. Our view is that we can make reasonable estimates of the size, growth rate and age structure of the Australian population 10 years from now, and – with a little less certainty – 20 years from now. However, the population of 2050, for example, is simply a hypothetical number. Births in the 2040s will be to women who are not yet themselves born, and migration of the 2040s will be driven by the labour demand of that period – we simply have no way of knowing now what these levels will be. Based on current trends, Australia’s population is projected to increase to 26 million in 2020 and 29 million in 2030. It is likely that Australia’s age structure will maintain a ‘beehive’ shape to 2030, with relatively high proportions of people in the main working ages. However, the population will become considerably older, with the proportion aged 65 years and over projected to increase from 13 per cent in 2010 to 19 per cent in 2030. Continued population ageing in Australia over the next two to three decades will result largely from three factors: increased life expectancy, leading to more Australians surviving well into old age; the fall in the birth rate over recent decades, resulting in proportionately fewer people at younger ages; and the effect of the large cohort of post-World War II baby boomers reaching retirement age. This ‘baby-boomer bulge’ is the population aged from the mid-40s to the mid-60s in 2010 in Figure 4.

The 2010 Intergenerational Report highlights issues of population ageing, and the resulting dependence on a reduced proportion of paid workers. Government expenditure on health, aged care and age-related pensions is projected to grow substantially, largely as a result of the numerical and proportional growth in the population aged 65 years and over. The report suggests that increased productivity ‘through prudent investment in social and economic infrastructure, and policies to support skills and human capital development’ will ameliorate the economic impact of population ageing. These policies – if implemented – will also lead to a more sustainable society.

Regional Disparity Population is not simply a matter of an Australian total, and population distribution across the cities and regions is also very important. Over three quarters of Australia’s population lives in three states: New South Wales (32 per cent), Victoria (25 per cent) and Queensland (20 per cent). The remaining 23 per cent live in Western Australia (10 per cent), South Australia (7 per cent), Tasmania (2 per cent), the Australian Capital Territory (2 per cent) and the Northern Territory (1 per cent). Australia is highly urbanised, with twothirds of the population currently living in the capital cities, and three-quarters in major cities of 100,000 or more people. Recent international immigration has been disproportionately concentrated in the capitals and other major cities. As discussed in 2011 by

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Top: Future population growth in Australia is likely to be concentrated in the larger capital cities. Bottom: Infrastructure can be directed into smaller towns that can share population growth.

Population

McGuirk and Argent, the consensus is that this will continue, and so most future population growth will occur in the cities, particularly the larger capitals. At the same time, some rural communities are facing decreasing populations or loss of public services, threatening their long-term sustainability. Targeting infrastructure and migration at communities that can sustain high employment will help ensure their sustainability, and assist in managing overall population growth.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 It is inevitable that Australia’s recent high population growth will continue, at least in the short term. This is due to existing momentum for growth in Australia’s current age structure, a relatively high fertility rate, and relatively high migration driven by a strong economy and demand for labour. Rapid population growth implies significant upfront investment in new public infrastructure – for water, transport, ports, energy supply, housing and office space, and state-of-the-art communications – to meet the needs of both existing and new residents. This should be reflected in the budget planning of the Federal Government and the State and Territory Governments. There needs to be a partnership approach across all spheres of government to ensure that funding is provided for infrastructure required to support growth.

02 Equity Helen Sykes

quity is the concern for fairness and social justice for all members of society, and is shaped by factors including law, institutions, policies and prevailing cultures. Real and perceived inequity influences the sustainability of society, which for humans depends on mutually supportive and interrelated policies and action. A sustainable society must provide services, jobs, education, affordable housing, amenities and natural environments for the wellbeing of people. These provide the foundation on which people can build their lives and make longterm plans. Recent research has also shown that more equal societies provide many benefits to their members. Epidemiologists Wilkinson and Pickett, in their book The Spirit Level, show that when people in the same socio-economic group are compared across wealthy countries, those in more equal societies, whether they are rich or poor, do better. Greater equality makes most difference to the least well off, but still provides benefits for the well off. This chapter is particularly concerned with wealth, health and wellbeing. It draws on a number of Australian examples where equity, justice and fairness for vulnerable people have

fallen short for a myriad reasons that can, and should for the sake of a sustainable society, be rectified.

Wealth Distribution The gap in wealth in Australia is large and growing. The wealthiest 20 per cent of Australians own 61 per cent of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wealth and the poorest 20 per cent own 1 per cent. According to the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) over 2.2 million people in Australia live in poverty. Three quarters of these people live in households where no one has paid work. A quarter of single adults and around 12 per cent of children in Australia are living in poverty. The perception of wealth distribution in Australia can also differ from the reality. In May 2011 the Australian Council of Trade Unions

Equity

Low pay and poverty (mid 2000s) 25% 20% 15% 10% 5%

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Australia is among those developed economies that have highest inequality and disadvantage, expressed as ‘low pay’. Source: OECD (2008). Note: ‘Low pay’ refers to the percentage of full-time workers on wages less than 2/3 of the median wage. ‘Poverty’ refers to the percentage of all people living on less than half median equivalent household disposable income.

(ACTU) released research on Australians’ perceptions on wealth inequality, ‘Australian Attitudes Towards Wealth Inequality and the Minimum Wage’ by Neal, Govan, Norton and Ariely. It found that Australians tend to ‘dramatically underestimate the degree of wealth inequality within their society and understate the wealth of the richest Australians and even more dramatically overstate the wealth of the poorest Australians’. The research also suggests that most people are in favour of living in a more equal society and share the Australian value of concern for wealth inequality. The Australian adult minimum wage in May 2011 was ‘$15 an hour, or $570 a week, or $29,640 a year’. This is the reality for 1.3 million people earning minimum wages.

Again the perception varies from the reality. In general the respondents in the ACTUfunded research believed the adult minimum wage was $16.80 per hour. However, even with this overestimation, the respondents strongly supported increasing the minimum wage.

Equality for Women There is significant wealth inequity for Australian women, which is underpinned by widespread discrimination based on gender. Until 1966, women working in the federal public service had to resign when they married and, historically, females have had lower wages, less access to paid employment, restricted educational opportunities and unequal access to finance and property ownership. Women

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Defining poverty Poverty is often measured using ‘poverty lines’. Poverty lines measure ‘income poverty’, the number of people living beneath an unacceptably low income level. The Henderson poverty line, established during the Henderson inquiry into poverty in the 1970s, is still often quoted as the poverty line in Australia. However, other measures have been used, including, more recently, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) poverty line, set at 50 per cent of the median disposable income for all Australian households; and the poverty line used by the European Union and the UK, set at less than 60 per cent of median income. Source: ACCOSS Poverty Report, October 2011 Update.

have also shouldered a disproportionate share of family care, which has reduced their workforce participation. The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) highlights the status of gender participation and pay inequality in the workplace as shown in the box below. Lower pay for women is not being addressed, and contributes to ongoing, in fact rising, inequity. The Gini coefficient, an internationally used metric of national income spread, that varies between zero and one was around 0.27 in 1981–82 and worsened to 0.328 in 2009–10. If everyone had exactly the same income then the coefficient would be zero (perfect equality). With regulation and legislation there is improvement on the horizon in some sectors,

even if it is slow. The Australian Social, Community, Home Care and Disability Services Industry Award 2010 was an interesting test case. In 2011, the federal industrial tribunal, Fair Work Australia, upheld a pay equity claim by Australian unions, who argued that community services workers are paid less largely because most of them are women. Fair Work Australia found that there is not equal remuneration for male and female workers in community services in comparison with state and local government employees who perform work of similar value. In an historic pay equity decision in early 2012, Fair Work Australia awarded pay rises of between 23 and 45 per cent to around 150,000 of Australia’s lowest paid workers, the vast majority of

Gender participation and pay in the workforce • Women make up 45.6 per cent of the total labor force • Women constitute 70.4 per cent of all part-time employees and 35 per cent of all full-time employees • On average, women working full-time earn 17.2 per cent less than men working full-time • Female graduates earn $2000 per annum less than male graduates on entering the workforce • Less than 40 per cent of EOWA reporting organisations said they conducted an annual gender pay equity analysis in 2010

Equity

whom are women and work in what are often described ‘caring’ jobs, including working with people with disabilities, counselling families in crisis, running homeless shelters and working with victims of domestic violence or sexual assault. Another recent change that has assisted women’s workforce participation is the new Paid Parental Leave scheme. It is an entitlement for working parents of children born or adopted from 1 January 2011. Eligible working parents can receive 18 weeks of government-funded parental leave pay at the rate of the national minimum wage, which is currently $589.40 a week before tax.

Indigenous Health Lack of adequate income, education, food, housing and sanitation, and unequal access to primary health-care, are linked to systemic and avoidable discrimination and contribute to inequity in the health of Indigenous people. A key finding of the ‘Young Australians: Their health and wellbeing 2011’ report is that Indigenous young people aged 12–24 years are ‘…far more likely to be disadvantaged across a broad range of health, community and socioeconomic indicators compared with non-Indigenous young people’. The table to the right illustrates their disadvantage. And the picture in remote and very remote areas of

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Australia, where approximately 98 per cent of the population is Indigenous, looks worse still. ‘Pathways to Suicide’ (Figure 1) illustrates Indigenous young people’s vulnerability to mental health issues including depression, anxiety, excessive aggression, inability to control anger, violent behaviour and suicide.

Mental Health and Young Asylum Seekers Inequity during adolescent years, defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as 10 to 19 years, has long-term consequences. According to Professor Sawyer, Director of the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital, the causes of ill-health in this group of young people are more commonly psychosocial than biological and ‘tend to reflect unhealthy patterns of risk behaviours and mental disorders’. Depression and anxiety are common and rising disorders in young people. The Australian Federal Government’s policy of mandatory immigration detention, the practice of compulsorily detaining or imprisoning people who are considered to be illegal immigrants or unauthorised arrivals and seeking political asylum in Australia, began in 1992 and continues to date. As of February 2011 there were 1027 children under 18 being held in mandatory detention. The risk of physical and mental illness for hundreds of people already recognised as refugees and still being held in Australian detention for long periods of time as they wait for security clearances is well documented. Disturbingly, one of the key concerns raised

Extent of disadvantage of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth Compared with their non-Indigenous counterparts, Indigenous young people are: • t wice as likely to die from all causes, including six times as likely to die from assault and four times as likely from suicide • ten times as likely to have notifications for sexually transmissible infections and six times as likely for hepatitis • six times as likely to be teenage mothers • six to seven times as likely to be in the child protection system • 15 times as likely to be under juvenile justice supervision or in prison • t wice as likely to be unemployed or on income support • three times as likely to live in overcrowded housing • three times as likely to be daily smokers. Source: AIHW 2011. Young Australians: Their Health and Wellbeing 2011. Cat. no. PHE 140. Canberra: AIHW

during the United Nations Universal Periodic Review of Australia’s human rights record in January 2011 was Australia’s system of indefinite and mandatory immigration detention. The Australian Human Rights Commission believes that asylum seekers, people who are seeking international protection but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined, should only be held in immigration detention if ‘there is a risk that justifies detaining them’. Otherwise they should be allowed to live in the community while their refugee claims are being processed. Irrespective

Equity

Crime & violence

Absence of employment & meaningful role Harmful drug & alcohol use

Availability of harmful drugs

Non-supportive school environment (exposure to bullying/racism) Adverse parenting & exposure to violence Genetic factors

Depression

Low selfesteem

Affiliation with deviant peers School & learning difficulties

Self-regulation of emotion, attention & social interaction

Suicidal behaviour

Increasing psychosocial difficulties

Acute stress/ significant loss

Negative thinking patterns

Peer problems Poor problem solving skills

Early neurological (brain) development

Low SES, maternal Infections, drug use & exposure to neurotoxins

Diet & nutrition

Time Figure 1. Pathways to Alcohol, Depression, Crime and Suicide. Source: New directions in Australian suicide prevention, by S R Silburn, 2003, keynote address to the first Asia-Pacific Injury Prevention Conference, Perth.

of how or where asylum seekers and refugees arrive, whether with or without a visa, the Australian Government has obligations under various international treaties to ensure that their human rights are respected and protected while they are in Australian sovereign territory. Of particular concern here is the detention of unaccompanied minors. Although the Australian High Court has accepted that children suffer psychological harm in detention, in January 2011 it decided that their detention was legal, so the court had no alternative but to dismiss releasing refugee children to the community.

Climate Change and Health The impact of climate change and associated policy responses and action on vulnerable and disadvantaged people will be inequitable and disproportionate, that is, those individuals least able to manage will be most affected. Health impacts will be unevenly distributed within Australia and there will be long term inequities for poor and vulnerable people, while those who are financially well off will have the resources to adapt. Thus, unless specific attention and resources are directed to the likely impacts of climate change on poorer

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communities, we will unwittingly shift to a more unequal society, with the likely longterm consequences of increased unhappiness, unemployment, ill-health and crime, as described by Wilkinson and Pickett. Particular areas where the health of the Australian population will most likely suffer from climate change include: a sharp rise in deaths from heat waves, especially in elderly people with underlying health issues; an increase in mosquito-borne illnesses such as malaria, Ross River fever and dengue fever; and economic hardship, social dislocation and mental illness in rural areas as a result of flood, drought and other issues such as rising fuel and food prices. Indigenous Australians living in remote communities who are exposed to extreme climatic and environmental changes, poor hygiene and shortages of clean water, will suffer more diarrheal diseases and changes in various mosquito-borne infections. Supplies of traditional foods will also be affected by climate change and it could be easier for some ‘tropical’ infectious diseases not previously present to enter Australia. An example of climate impacts having greatest impact on those least able to cope are the catastrophic flash flooding in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley on 10 January 2011. Twentytwo vulnerable people, living in flood-prone areas, lost their lives.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Inequity exists in Australia and has extensive impacts. These include key measures or elements of a sustainable society, such as widespread satisfaction, employment, low crime and low incidence of mental health problems. We need to respect, be guided by and adhere to Australia’s human rights principles and obligations, and maintain our moral compass. Public policy should not be dominated by vested interests. Celebrating situations where inequity is being effectively addressed is also important. History teaches us that in our quest for a sustainable society we need to be vigilant about the damage done by inequity in all spheres of life. To now move from the general to recommendations for specific actions, I prioritise: • A study to identify the Indigenous-owned land in Australia that will be seriously affected by climate change and to maintain updated records of such places. This would contribute to ‘climate-proofing’ our most disadvantaged communities who are most vulnerable to impacts they are unlikely to avoid; and • Universal affordable childcare designed around child rearing that supports women and men in their dual parenting and employment roles. The action for government is to invest in means-tested childcare services for all Australians to enable low-income families, most often women, to participate in education and the workforce.

03 Consumption Craig Pearson

sustainable society is a society that can continue: we can continue to consume, create and recycle resources. Ours is not sustainable: the accelerating increase in the world’s population and growing affluence and consumption are driving our accelerating use of resources. Consumption of most goods like coal, iron, phosphorus, water and soil (which we consume by eroding it into waterways) are increasing at 2–5 per cent per year, approximately following an exponential rise since the start of the industrial revolution in Europe. For example, the United States Department of Energy estimates that consumption of coal has risen from 4.1 billion tonnes in 1980 to 6.7 billion tonnes in 2006 and continues to rise at 2.5 per cent every year. Common sense says this increasing consumption cannot continue indefinitely or even to the end of the 21st century. Our accelerating appetite leads us closer to crisis.

Cars and Houses To illustrate this trend in consumerism and resource use, consider cars. In 1950 the world had about 2.6 billion people and 53 million cars (about 1 car for every 50 men, women and children). There are now 6.3 billion people and

550 million cars. That is one for every 11 people from Lagos, Nigeria, to London, England, and a lot of them can’t drive! Figure 1a shows how quickly the total consumption of cars has risen in developing counties: by 2008 the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, were consuming as many cars as the United States. Figure 1b shows the inequity among countries that we would expect, with almost one car for every person of driving age in North America, but rising access to cars in developing countries. Rising consumption in China on the one hand helps fuel Chinese demand for Australian iron ore, and on the other, embeds enormous resources of iron (steel) in a highly inefficient and arguably unnecessary consumer good, that produces undesirable side effects such as social isolation, time-consuming congestion, and air pollution. There are alternatives, which would be less resource-wasteful but still use Australian ore, such as public transport and hire or community-owned cars that would use fewer resources and have less damaging side effects. There are also alternatives to traditional construction of vehicles, such as using renewable resources – very strong composites based on corn fibre for example – that would

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15 Western Europe

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BRIC countries 2000 01

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Figure 1a.

China India

Figure 1b.

Figure 1a. Total annual car sales in the United States and BRIC countries. Figure 1b. Car ownership per thousand people of driving age. The Economist, 15 November 2008. Source: Morgan Stanley.

meet rising demand for personal cars while husbanding globally-finite and non-renewable resources such as iron. Houses are another example of resource consumption. As communities become more affluent, family size decreases and separations increase, so the percentage of one-parent families is growing. Further, our houses are filled with efficient labour-saving and entertainment devices: small washing machines and dishwashers have replaced laundries and sculleries, plasma-screens and iPads increasingly substitute for bulkier televisions and radios. This might lead us to think that house size and the need for resources such as glass, steel, bricks and timber decreases. Not one bit: in 50 years in Australia, house size per person has risen from 32m2 in 1955 to 83m2.

Figure 2 illustrates that, although this rise in consumption has occurred throughout the world, there has been a growing discrepancy among countries, so that Australians now lead the world in building the most wastefully-large houses, no doubt fuelled by McMansions in new housing developments. Europeans, who have renewed most of their housing stock since the World War II, use about 40 per cent of the space we do. So what, you say? But size matters: if we accepted that personal happiness isn’t related to the amount of ‘stuff’ we accumulate (as researched by Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009, and discussed in chapters 20 and 21) then we would shift our mindsets to not ‘needing’ ever-larger houses, so we could live with greater sociability and consume fewer resources, both in the construction of the houses and their upkeep.

Consumption

Average new dwelling size per person

Figure 2. House size. Average new dwelling size (square metres per person) in Australia has grown from 32 m2 in 1955 to 83m2 in 2010, which is huge relative to other countries. Source: adapted from Australian Bureau of Statistics and The Weekend Australian, 30 April 2011.

The kinds of cars and houses we have are the result of personal decisions that are affected by public policy and government instruments like infrastructure programs, taxes and incentives. There are also other choices we make, that are very much up to us as individuals. The toys we buy our children, the holidays we take, whether we fly at the front or back of an aeroplane, and the tools or gadgets we use for play and work are individual choices. The box below provides an example of resource use: the resources that are embedded in a Kindle or iPad.

A Run on Resources There are two categories of resources: renewable (like wind and solar energy) and non-renewable (like oil, rock phosphate and minerals). Take the non-renewable example of rock phosphate, which is used primarily to make fertiliser, animal feed and industrial chemicals. It is true that birds are adding to our supply every day, but bird poop is not keeping pace with our rapidly rising consumption of phosphate, so deposits are declining, and some have been extinguished: the rise and fall of

eReaders – technological fix or resource disaster? In 2011, Amazon in the United States sold 20 per cent more eBooks than paperbacks and 300 per cent more eBooks than hardcover books. However, while eBooks seem cheap, the resource costs of electronic book readers are not reflected in the retail price: the silicon for the microchips is mined in China, crystallised in Germany, sliced in Oregon and made into microchips in Costa Rica. The microprocessors may use copper refined in Sweden, gold from Indonesia and tantalum from Australia. In addition, the long-life battery that puts the eReader ahead of the game in the electronics sector is made from lithium, which is currently under investigation after predictions that we have reached ‘peak global lithium’. Aluminium and stainless steel, which account for half the mass of electronic tablets, are derived from metals most likely mined in Australia or Brazil; four tonnes of bauxite are needed to produce one tonne of aluminium. Emma Joughin, MSSI staff member

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phosphate extraction from the island of Nauru illustrates that resources do run out. ‘Peak oil’ is believed to be following a similar pattern on a global scale, with most authorities asserting that reserves peaked in about 2006 and are now declining. The optimistic view is that as oil (and other non-renewable resources) become more scarce, prices will rise, technology will become more innovative and we will access greater reserves, albeit of poorer-quality materials. Not only will the price rise; the environmental costs of extracting poorer-quality or less accessible resources will also, such as deep-ocean oil. And that’s the optimistic view. As this expansion of accessible reserves happens, if it does happen, there will be severe shifts in our lifestyles and likely tensions between countries that have reserves and those that do not. For example, China holds 37 per cent and Morocco and Western Sahara 32 per cent of the

world’s phosphate reserves, and already China has a policy to keep its reserves for its own use, and there are disputes over ownership of the Sahara reserves. Ultimately though, phosphorus, peak oil, and any other resource that we do not conserve and recycle, will run out. Just like phosphate on Nauru, where societal wellbeing depended heavily on phosphorus – extraction of rock phosphate peaked in 1972, fell below 1 million tonnes per year for the first time in 1990 and mining stopped in 2004. Figure 3 shows generalised changes in reserves of non-renewable resources, and how we can extend their ‘life’ through technology and extraction from previously inaccessible places (eg, beneath oceans). Ultimately though, these resources will run out: we need either to shift to a substitute or develop technologies to recycle the resources so they’re used within new products without a net change in total quantity consumed.

higher grades lower costs

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se /r

lin g

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Future technological development & uptake

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lower grades higher costs

time Figure 3. Non-renewable resources run out. Source: Prior et al. 2011.

Consumption

Figure 4. The ‘Super Pit’ (in Kalgoorlie) is Australia’s largest open-cut gold mine. It is 3.5km long, 1.5km wide and 350m deep, and is large enough to be seen from space. It produces around 28 tonnes of gold per year.

Figure 4 visually reminds us that we extract nonrenewable resources: we don’t produce them. Humans are adept at recognising that localised caches of non-renewable resources are finite, like the example of Nauru, but we are not good at appreciating that there may be a coming global problem. It stands to reason that as population increases and consumption per person increases, so total consumption must rise. Further, as the world’s non-renewable resources are finite, there must be a narrowing gap between what we are using and the total reserves of any resource.

Recognition of this issue by some has led to a measure called the ‘ecological footprint’. This calculates the area of land and sea that would be equivalent to the area needed to furnish our resource needs. Our ecological footprint varies enormously from nine and eight ‘global hectares’ used by each person in the United States and Australia respectively to less than one global hectare in India and Indonesia. In the space of one generation, the resource use per person has risen but, by simple arithmetic, the reserves per person (or ‘biocapacity’) have declined. Thus we have a closing gap,

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Australia Global Hectares per capita

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Ecological Footprint Biocapacity

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Figure 5. Country footprints. Growth in per-person demand for resources (Ecological Footprint) and resource supply (Biocapacity) in Australia, China and Indonesia since 1961. Ecological footprint rises with rising consumption, as increasing population does not enter this figure. Biocapacity varies each year with ecosystem management, agricultural practices (such as fertiliser use and irrigation), ecosystem degradation and weather.

Consumption

or in some countries a cross over wherein consumption exceeds biocapacity. While Figure 5 imperfectly illustrates this closing gap using modern language of ecological footprints and biocapacity, the concept of closure is not new; for example, Barry Commonerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seminal 1971 book The Closing Circle.

based on ecological economics are becoming widespread. We are moving to planning or scenario development in enlightened countries that aims for a broader accounting than GDP and is based less on consumption: a growing, maybe more satisfied society but not necessarily one that keeps consuming.

Consumption versus Satisfaction

Closing Consumption Cycles

Consumption drives Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an annual measure of a countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s financial activity. For the past 30 years, however, there has been increasing questioning as to whether GDP is a truly useful measure, or whether continuing growth in GDP, which depletes resources, is necessarily good for society or individuals. In 1972 the king of Bhutan introduced the term Gross National Happiness, and that country has since used a mix of quantitative measures, financial and otherwise, as well as qualitative surveys, to evaluate quality of life and social progress in the small Himalayan democracy. In the past 30 years, accumulated research findings show convincingly that affluence and consumption do not necessarily create a satisfied society. Beyond a certain level of consumption, it is equality, rather than personal consumption, that is most important, and satisfaction drops and crime increases with increasing inequality. These results are set out in The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Pickett. Research into societal happiness and wellbeing (which takes account of things such as violent crime as well as personal satisfaction) and alternative measures to GDP

There are three ways in which we can use resources: the end-use can extinguish the resource, disperse it, or embed it. These categories are helpful if we wish to address the issue of unsustainable consumption. For example: coal is burned to create electricity. The coal is extinguished and unless alchemy is discovered, it canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be regenerated. The electricity is dispersed. Unless we make an effort to reconcentrate the electricity, or one of its products, heat, it too is unrecoverable. Heat can be concentrated and re-used, through co-gen and tri-gen power plants. Co-gen (combined heat and power) traps the heat dissipated from electricity generation and/or use, and uses this to heat water, rather than releasing the heat as waste into the air or through cooling towers. Tri-generation uses heat to produce useful electricity, heat and cooling. Water, food and phosphorus are examples of resources that are dispersed. Water is in increasingly short supply as industrial processes and expansion of irrigated agriculture use not only rainfall (arguably renewable) but also draw-down aquifers: ancient water that has remained trapped between rock and soil strata for millennia, and thus is non-renewable. The

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Figure 6. Food cycles. The food chain: an illustration of a vital and complex resource that provides nutrition by embedding resources such as water, phosphorus, nitrogen, and many other minerals and vitamins. The chain is usually shown as a linear ‘value adding’ from paddock to plate but this conceals the substantial losses along the chain; usually only 40–50 per cent of in-field food is consumed. This schema shows the food resource chain as two interconnecting cycles, based on farm and transformation-and-consumption cycles. There are 13 points where substantial food is wasted, representing losses of resources such as minerals and water. Using this representation it is clear that there are opportunities for closing the cycles: wasting less, and returning what is not passed along the chain to urban or field compost. Source: Pearson 2012.

Ogilalla aquifer in central western United States, and the Great Artesian Basin in Australia are examples of water storages that, once used, will not be replaced. While the main users of water are industry and agriculture, as individuals we could be more economical with water we use for human consumption and domestic purposes: in developed regions such as California, domestic water consumption averages about 400 litres per person per day. In Australia during the dry years 1990–2010, cities publicised restraint in use and introduced restrictions such as not watering household lawns, and consumption

in southeast Queensland and Melbourne fell to less than 150 litres per person per day. Some of this was due to a change in attitudes about what is acceptable, or even what is good: a green lawn in summer in a dry climate is no longer necessarily good. Nonetheless we retain attitudes that result in extravagant consumption. For example, washing of clothes is as much a social expectation – I care for you, therefore I wash your jeans every week – as a necessity. As a regrettable consequence, when the drought ended and floods followed, water consumption in our cities has risen to 180 litres per person per day.

Consumption

Phosphorus is a key element because all life depends on it. Phosphorus is mined (extracted from ancient accumulations of bird faeces) and a lot is dispersed as fertiliser and remains within the soil. An approximately equal amount is embedded with plant and animal products and dispersed within the food chain. Phosphorus cannot be substituted: there is no alternative way for living organisms to obtain energy, and no known way to synthesise phosphorus. Thus we need to take actions to both use phosphorus more efficiently, and develop technologies to recover phosphorus by extracting and concentrating it after we have dispersed it through soil, or along with waste products in water and sewage. In other words, closing the leaks in our consumption cycles. Techniques are being developed to extract and concentrate the mineral but they are, at this point, expensive relative to the easy option of mining more from Morocco. Figure 6 presents the food chain as an example of one of our most important consumption cycles, in a novel way: as two interlocking cycles rather than a linear chain. It reminds us that there are numerous points in the cycle where humans have responsibility: our actions determine how much food (including phosphorus, and all other elements within food that are essential for our nutrition) is wasted or irrevocably dispersed. We are starting to recognise that we can close the food and nutrient cycles by stopping leakage at many points. This will address global hunger and allow us to harvest and re-use essential minerals.

The third category of resource use refers to those that are embedded, or concentrated, in a product. Minerals in a Kindle or iPad tablet are examples of embedded resources. As with the example used at the start of the chapter, iron ore is extracted to manufacture steel that is embedded in vehicles, buildings and large infrastructure such as bridges and railways. We can conceive of alternative building materials and we can fabricate non-steel structures strong and large enough for buildings and bridges, etc. There is the opportunity to develop technologies based on renewable resources such as plant material, before iron ore becomes so expensive that the shift to new technologies will disrupt all but the most affluent society. There are two things to consider with this example. First, companies, and often governments, use the language of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;productionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; to describe the extraction or mining of iron ore, which is misleading. We are not producing anything; we dig holes in the ground that we never refill and deplete a non-renewable resource. The second point, however, is more positive. Because steel is embedded, rather than extinguished or dispersed, it is easy to recycle. Logistically and financially, it is relatively easy to gather all the steel within used cars and turn it into more cars or other steel products. We also have the option of substituting other resources for steel when it is in a concentrated product, such as renewable organic polymers created from plant cellulose, to make cars just as strong but lighter, degradable and less extractive of limited resources.

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ACTIONS FOR 2020 We can cut back consumption without reducing happiness or satisfaction within our lifestyles, and Figure 6 shows there are numerous points within consumption chains where we can reduce losses and capture and recycle what is currently lost. It is obvious that there are many actions we, and our governments, can take to reduce consumption. Water and food are clearly critical, as over-consumption already causes problems such as obesity and Type 2 diabetes. It is unlikely that increasing efficiency of use (of water) or production per unit area (of land) will meet the needs for food arising from the increase in population that is predicted by 2050. We can reduce wastage, increase efficiency, reduce our use of resources such as phosphorus and make a major contribution to meeting this growing demand for food by buying on nutritive quality, not looks, as recommended in chapter 17, buying more carefully so we waste less, and supporting food rescue so that unwanted food from farms, supermarkets, restaurants and homes is passed to less affluent tables. A second vital action to achieve sustainability is to address our consumption of non-renewable resources. On the one hand we need to slow down our rate of consumption (while developing economies such as China and India necessarily consume more) and on the other hand we need to put in place incentives to develop new technologies and products that will eventually substitute for the ‘old’ resources. This substitution is epitomised

by the slogan ‘corn for car parts’. Substitution of renewables for non-renewables is one aspect of the much-hyped shift to a ‘green economy’. However, unless we take purposeful action before 2020, it is likely that there will be substantial economic dislocation associated with the running-down of reserves and rising prices associated with scarcity. An action arising from this chapter would be for the government’s resource tax, which starts this year, to be applied to all nonrenewable resources. The impact would be to socialise the benefits from resource depletion, so that a sovereign wealth fund is created while the market value of the non-renewable resource is low, but climbs with increasing scarcity. The purpose of such a fund – established by countries as diverse as East Timor and Sweden – would be to invest in research into technologies that will enhance the pool of scarce resources (for example, by extracting phosphorus from sewage, concentrating it and converting it to a usable form again) or developing technological alternatives (for example, timber laminates instead of steel). A broadly based Australian wealth fund for green innovation would position our country as a leader in research and technology for a sustainable society.

04 Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change David Karoly

he global climate system has warmed over the past hundred years, mostly as a result of human-caused increases of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These increases result from emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, including from burning coal, oil and natural gas as energy sources, from industrial activity and from land clearing. Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause even greater climate change this century, with substantial impacts on human and natural systems. International agreements to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions have been in place since the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN FCCC) in 1992. One hundred and ninety-four countries, including Australia and the United States, have ratified the UN FCCC. Its principal objective is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate systemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. In 2009, at the Conference of Parties to the UN FCCC in Copenhagen, governments agreed that greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced to a level so that

global temperature increases are limited to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The scientific evidence that underpins the conclusions on climate change come from the overwhelming majority of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s climate scientists. A small but vocal group of commentators and scientists dispute these conclusions, arguing that the observed climate change is mainly natural, that future climate change due to human causes will be minor and that higher concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are beneficial. Therefore, they argue that there is no need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Misinformation and bad science are the basis of their arguments and these are addressed below. This is followed by consideration of the question: what reductions in greenhouse gas emissions globally and in Australia are needed to achieve the agreed target of limiting global warming to two degrees? This decade is the critical decade for achieving this target, as international and Australian actions by 2020 on reducing greenhouse gas emissions will determine the risk of global warming exceeding two degrees. Business as usual emissions will certainly lead to this target being

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Global average temperature anomaly (˚C)

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Figure 1. Global average surface temperature variations for the period 1850–2010 relative to 1961–90 from three different observational datasets. The grey shading shows the uncertainty in a single annual global average temperature estimate. There has been a significant increase of global average temperature by about 0.8 degrees Celsius in the last decade relative to 1850–1900. Source: World Meteorological Organization.

exceeded. Very substantial emission reductions in Australia and other developed countries are needed by 2020 to ensure that there is a low risk of exceeding this target over the next 100 years.

Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Climate is a major factor affecting society, including the distributions of natural ecosystems and agriculture. Global climate has varied substantially in the past, with much colder ice ages and warmer inter-glacial periods occurring regularly about every hundred

thousand years over the last million years. These are due to periodic variations in the earth’s orbit around the sun and feedbacks in the climate system. The present inter-glacial period has lasted about 10,000 years and has been a period of relatively stable climate, during which all human civilisation has developed and our population has grown rapidly. Over the past century, the global average temperature has increased significantly (Figure 1). While global warming over the last hundred years is only about 0.8 degrees Celsius, this is larger than the variations in

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change

global average temperature at any other time over the past 1000 years. Evidence for this global warming can be found in many different components of the climate system: increases in temperatures over the land and in the ocean, retreat of glaciers on land, retreat of sea ice in the Arctic, reductions in snow cover in winter, and increases in temperature and in moisture content in the lower atmosphere (Figure 2). More than 90 per cent of the extra heat in the climate system over the past 50 years has gone into warming the ocean layers below the surface, not into warming the atmosphere. The clearest evidence of global warming is found in this increase in sub-surface ocean temperatures. The other clear evidence of global warming is the observed increase in global-average sea

level, due to the warming of ocean waters and melting of ice on land. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affect the energy balance of the climate system by limiting the loss of long-wave or heat radiation from the earth and the atmosphere to space, effectively trapping more energy in the climate system. The most important greenhouse gases in the atmosphere for global warming are the ones with long lifetimes: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These are called long-lived greenhouse gases because the processes that remove them from the atmosphere take tens to hundreds of years to return their concentration to normal after more is added to the atmosphere. Concentrations of these long-lived greenhouse gases were very

Air temperature near surface (troposphere) Humidity Glaciers Temperature over oceans

Snow cover

Sea surface temperature Sea level Sea ice Temperature over land Ocean heat content

Figure 2. Indicators of warming of the climate system over the last hundred years, based on observed changes in different components. Upward arrows show increasing trends, while black downward arrows show decreases. Source: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2010

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stable for most of the past 10,000 years, based on air bubbles extracted from ice cores drilled in the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. However, the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have all increased dramatically over the past century. Carbon dioxide is the most important longlived greenhouse gas in terms of its effect on the energy balance of the climate system. The longest continuous instrumental observations of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been taken at the Moana

Loa Observatory in Hawaii since the late 1950s (Figure 3). These show increases from below 320 parts per million (ppm) in 1960 to about 390ppm in 2010, an increase of more than 20 per cent. A century ago, the carbon dioxide concentration was about 280ppm, so the increase since that time has been about 40 per cent. For the other important long-lived greenhouse gases, methane concentrations have increased over the past century from about 700 parts per billion (ppb) to 1800ppb in 2010, an increase of more than 150 per cent, while

Atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory

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Figure 3. Observed background concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (in parts per million, ppm) at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii over the period 1960â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2010. Background concentrations of carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa are representative of the global concentrations and are the longest series of such direct observations anywhere in the world. The red line shows the seasonal variations of atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa, associated with the global uptake and release of carbon dioxide by plants on land, mainly from the Northern Hemisphere. The black line is a smoothed curve, showing the variations over periods of longer than one year. It shows the pronounced increase of carbon dioxide from below 320ppm in 1960 to about 390ppm in 2010. Source: NOAA, United States.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change

nitrous oxide concentrations have increased from about 270ppb to more than 320ppb, an increase of more than 20 per cent. While the global climate system has warmed over the past 100 years and the concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased, we cannot simply conclude that one has caused the other, nor that human activity has caused the increases in both. We must first consider the evidence for the causes of the increases in greenhouse gases, and then the evidence showing whether the recent global warming is due to the increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and not other natural factors. There are multiple lines of evidence that human activity has caused the increase in longlived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and that these increases are not due to other factors, such as emissions from volcanoes or losses from the oceans (Figure 4). The chemical signature of the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere shows that it is primarily from burning fossil fuels and from land clearing. Emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels have increased to about 30 billion tonnes per year, nearly doubling over the past 20 years (Figure 5). The stable concentrations of the long-lived greenhouse gases for the past millennium and then the recent simultaneous increases point to human activity as the cause. Emissions from volcanoes cannot be the explanation, as carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes are too small and have a different chemical signature to that observed, and volcanoes do not also

emit methane and nitrous oxide. Losses of carbon dioxide from the oceans cannot be the explanation, as carbon dioxide concentrations in the oceans have increased over the past 50 years but are still lower on average than in the atmosphere, showing that carbon dioxide on average is being mixed from the atmosphere to the oceans. These different lines of evidence have led to the conclusion that the main cause of the observed increase in long-lived greenhouse gases over the past century is human activity: burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, land clearing, agriculture and industrial activity. There are also multiple lines of evidence that the increase in concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activity has been the main cause of the recent observed global warming (Figure 4). Scientists have compared the observed patterns of recent temperature changes in the atmosphere and the oceans with the patterns (fingerprints) expected from different factors, such as increasing greenhouse gases, changes in sunlight, or natural climate variability. They find that the observed changes over the last 50 and last 100 years agree well with the fingerprint from increasing greenhouse gases and other human-caused changes in the climate system, and cannot be explained by increases in sunlight, changes in cosmic rays, or natural climate variations. For example, the observed temperature changes over the land show more warming on average at night than in the daytime and more warming in winter than in summer, in agreement with the fingerprint of increasing greenhouse gases but opposite

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10 indicators of a human fingerprint on climate change Less heat escaping to space Shrinking thermosphere Cooling stratosphere Rising tropopause

More fossil fuel carbon in the air

Less oxygen in the air

30 billion tonnes of CO2 per year More heat returning to earth

Nights warming faster than days

More fossil fuel carbon in coral

Figure 4. Indicators of the human fingerprint on climate change, showing evidence that observed climate change is primarily due to human causes. Source: the Skeptical Science website (www.skepticalscience.com).

to what is expected from increasing sunlight. These have led to the conclusion that it is now beyond a reasonable doubt that human activity is the main cause of the observed global warming over the last hundred years.

The Two-Degree Target Given the large increase in carbon dioxide concentrations that has already occurred (Figure 3), the long lifetime for natural processes to remove this carbon dioxide

increase and the continued growth of carbon dioxide emissions from human activity (Figure 5), substantial future warming of the global climate system is inevitable, with substantial negative impacts on human and natural systems. So, the question is: What reductions in greenhouse gas emissions globally are needed to achieve the internationally agreed target of limiting global warming to two degrees? This global warming target is consistent with stabilisation of greenhouse gas concen-

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change

Observed CO2 Emissions vs. IPCC Scenarios

30 CO2 Emissions per year (billions of tonnes)

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Figure 5. Observed global carbon dioxide emissions (in billions of tonnes per year) from burning fossil fuels, estimated by the International Energy Agency (IEA) for the period 1990 to 2010. Note that emissions have increased from about 21 billion tonnes per year in 1990 to more than 30 billion tonnes per year in 2010. Also shown are representative emission projections for 2000 to 2010 from the IPCC â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Special Report on Emissions Scenariosâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. These show that the observed emissions have increased at a rate consistent with the highest projected emission growth, even while the Kyoto Protocol and other international actions were seeking to slow emissions growth.

trations in the atmosphere at a level of about 450ppm carbon dioxide equivalent. Carbon dioxide equivalent is a measure that combines the warming effects of all long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere into the equivalent concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The current carbon dioxide equivalent concentration is much higher than the concentration of carbon dioxide alone, as it includes the effects of methane and nitrous oxide. While the concentration of carbon dioxide in 2010 was 390ppm (Figure 3), the

concentration of all long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in 2010 was already 470ppm carbon dioxide equivalent, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, substantially above the 450ppm target. Hence, there has already been a significant overshoot of the greenhouse gas concentrations needed to avoid global warming of two degrees Celsius. Without rapid and substantial global reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, it will be impossible to limit the increase in global average temperature to less than two degrees.

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Figure 6. Top: Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels (in billions of tonnes per year) for two scenarios: one â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;business as usualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; (red) and the other keeping global temperature rise below 2 degrees C, with cumulative emissions from 2000 to 2050 of 1000 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (blue). Bottom: Projections of global-mean temperature rise based on these emission scenarios to 2100. The darkest shaded range for each scenario indicates the most likely temperature rise (50 per cent chance of falling within this range). Source: The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers, 2010.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change

Given the long time required for natural processes to remove additional carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it is the cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide from human activity that determines the increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere and most of the increase in global average temperature. A number of studies, including those by the German Advisory Council on Climate Change (WBGU), by Will Steffen and by Ross Garnaut, have considered this cumulative emissions budget approach to determine the global emissions reductions needed to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius. Continued greenhouse gas emissions from business-as-usual human activity will likely lead to global warming of four to six degrees, while limiting the cumulative emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels to a global budget of one trillion tonnes over the period 2000 to 2050 would likely avoid global warming of two degrees (see Figure 6). Global emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels during 2000 to 2010 (Figure 5) had already used up about 30 per cent of the cumulative emissions budget in only a fifth of the period. The trajectory of global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels needs to peak this decade, fall by at least 70 per cent by 2050 and drop to zero by 2080 to limit global warming to less than two degrees (Figure 6). Rapid, substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are needed to follow this trajectory. Delays in action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will lead to

continued emissions at present levels, which make it more and more difficult to achieve the internationally agreed target. So what is a fair share for Australia of these global emission reductions? To determine this, emissions of greenhouse gases per person are considered. As Australians, we are among the highest emitters in the world at about 27 tonnes per person per year, while Indian emissions are about two tonnes per person per year and Chinese emissions about five. If a cumulative emissions budget is appropriate for determining global emissions reductions, it should also be relevant for assessing a countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fair share. With a global population of seven billion, the global emissions budget translates into a personal emissions budget of a little more than 140 tonnes of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels over the period 2000 to 2050. With current Australian emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels at about 19 tonnes per person, this means that we have already emitted about 200 tonnes each over 2000â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2011 and used up all our individual 50-year budgets of carbon dioxide emissions and more in only 11 years. While it is obviously not practical to switch off all emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels in Australia overnight, that is what the cumulative emissions budget approach shows should be our fair share; zero emissions for the next 40 years because our emissions have been so high in the past. Anything more would not be fair globally, but of course, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t live in a fair and equitable world!

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ACTIONS FOR 2020 This is the critical decade for Australian and global actions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions to achieve the internationally agreed target of limiting global warming to only two degrees Celsius. Without these actions, global warming will increase and the associated climate change will have substantial impacts on many human and natural systems. The carbon budget for cumulative carbon dioxide emissions provides a simple approach to determine the necessary global and Australian actions. By 2020, global greenhouse gas emissions must have peaked and started to fall, with binding international agreements established that will lead to global zero net emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossils fuels by 2080. By 2020, Australian greenhouse gas emissions must have fallen dramatically, by 50 per cent or more, with national legislation established that has much stronger long-term emission reduction targets than the current Clean Energy Future package of the Federal Government. Australia should aim to reduce its net emissions of greenhouse gases to zero before 2050, as its fair share of global action on reducing emissions. Fortunately, there are many existing technologies described in later chapters in this book that provide practical solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. These include reducing emissions through improving energy efficiency, through zero carbon renewable energy sources, through reductions in

agricultural emissions and reductions in land clearing, as well as enhancing uptake of carbon dioxide in terrestrial vegetation by reforestation and changes in agriculture.

05 Energy Peter Seligman

f we are to create a sustainable society, we need to generate energy from renewable, non-polluting sources and use it wisely: to use less and more efficiently than we do today. The transformation to renewable energy and efficient use will take time, but it is urgent that we take a significant step along this journey within the next 20 years. Australians are among the biggest energy users on the planet – equal to the Americans. We use about 60 per cent more than the Europeans. In this chapter we will first look at how much energy we actually use and where we use it. How do we get this information? It is available from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences on abares.gov.au. This site breaks the energy use into all sources: coal, gas, oil, hydro and other renewables. It also breaks the information down into where that energy is used. Australia exports more energy than it uses, and that is also reported by ABARES. Secondly, we look at how we can make a transition from the use of fossil fuels to sustainable energy. We need to make this transition for two reasons – because if we don’t we will just run out of fuel and because our continued use of fossil fuels will change

the climate, restricting where we can live and where we can grow food. These dangers will be aggravated by a rising population.

How We Use Energy Australians use about 8000 watts per person of what is called primary energy, the energy we need to generate our electricity, drive our cars and heat our houses. It is important to distinguish between primary energy and end-use energy. Each fuel and/or application has a different efficiency. For example, if we heat our house with gas, about 80 per cent of the energy in the gas goes into the house and rest goes up the flue. On the other hand, when we generate electricity, only about 30 per cent of the energy in the fuel – the coal or gas – ends up as electricity at our power points. When we drive our cars, only about 20 per cent of the energy in the petrol is used to drive the wheels. The rest is rejected as heat through the radiator and exhaust pipe. Overall, about half of the energy in the fuels we burn is put to use. Put another way, the average efficiency is about 50 per cent. That’s 8000 x 0.5 = 4000 watts per person for the actual energy we use to do the things we want to do.

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How We Use Energy

Hydro Power

It is normal for us to focus on our personal energy use but it is important to remember that there is a wider world which uses more energy on our behalf. To illustrate this, let’s convert energy into even more familiar units – 100-watt incandescent light globes, as in the table below. Our total energy use is 4000 watts per person, or 40 100-watt light globes per person burning continuously. About a quarter of this is personal or domestic, equivalent to 10 100-watt light globes. Three quarters of our energy use is public infrastructure and industry, equal to 30 100-watt light globes burning day and night.

Hydro-electric power is the most developed of the sustainable energy sources. Water is collected in dams and runs down long pipes or tunnels, through turbines that turn electric generators to produce electricity. The biggest scheme is in the Snowy Mountains, which produces 55 per cent of Australia’s hydroelectricity. Another 29 per cent is in Tasmania where it provides much of the state’s electricity. Overall, Australia supplies only about 6 per cent of its electricity from hydro. This is not easily increased because there just isn’t enough water at suitable sites. All the best places are either taken or are in national parks. The last major dam was built in Tasmania at Lake Pedder, with famous protests against it by environmentalists in the late 1960s and early 70s. In the 1980s the Gordon-belowFranklin dam was halted, and development of large hydro power has virtually ceased.

Sustainable Energy Options There is a lot of discussion about how little, or how much, energy can be provided from sustainable sources. Attitudes to climate change influence the level of optimism about this, but we will leave opinions out of it. Let’s see how much energy Australia could provide from different sustainable sources. What are these sources?

Personal energy use Food Electricity Gas Fuel for transport Goods we buy House construction

Wind Power Wind power is the second most developed of the sustainable energy sources. Wind turbines

Public energy use Factories Offices Shops Hospitals Schools Universities Public transport Sporting facilities Street lighting Cinemas, theatres

Energy

are in mass production and can be ordered and installed quickly. They are well supported by maintenance and have a life of 25 years or more. Wind turbines are built in sizes up to 7.5MW(a MW is megawatt – or 10,000 light globes) and operate at a capacity factor of about 30 per cent. This means that, appropriately located, they can supply about 30 per cent of their rating on average – about 2.2MW for a 7.5MW turbine. Wind turbines collect energy at 1–6.3 watts per m2. Although this doesn’t seem like much, at 4.5 watt per m2, 0.25 per cent of Australia’s land area would be sufficient to provide all of our end-use energy from wind power alone. In addition, the land is still useful for agriculture when a wind farm has been installed. Wind turbines are efficient on a large scale but individual domestic-sized wind turbines in suburban environments are not. There has been a lot of emotional debate about windfarms in recent years with some people claiming that low frequency noise from turbines is injuring their health. It is doubtful that this is the case and the claim has not been supported by peer-reviewed literature. The noise from windfarms is below the level of noise from many other natural and manmade sources such as ocean beaches and railway lines. It is substantially quieter than the low frequency noises generated within the human body. It is likely however that people are suffering health effects from fear and stress due to the belief that windfarms cause health problems. Governments are reacting by introducing exclusion zones and wide setbacks.

A hydro power dam. Source: www.cleanenergycouncil.org. au/cec/technologies/hydro

Solar Power Solar power comes in many forms: 1. Heat collectors for hot water services. The sun heats the water directly. This is one of the easiest ways of using solar energy. Heating water is one of the biggest uses of domestic energy. 2. Solar panels that generate electricity directly. Although popular, so far in Australia these are on a small domestic scale. Large installations exist in other countries including the United States and Spain. 3. Solar collectors that concentrate the sun’s rays on a spot to obtain very high temperatures.

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A community wind farm. Such communal schemes have a much higher level of public acceptance than corporate installations. Source: Hepburn Wind.

This heat is used to drive a steam power station, like a coal or gas power station. 4. Solar collectors that concentrate the sunâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rays to heat molten salt stored in insulated tanks. This heat is again used to drive a steam power station with the difference that the salt can stay hot overnight and keep generating power 24 hours a day. Although solar photovoltaic panels on domestic houses can provide much of the electric power for an economical house, they are not a complete solution. Domestic solar can be expected to provide between 1 and 2 per cent of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total energy needs. For big problems we need to think big.

Large-scale solar power stations have been built since the 1980s in California; the largest is in the Mojave Desert. More recently, very large installations have also been built in Spain. Such power stations can generate power at densities between four and 15 watt per m2. At 4.5 watt per m2, similar to the power density of wind farms, again as little as 0.25 per cent of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s land area would be sufficient to provide all of our end-use energy.

Biomass Power Stations Biomass power is where crops are grown or waste material is used for fuel in a conventional steam power station. The difference between using plants and using

Energy

Left: A 1kW domestic photovoltaic system. Such a system produces about 160 watt averaged over a year, about one and a half light globes equivalent. About three times this is required to provide electricity for all the needs of an economical family of four. Right: Large-scale solar at Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert, California.

coal or gas as fuel is that the growing plants take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. While this carbon dioxide goes back into the atmosphere when the fuel is burnt, the cycle can continue without constantly adding to the atmospheric carbon dioxide. Biomass power is relatively well developed and there are many such power stations in existence already using bagasse, the waste fibrous matter from sugar cane crops. A little-known fact is that in major cities, there are power stations that run on the methane emitted by rubbish dumps (13 in Melbourne and eight in Sydney). These power stations produce several megawatts each, the equivalent to several tens of thousands of light globes.

Biomass to Produce Liquid Fuels Presently almost all of our road transport runs on liquid fuels. The energy in a litre of petrol or diesel is astounding â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 10kWh. But at an efficiency of 20 per cent, it converts to 2kWh

of electricity. It takes about five standard car batteries to store that much energy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; for each litre of petrol. Electric cars are becoming more common but more effective batteries and a greater range are needed. Liquid fuels will be required for aeroplanes and some road transport for many years. Although biofuels can produce ethanol for use in cars and planes, biomass has been much criticised where it takes away from agricultural production for food and where forests are cleared to grow crops for fuel. Algae could be a way of producing sustainable liquid fuel. Each car would need about 350 square metres of algae pond. Given that we have about 16 million road vehicles, that would require about 3.4 per cent of the country to be devoted to growing fuel from algae. So the solution is likely to involve electrifying as much of the transport fleet as possible and using liquid fuel only when there is no alternative.

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Geothermal Power In some countries, like New Zealand, hot water and mud just bubble out of the ground. Australia does not have this kind of geology. However, in Australia there are places where if you drill down four or five kilometres and circulate water through boreholes, the rocks are hot enough to generate steam to drive a power station. This heat is due to the low level radioactivity in the granite. Geothermal power is sustainable to a point, but the hot

rocks, which have heated up over millions of years, will eventually be cooled by extracting heat from them. On an ongoing basis, the heat is being replaced at about 0.1 watt per m2 so at an extraction rate of several watt per m 2 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it is effectively heat mining. Nevertheless a significant proportion of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s energy requirements could be provided for several hundred years. The power is effectively free of carbon emissions and is available on demand â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a major advantage over wind and solar.

A concentrating solar power station built by Gemasolar in Spain, commissioned in 2011.

Energy

A scheme for tapping into geothermal power from hot rocks.

Several geothermal energy companies are at work developing this resource in Australia. The largest is Geodynamics, which claims that geothermal power will be the cheapest of all sustainable energy sources.

Wave Power Wave power has been under development for many years and is slowly becoming commercial. But the equipment can be easily damaged by storms and corrosion. The Australian wave power resource is estimated to be about 130kW per linear-metre of coast.

This sounds like a lot. Assuming 7.5 per cent extraction efficiency, for the best 2000 kilometres (facing the southern ocean) we could generate about 800 watt per person, compared to our 4000 watt per person demand. All of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coast would be required to supply our needs!

Tidal Power Tidal power uses the change of sea level as a form of hydro. A dam is built across an estuary and turbines in the dam wall generate power. Alternatively the turbines can be free-standing

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under the sea and work like underwater windmills on the tidal or ocean currents. Another method is to use high and low ponds that fill or empty from the tides. Port Phillip Bay could supply about 10 watts per Melbournian. If we used the 10-metre tides in the north of West Australia we could supply about 150 watt per person. A major obstacle is the detrimental impact on the marine environment.

Nuclear Power For better or for worse, nuclear power will probably be needed in countries that have a

lot of people, not much land and not much sun. As we have seen, for a large country with a small population like Australia, wind and solar power are realistic possibilities. This is not the case in densely populated countries with less sun. Important things to know about nuclear power: â&#x20AC;˘ Conventional reactors use 2 per cent of the fuel â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the rest becomes waste, which is a big problem. Also at this efficiency, the world would run out of uranium in a couple of decades.

20m Pond 90m 7km

Turbines

A schematic showing clifftop pond and turbine system.

Sea

Energy

• Breeder reactors use 98 per cent of the fuel and produce only 2 per cent waste – but they are not yet commercially available. • Thorium is a nuclear fuel, far more abundant and less toxic than uranium. It too can produce only 2 per cent waste in a breeder reactor and it is not useful for producing nuclear weapons. Thorium is far safer than uranium because it cannot produce a runaway reaction. Some continuous source of neutrons is required to sustain the reaction. India is developing thorium nuclear power. Australian and India together have most of the world’s thorium. • By the use of thorium and breeder reactors, the world would have enough fuel for some thousands of years of nuclear power.

Fusion Power Fusion power also converts mass to energy but uses hydrogen as a fuel. This has only been done so far in a hydrogen bomb! Fusion in controlled reactors would be a near inexhaustible energy source but a useful fusion reactor always seems to remain 20–30 years away. A useful reactor is well beyond Australia’s means and an international effort has been underway for many years. Fusion power has been the subject of several false alarms (cold fusion). Recent developments may make it seem more promising. One is laser fusion where a number of lasers are used to compress and contain isotopes of deuterium and tritium contained inside a beryllium sphere. This could then spark ignition, at which point the deuterium and tritium should undergo sustained nuclear fusion that produces excess energy.

Another fusion development is the idea of a hybrid reactor in which the fusion takes place within a conventional fission reactor. This approach is said to address the two biggest problems of fusion reactors: the size of plasma required and containment. In a hybrid reactor, the size of the fusion ball required is much smaller than in a pure fusion reactor.

The Storage Problem: Wind and Solar What happens when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow? Some solar power systems use molten salts to hold the heat so that power can be generated at night. Pholtovoltaic systems, which generate electricity directly, sometimes use batteries. But batteries are very expensive and don’t last very long. The most cost-effective way of storing a really large amount of power for a still, cloudy day is to use a hydro-electric system as a battery. This has been done in the Snowy Mountains for many years. It works by using the same water many times. When there is spare power, the turbines pump water up the hill, back into the dam. When there is a demand for power, the water runs back down and turns the turbines to generate electricity. Australia has many cliffs 100 metres above the sea that could be used to pump, and then release, water for electricity. Dams on these cliffs could be used to store electricity, as demonstrated in a pilot system in Okinawa, Japan. Clearly with a system like this, corrosion can be a problem, which would add to the cost over a system using fresh water. However, it is not insoluble: almost every ship has a propeller operating in sea-water.

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ACTIONS FOR 2020 Since we use 60 per cent more energy than the average Briton, we could obviously do better. Let’s assume for a start that we become more efficient and reduce our energy needs to the same as Britons (who in the meantime will get more efficient). If we supplied all of Australia’s energy from a mix of sustainable sources, this is how it could look: Hydro: the existing 6 per cent of electricity which is 3 per cent of total energy needs Wind: 0.11 per cent of the country – but compatible with farming for 30 per cent of total energy needs Solar: 0.05 per cent of the area of the country for 28 per cent of total energy needs Geothermal: 22 per cent of total energy needs from existing measured resources Biofuels: 2 per cent of arable land for 17 per cent of total energy needs

We could supply all our energy needs from sources that are renewable or at least sustainable over centuries. Only a tiny proportion of Australia’s land area would be needed. Wind and large-scale solar power are the most promising technologies. These would complement each other in a mix that would provide the optimal energy storage requirement. Pumped hydro using sea-water could be used for energy storage as well as molten salts in large-scale solar installations. The molten salt installations can provide backup in the event

of low solar input by heating the salts with power from biomass and waste products. Some transport would be electrified while some could be supplied from liquid fuels. Geothermal power would be an important contributor. Many of these technologies are available now. We could make a very good start on them by 2020. But which is the priority and the most practical? The wind power industry is already up and going and the main obstacle to extensive wind power is public acceptance. We need to put in place reasonable controls, make sure that there is proper consultation and local participation, as in the Hepburn Wind Park Co-operative, in the Daylesford area in Victoria. Our priority should now be to raise largescale solar with molten salt storage to the same level. At present, each power station is a one-off – a sure way to keep the price high. Incentives are required for companies to invest on a large scale. I suggest the Liberty Ship approach. Between 1941 and 1945, the United States built 2751 Liberty Ships to replace the depleted Allied merchant fleet. The first ship took 230 days to build but this dropped to an average of 42 days. An ongoing contract to build a large number of solar power installations would attract the required resources; designs already exist and an example has been built in Spain. There is so far no significant opposition to solar power as there is with wind. It is silent and not as visually intrusive. There is a role for a mix of energy sources since they complement each other and there is an optimal mix, which must include energy storage, to give the lowest cost solution.

People

06 Ethics Craig Prebble

ustainability is a moral issue that is global rather than confined to a community or region. As such we can think of it as a moral singularity, a point at which our ‘business as usual’ moral norms break down and no longer hold good, just as the atomic bombs in 1945 have punctured the world’s moral fabric. There are two aspects to this moral singularity. Firstly, we have already seen ‘the end of nature’. Because of global climate change, we can no longer speak of there being ‘wild nature’ anywhere, that is, nature untouched by human hand. As Bill McKibben wrote in The End of Nature in 1989, humans have ‘overpowered in a century the processes that have been slowly evolving and changing of their own accord since the earth was born’. Secondly, we now live with a new burden of global responsibility for our actions. The concept of an ecological footprint vividly presents each of us with a planetary equivalent: ‘If everyone lived as I do’. The lifestyles of most Australians, for example, far exceed earth’s capacity to sustain. The call to action is: ‘Think globally, act locally’. But thinking globally is not only difficult, it runs counter to human experience for the last 200,000 years. If the

scientist James Lovelock has convinced many that the earth is a self-regulating, complex system, how deeply is this vision of Gaia as a fragile and finite system really sinking in? In our predicament, facing this singularity, should we devise a totally new ethical system? Should we renounce all past and present moral theories as having failed us? Possibly. But sustainable ethics allow for a creative recycling of theories that can ‘close the loop’ that lets us evade our global responsibility.

The Circle Of Moral Concern Traditionally, ethical theory describes a moral circle as an area encompassing those whom we accord moral considerability. Environmental philosophy, informed by the science of ecology, has advocated for extending the scope of moral considerability to: a) all individual living things; b) a community of life-forms; c) collective entities, such as a species or an ecosystem; or d) nothing short of Gaia Herself. In any case, what does the circle itself say about us? The singularity of humans acting not only in but also on the world singles us out as

Ethics

a community of moral agents. We now form a global citizenry. In terms of considerability, then, there are three moral challenges to be met.

Cosmopolitan The citizen should be cosmopolitan. Here, this term refers to the idea that the peoples of all nations belong to a single moral community. Whatever local allegiances we may have, we are part of a global village and ought to be good villagers. Before the forming of virtual communities on the internet, theologian Karl Barth (1886â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1968) spoke of the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;distant neighbourâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the foreigner with whom we share the planet, along with our nearer compatriots.

Ecological The sustainable citizen should also be ecological. We should understand ourselves to be but one species, among myriad others, within ecosystems that together comprise an integrated biosphere. But this way of thinking also goes against the cognitive grain. The default tendency of thought is still to see ourselves as the central and most important species.

Intergenerational The sustainable citizen should be intergenerational, and show concern for those who come after. This has become crucial due to the delayed effects of present actions, such as carbon forcing that will raise temperatures

Extending the circle of moral concern.

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decades into the future, even if we reduce our greenhouse gases (GHGs) today. If we can say that our young people today have the right to a good future, can we also say that an unborn person also has this right? The legal philosopher Richard Hiskes argues for a ‘human right to a green future’, specifically an ‘environmental entitlement to clean air, water, and soil’. He argues, however, that we can only recognise this right for the descendants of our own community. But what about the global community? The sustainable citizen must do, and must be, better than that.

The Virtuous Circle Of Ethics Do I have to be cosmopolitan, ecological and intergenerational? Why? These are questions of normative ethics – the ethics that prescribe behaviour and stipulate what one ought to do. In the philosophical tradition, there are three main types of normative theories: deontological theories (duty-based, for short) consequentialist theories (outcome-based) and virtue theories (character-based). I will outline each type as it relates to sustainability ethics.

Duties Duty-based theories identify our rights and duties as encapsulated in moral rules. These rules are obligatory and must be obeyed irrespective of the value of their consequences. But even if duties and rights theories work for humans, they will not necessarily work when we consider non-human entities. An animal or an ecosystem is not a moral agent, bound with us in bonds of reciprocity. A more fundamental

drawback lies in seeing moral problems in terms of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Many moral problems involve choosing between the ‘lesser of two evils’ or between different actions that each have good arguments in their favour. It would not be permissible, according to a strict ‘duty to not destroy’, to destroy something of lesser value (say, a pest species) in order to save something of greater value (such as a native species). But environmental dilemmas often demand that we make such choices. Finally, duty theories stake out the minimal requirements only. A duty tells us that to do any less is blameworthy. It is silent about those actions that are morally good to do without it being bad not to do them.

Outcomes Outcome-based ethics has recently been recycled by philosophers. Australian Peter Singer opts for a modified form called preference utilitarianism. Here, the good in any situation is that which leads to the greatest net satisfaction of preferences, namely, the preferences satisfied minus the preferences unsatisfied. Singer simply extends moral concern beyond humans to include, for example, animals, arguing for impartiality and consistency. But what ‘preferences’ can we attribute to, say, a tree or an ecosystem or a species? It seems a stretch. Outcome-based theories do have strengths: they are adaptable and they can readily tackle the fine details of moral quandaries. But what if the consequences are not fully known or not fully foreseeable due to uncertainty? This is the case with the challenge of climate change.

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Virtues The third type of normative theory, and arguably the oldest, virtue ethics, has also been recycled in recent decades. It asks the key question: ‘What kind of person should I be?’ A virtue is a disposition to behave in a certain way where this is a character trait considered to be morally excellent. This was given its classical formulation by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. He considers the point of all virtue to be eudaimonia, a word best translated as ‘human flourishing’. We flourish when our lives are aligned with what is good for us, so that we behave well and we fare well. Virtues refer you not to immediate selfinterest but to your life. Our virtues function as moral habits that stake out the parameters of what it is good to do. Crucially, in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines virtue as ‘a state of character involving choice’, rather than obedience to a rule or the operation of a calculus of outcomes. It wasn’t a rule-based or outcome-based argument that ended slavery. It was moral sentiments and society’s questioning of its own values. It ended when people said in their hearts, ‘I am simply not the kind of person who could bear to own a slave, or who will condone slavery.’ What if, in practice, we can’t be motivated to extend the circle of moral concern? In what sense is the claim that we should extend it morally binding? Considering outcomes can help where we need compromise or harm minimisation but outcomes can be difficult or even impossible to determine. What can guide us then? Both outcome-based and duty-based

Switching off can be habit-forming, and character-building.

theories tend to run into a limit when it comes to future generations, and also when trying to consider nature separately from human interests and needs. For this reason, virtue ethics is necessary if we are to respond to the moral singularity. In this way, the three types of normative ethics oscillate in a ‘virtuous circle’, reinforcing their respective merits and optimising their applications. Consider the components of a moral action: Component: Example: a value ‘old-growth forests are beautiful’, or ‘they are vital carbon sinks’, etc. an action/behaviour ‘trying to save an old-growth forest’ your intention ‘to actually save that old growth forest’ your motive ‘saving it for its intrinsic value’, or ‘so as to receive the praise of others’, etc. the outcome ‘the forest is saved’, or ‘parts of it are saved’, or ‘it is all clearfelled’ a rule ‘you ought always (at least try to) save old-growth forests’

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Cultivate virtues and develop your character in order to flourish.

INTENTIONS & MOTIVES

virtue ethics

outcome-based ethics

Do what results in the best, or least worst, outcomes. RULES

OUTCOMES

Conform to a moral law: do your duty and respect rights.

duty-based ethics The virtuous circle: generating ‘oughts’ for sustainable ethics.

For duty-based ethics, if the rule is upheld, the outcomes will look after themselves. What good are motives in the absence of a rule to guide your decision to act? For outcome-based ethics, the intention is to maximise the outcome. What good are good motives, or the following of a rule, if they only lead us to a poor outcome? Virtue ethics, however, is able to harmonise intention and motive. It asks: ‘What does it say about you as a person if your motives are unvirtuous?’ The virtues are therefore necessary in order to provoke behaviour change subsequent to a value change. This is paramount when we consider the gap between endorsing sustainability values and the behaviour that would put these into action.

Sustainable Virtues So what are the virtues that promote sustainability? Ronald Sandler in 2007 offered a useful typology of 26 virtues within five categories. And Louke van Wensveen’s survey in 2000 compiled a seemingly exhaustive catalogue of some 189 ecological virtues, plus 174 vices. She claims that she has ‘yet to come across a piece of ecologically sensitive philosophy, theology, or ethics that does not in some way incorporate virtue language’. This can be shown, I believe, when we unpack the processes of virtuous reasoning. I follow Aristotle in identifying not only moral virtues but also intellectual virtues. The voice of conscience can be gagged but never

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silenced: you ought to dispose of litter properly. So too, the call to get things right is one we can’t help but hear: 2 + 2 ought to make 4. Intellectual virtues are extremely important for sustainability ethics. Take the example of climate change science. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would have us pursue a course of GHG mitigation. Yet the science is complex. There is, however, a norm in operation that compels us to be as informed as we can be about the science, or at least to recognise a convergence towards consensus on the science. The inferences we make should then be consistent. If the earth is warming, and anthropogenic GHGs are largely responsible, then we ought to try to reduce these. I argue that the norms of justice are the link between the intellectual virtues and the moral

virtues. This is because the principle of equality translates into both consistency of thinking and consistency of behaving. It would be unjust to accept the urgency of greenhouse gas mitigation and then expect someone else, or some other nation, to do something about it. Here, justice is not a function of positing rights and corresponding duties. Rather, it’s an influence directly on one’s character. Any new environmental rights, then, will need the aid of new virtues if they are to be respected and upheld. But there are two dilemmas that seem to create an impasse here. The ‘tragedy of the commons’ can occur whenever there is a resource that is commonly shared but not owned by anybody. The classic case is of common grazing land that is shared by farmers: each farmer is tempted to increase the size of his/her own herd, to make more money;

NORMS of knowledge eg ‘Get informed.’

NORMS of moral value eg ‘Respect and love what is good.’

beliefs ‘I think that things are such-and-such.’

values and tastes ‘I like this. I admire this.’

‘Think well.’

intellectual virtues

INTENTIONS EMOTIONS MOTIVES

moral virtues

character ‘Be a person who does good and lives well.’

thinking ‘Be a person whose thinking is justified.’

NORMS of inference eg ‘Be consistent.’

‘Act well.’

NORMS of justice eg ‘Treat equal cases equally.’

NORMS of disposition eg ‘Be frugal.’

Moral virtues, intellectual virtues, and the norms.

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Ethics

but this collectively overgrazes the land for everyone. Self-interest leads to a poor outcome for all. The moral singularity we face is a tragedy of the ‘global commons’, namely our air, water and soil. To the extent that everyone freely but unsustainably uses these, they are placed at critical risk. Secondly, there is the problem of the ‘free rider’. If people en masse do decide to act better by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, any given individual might opt out and yet still receive the benefits – get a free ride. This tends to undermine the goodwill of the group. In the international context, we have seen how this can undermine efforts to institute a multilateral mitigation treaty.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 The lesson of the tragedy of the commons is the paradox that self-interest is not always served by each of us directly seeking our own interests. Self-transcending concern can be promoted by cultivating the virtues. If you try to be altruistic in all contexts, and put aside your own interests even if no one is doing likewise, you risk being a martyr and a mug. Sometimes, though, we may need to take that risk in order to raise the moral tone and to inspire others, including free riders. Virtue ethics can account for this, and it can show that this inspiration can integrate the individual’s intentions and motives while promoting a moral community that will maximise each individual’s welfare. In this way, the virtues are a public good and they promote general flourishing. It’s the ethical obligation of national leaders to lead for the good of the global village on

issues such as climate change. But until they come to that consensus there are nonetheless actions that sustainable citizens can take right now, in Australia, to help sharpen our moral vision for the future. In meeting the challenge of the moral singularity of sustainability, a key action is to develop and introduce a subject of ‘Sustainability Ethics’ into secondary schools. This subject would explore sustainability topics from an ethics perspective and with a focus on the role of virtues. There are programs of ‘ethics education’ in schools – for example, the work of the James Ethics Centre in NSW – which might cover the moral virtues and how they function. And ‘critical thinking’, which develops the intellectual virtues, has long been on the list of aims across the curriculum, though seldom taught as a stand-alone subject. ‘Sustainability Ethics’ would be different, and novel in its way of returning to first principles. If intellectual virtues could be coupled with moral virtues, by means of the dual schema derived from Aristotle, this could integrate the learning of content in the wider curriculum – such as the sciences, business subjects and humanities – with the development of character. ‘Sustainability Ethics’ for year 10 or 11 students (15–17 year olds) could be introduced at a single school as a case-study before being trialled and expanded. CSIRO’s CarbonKids initiative is an example of how this might spread. The integrative nature of the proposal – intellectual and moral virtues explored in a cross-curricular setting and with real world sustainability examples – means that any existing environmental programs, such as

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the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI), could readily incorporate the subject. If all we pass on to future generations are ossified rules or cold calculations of utility, how sustainable is our moral legacy? The greatest gift we could bestow on those who will inherit the consequences of our present unsustainable habits might be a new tradition of virtues: moral habits that both foster sustainability and bolster a sustainable ethics, a moral system that future generations can, in turn, renew. One generation plants the trees; another gets the shade. Keep a green tree in your heart, and perhaps a singing bird will come. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Chinese proverb

07 Culture Audrey Yue and Rimi Khan

ulture has recently been considered the ‘fourth pillar’ of sustainability that connects the social, economic and environmental realms. The arts, in particular, is an important tool for imparting information, empowering the community and encouraging transformation. This chapter briefly surveys some examples of arts and cultural programs that pursue ‘cultural vitality’ and, in doing so, highlights the relationship between culture and environmental conceptions of sustainability. The chapter then turns to broader notions of sustainability, which encompass ‘culture’ both as an end in itself and as a means of building capacities. To promote the value of culture in discussions about sustainability, this chapter proposes the

development of cultural indicator frameworks. These possibilities are demonstrated with the example of the City of Whittlesea – a local government area in Victoria, Australia, which emphasises the role of cultural programs in contributing to social, environmental and economic capacities, as well as enabling an inclusive and vital community life.

Cultural Vitality, the Arts and Sustainability As the cornerstone of arts and cultural development projects, cultural vitality uses culture to generate a sense of belonging, or raise awareness about the issues and challenges involved in sustainable development and

What is culture? In 2001, Jon Hawkes, an Australia-based cultural policy commentator, remarked that ‘culture’ refers to ‘the social production and transmission of identities, knowledge, beliefs, values, attitudes and understanding; as well as the way of life, including customs, codes and manners, dress, cuisine, language, arts, technology, religion and rituals; norms and regulations of behaviour, traditions and institutions. There, culture is both the medium and the message – the inherent values, means and the results of social expression.’ In UNESCO’s 2009 report on cultural diversity, ‘culture’ is also defined broadly as a ‘part of everyday life, reflected in many forms of human activity and expression, and involving beliefs, attitudes and practices including all forms of artistic and creative expression’.

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natural management. Cultural vitality is nurtured by focusing on the wellbeing, creativity and diversity produced by everyday forms of community interaction and involvement; and in doing so, contributes to social equity, environmental responsibility and economic viability, and is essential to a healthy and sustainable society. SunRise 21 and CERES provide examples:

SunRise 21 (Sunraysiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Regional Initiative for a Sustainable Economy) In the 1990s, SunRise 21 was an innovative example of sustainable development fostered through integrating the arts, business and environment. Based in northern Victoria, where the degradation of land and water has threatened the viability of industries and the social fabric of a community, SunRise 21 was set up as a partnership between the Mildura Arts Centre, Murray-Darling Basin Freshwater Research Centre, CSIRO, and the Department of Primary Industries and Energy. It created an â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Artists in Industryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; program that developed landscape installations, musical theatre and multimedia exhibitions exploring knowledge about the land, water, women in farming, and histories of irrigation and engineering. These diverse arts practices celebrated agriculture practices, sparked discussions in the community, generated a national debate about the importance of sustainability and responsible resource management, and functioned as effective tools for communication, increased critical engagement and positive attitudinal change amongst individual and stakeholder participants.

CERES (Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies) In the 2000s, a longstanding communitybased program in the inner-Melbourne suburb of East Brunswick, CERES, was redeveloped as a five-hectare site of interactive environmental and cultural displays, permaculture gardens, farm animals, an indigenous nursery, a cafe, restaurant, organic market and stage. CERES stages a variety of arts festivals including the annual Festival of the Sacred Kingfisher as its centerpiece. Festival funding comes from key arts agencies such as Australia Council of the Arts, Arts Victoria, Festivals Australia, Parks Victoria and VicHealth. Community support for CERES includes organisations such as Friends of the Earth, Permaculture Melbourne, Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society. As a meeting hub of the environmental, educational and multicultural, CERES approaches sustainability through a shared sense of place where material and symbolic exchanges take place through the interaction of diverse stakeholders. It has renewed the degradation of a neighbouring habitat that encouraged the return of migratory birds and fostered a sustainable relationship of people with nature. It uses the cultural facilities and programs offered at the site to create awareness of these environmental issues, fosters a sense of belonging to the physical landscape, and facilitates a convivial and open forum for discussing environmentally pertinent issues.

Culture

The CERES Permaculture Nursery, Brunswick. Source: Rimi Khan.

Measuring Sustainability: the Role of Cultural Citizenship The arts is an important vehicle for information transfer, community mobilisation and empowerment. Arts education and practice can generate debate, stimulate advocacy and encourage innovation. This diverse set of outcomes has led to calls for better systems of measurement and advocacy for arts and cultural programs. In recent years, arts impact studies have put the spotlight on the economic value of culture. This has prompted government agencies to develop cultural measurement tools to map the creative sector of the economy. However, this emphasis on the economic has been accompanied by the need to defend the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;public valueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of culture (in the UK) or the role of multiculturalism as a feature of creative

diversity (in Canada and New Zealand). In Australia, economic and social models of culture have been combined to consider not only financial and cultural values, but also social engagement. While cultural economics models follow a commodity-centered approach to the arts, cultural analysts such as Chris Madden and Nancy Duxbury suggest cultural indicators can help promote the public value of the arts and the role it can play in social cohesion. It is along these lines that we suggest cultural indicators have a crucial role in broad measures of sustainability. Cultural indicators can include both quantitative and qualitative data. Our recent work in the field seeks to incorporate rich, ethnographic information about a communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

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cultural interests. Unlike the descriptive nature of statistics, indicators enable more effective arts advocacy, as well as providing a robust evidencebase for strategic planning and policy-making around sustainability. Nancy Duxbury’s work has shown that for indicators to be most meaningful, they should be developed at local levels focusing on a people-centred approach to community wellbeing. It is here that ‘cultural vitality’ and ‘cultural citizenship’ have emerged as key measures within a framework of cultural indicators. The results of these impact studies are not surprising. Discussions about sustainable development are embedded in the core values of justice and equality. An ideal sustainability measure would be an interactive measure of how long and how well a certain feature of the quality of health or health of a natural system could maintain itself. Such a measure would require a clear definition of the capacity of a system, region or community to continue without degrading the environment while sustaining human and biological life at a certain healthy level. Against these measures, cultural vitality – and its processes of cultural citizenship – are central to sustainability.

Cultural Vitality The Washington-based Urban Institute’s Arts and Culture Indicators in Community Building Project has developed a comprehensive definition of cultural vitality and tools for how to measure it. Maria Jackson and her team suggest that ‘cultural vitality’ refers to ‘the range of cultural assets and activity people

Cultural citizenship Cultural citizenship, the process of making claims to cultural rights through civic engagement, is central to the sustainability movement. In cultural indicator projects, cultural citizenship has become a new rubric to encapsulate the discourses of vitality, grassroots democracy, wellbeing and quality of life. Cultural citizenship focuses on cultural expression, production and participation as key avenues through which citizenship develops and lives. It stresses the importance of considering not just inputs and outputs, but also outcomes. around the country register as significant. Specifically…cultural vitality [is defined] as evidence of creating, disseminating, validating, and supporting arts and culture as a dimension of everyday life in communities.’ Central to this understanding of cultural vitality is an inclusive and flexible notion of what constitutes ‘cultural participation’. Applying this framework to the creative economy of Massachusetts, the Institute shows how the mixed model of profit, non-profits and community arts activities add to the cultural, economic and environmental vibrancy of the region. As Colin Mercer, a Canadian-based cultural policy theorist notes, the political significance of culture lies in ‘constructing, understanding – and sometimes contesting – versions of citizenship and enhancing our definitions and practices of citizenship beyond the formal and legal definitions’. Community indicator projects present an opportunity to

Culture

A new housing development in South Morang, in the City of Whittlesea. Source: Rimi Khan

highlight these relationships and dynamics, and integrate cultural citizenship considerations in local knowledge and governance systems. The following case study of the City of Whittlesea in a growth corridor of Melbourne exemplifies these objectives:

Culture and Sustainability in the City of Whittlesea The City of Whittlesea is known in Australia as an ‘interface city’. Located approximately 20km outside of central Melbourne, it lies on the cusp of the northern suburbs and semirural Victoria. Geographically one of the largest municipalities in greater Melbourne, it is also one of the most culturally diverse, with more than half of its residents coming from culturally diverse backgrounds. These interface cities are also among the fastest growing local government areas in Australia and face

a very specific cultural policy challenge: how to accommodate high population growth and increasing cultural diversity, given the historical lack of cultural infrastructure. The City of Whittlesea’s Community Cultural Development department approaches this issue by providing a framework that addresses sustainability and is responsive to shifting population dynamics. Within this department, ‘culture’ is defined broadly, enabling a range of artistic, civic and communal forms of participation and expression. The department comprises six portfolios: festivals and events; cultural heritage; community development and performance; cultural collections; a multicultural unit; and an Aboriginal liaison unit. It offers a suite of arts and cultural programs that emphasise the value of culture as both an end in itself, as well as culture’s value in promoting conviviality, capacitybuilding, and facilitating social capital and

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civic participation. Both strategies reflect an understanding of the diverse forms that cultural participation takes and the manifold outcomes of such participation. The First Impressions Youth Theatre is an example of an arts program that facilitates sustainability through the development of both cultural vitality and citizenship. This youth theatre program was established in 1999 and has since been involved in a vast number of projects and performances. Productions have ranged from intimate presentations to less than 10 people, to major shows at the annual City of Whittlesea community festival, for audiences of up to 10,000 people. Recent productions have included a performance at a skate-park using multimedia projections called Read the News Today…Oh Boy, as well as a performance for the 2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Significantly, over the years the program has moved from being simply a theatre-training program, aimed at equipping its participants with basic performance skills, to a respected local theatre group, experimenting with genre and thematic content. The First Impressions Youth Theatre exemplifies the role of cultural participation in contributing to community sustainability. The program contributes directly to a wide set of participant skills such as teamwork, cooperative work practices and problemsolving. It also has a particularly strong role in developing creative skills such as acting and playwriting: it offers a workshop program that provides training and mentoring from professional artists in areas as diverse as setbuilding, physical theatre, film and multimedia, 62

comedy, fire sculpture and clowning. Through the use of drama for self-expression the program also increases participants’ confidence levels. For some participants this has contributed to developing capacity for leadership and initiative, as well as a collective capacity to be a self-organising group. This is related to a more general sense of ownership that is encouraged within the group and the program’s facilitators. Many of the First Impressions Youth Theatre’s productions are concerned with issues of difference, identity and diversity. Such themes encourage the development of progressive, cosmopolitan capacities among young participants. This also contributes to the cultural capital of participants, by increasing their knowledge of a range of cultural forms and providing them with the tools to eventually participate in the cultural economy as professional artists. More generally, the group provides a forum for young people to make new friends and strengthen their personal social networks. The development of this social capital is particularly important for some participants who have been at risk of isolation or exclusion from the school system. In this respect, the openness of the group is important. There are no specific criteria or prerequisites for inclusion in the group and admission is free of charge. The youth theatre is one example of a range of arts and cultural programs, which contribute to social and cultural sustainability by encouraging cultural participation and the expression of diversity. The outcomes of these programs are complex and multifaceted; while it is tempting to prescribe what the impacts of

Culture

such cultural participation should be, it is worth noting that such impacts are highly specific to the individuals, sites and cultural forms, and have a range of implications for sustainability. It is by allowing people to participate in culture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; whatever form that participation may take â&#x20AC;&#x201C; through a framework which supports a diversity of expressions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; that individual and communal capacities that further cultural sustainability are developed.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 We need to better understand the specific outcomes for sustainability of participation in cultural programs. As the examples above highlight, these outcomes depend on local context. Cultural programs have the potential to build capacities to participate in the environmental, economic and social spheres. They also contribute to the autonomy of community groups and foster belonging. Emphasising the place of culture within these processes is a crucial step in ensuring sustainability. One way to achieve this is for arts policy makers at all government levels, and arts programs, to develop better frameworks for measuring the role of culture in cultivating sustainability: eg, by using locally specific cultural indicators that will be relevant to, and benefit, the community.

08 Awareness and Behaviour Angela Paladino

o create a sustainable society, consumers need to change and governments need to encourage them to change. But as we become more aware of our impact on the environment, we do not necessarily change our attitudes and behaviours. Why, despite mounting evidence, does the nature of awareness change? This chapter reviews industries that have made the biggest consumer shifts, looks at mechanisms used to prompt these shifts (such as brands and labels) and suggests ways to create a sustainable society.

Changing Awareness, Attitudes and Behaviours Using goods that have a minimal impact on the environment is becoming increasingly important. Heightened awareness of this often follows major weather events such as tropical storms, devastating floods, severe droughts and so on. In the past, consumers have reacted to such events with complacency and almost ambivalence; while a minority felt that such events could trigger a green revolution, the vast majority felt that the problem was too big for them to tackle and that they were not empowered to do so. Environmental concern has escalated in the last decade, and brought about changes

in values and attitudes, as discovered by Paladino and Baggiere (2008) and Smith and Paladino (2010). As environmental problems and consumer awareness conflate, consumers are inclined to take more responsibility and change their daily behaviour to reduce environmental damage by recycling and purchasing ecologically sound products, as shown by researchers such as Montgomery and Stone (2009), and Paladino (2005). Demand for sustainable goods is growing. Consider, for example, the markets in hybrid cars, organic foods or renewable energy. Each has been pioneered by leading organisations that have built reputations for environmental conservation (eg, Toyota Corporation), or a range of smaller providers represented by visible suppliers (eg, Macro Foods at Woolworths for organics, and Origin Energy and AGL for renewable energy). In understanding consumption in these markets, we are able to gain a sense of the key determinants of green consumption. When reviewing organic market research, Smith and Paladino (2010) found a number of attributes rank as important influencers of people’s attitudes. The opinion of important people in one’s life – such as family, friends or peers – as well

Awareness and Behaviour

Attitudes

Knowledge

Subjective norms

Environmental concern

Intentions

Attitudes

Subjective norms

Familiarity

Health consciousness

Quality a Quality Qu lity

Top: Key influencers of environmental attitudes for Australian consumers (Subjective norms are the influence of family, friends and experts). Bottom: Key influencers of intentions to buy green for Australian consumers.

as familiarity are very important variables for the organic food market. They influence attitudes through to intentions and purchasing behaviour (see box on the next page). People delay or avoid purchasing organic food where it is not easily available, because of poor performance and reliability, high cost, a lack of transparency over service benefits, mistrust in the brand and an unknown environmental impact. Other barriers to purchasing are unclear labelling, lack of education to increase awareness and interest, and lack of consumer recognition (to make them â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;feel goodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;). When it comes to renewable energy, peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attitudes are also influenced by their family, friends and experts. However, many

more factors influence intentions directly and indirectly. The following rankings have emerged as significant: (1) willingness to pay a premium; (2) attitudes; (3) green power awareness; (4) green participation; (5) altruism; (6) subjective norms and (7) knowledge. Renewable energy consumers are very sensitive to price, which suggests that the lack of visible benefit of renewable energy may be important. Participation in green initiatives is also significant, suggesting that the influence of neighbours and friends is again powerful. We can see that knowledge, attitudes, norms, familiarity/green participation and intentions are all pertinent to environmentally sound purchases. As the consumption of a

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particular type of electricity is not visible to outsiders, consumers are less likely to be concerned about what others think about their consumption patterns. In this market, factors that stop consumers purchasing and switching suppliers include: lock-in, fixedterm contracts; situational factors, lifestyles and the excessive peak rates; set-up costs and usage risks; perception that technologies have ‘not been proven’, which presents a functional (perceived lack of reliability) and financial risk to consumers, that they are not willing to bear; and lack of assistance with installation, use and maintenance of apparatus such as solar panels. ‘Greenwashing’, or misleading consumers through the use of false green claims, also played a large role in disenchanting consumers in the 1990s and slowed the uptake of sustainable products. Greenwashing has been somewhat minimised today by a number of factors including increased product quality, government legislation and industry standards,

and clever marketing that highlights long-term cost savings to consumers. Examples such as long-life light bulbs and fuel savings gained by driving hybrid vehicles, have contributed to the acceleration of this uptake.

Towards a Sustainable Society Overall, the findings of various studies over a number of years suggest that consumers are changing, but the pace of change is slow. Studies show the emergence of two groups of consumers: those who feel that they can make an individual difference and those who feel that everyone must contribute to alleviate the environmental degradation that we all create. Generally, consumers want to be educated, and seek independent and objective information. If consumers feel that the problem of environmental degradation is too large to solve, they will not attempt to change their behaviour, believing any such effort to be futile. However, when they are guided on specific, feasible and achievable

Buying organic Increasing consumer concern for health and environment has resulted in increased attention for the purchase and consumption of organic food, as demonstrated by Smith and Paladino. This has driven an increase in organic research, especially as marketers seek to understand motivations behind consumer purchases of organic goods. This study showed strong support for the relationship between organic knowledge, subjective norms and environmental concern on organic attitudes. While health consciousness, quality, subjective norms and familiarity influenced purchase intentions, familiarity was the only variable found to exhibit a significant relationship with organic purchase behaviour. Image provided by Biological Farmer’s Association (BFA).

Awareness and Behaviour

Renewable electricity: sparking debate Paladino and Baggiere showed that the purchase of sustainable electricity can be influenced by environmental knowledge, altruism, environmental concern, involvement in electricity purchases and friends. The study suggests that marketers should seek to increase the personal importance of a product to appeal to consumers’ environmental concern and altruism, increase consumers’ level of environmental knowledge and encourage word-of-mouth communications in order to increase the adoption of renewable energy. Consumers are becoming increasingly involved in their electricity purchase. The study indicates that consumers have long awaited objective information to help them make informed decisions, such as independent, unbiased and simple information on the environmental impact of each method of electricity generation (see chapter 6). Government leadership will also provide an incentive for consumers to act if people feel that everyone is contributing to the avoidance of environmental degradation. Sharing information between consumers and significant others also provides an impetus for change; consumers may switch to what their friends are using. Finally, it is important that energy providers also build a trustworthy reputation for themselves. Trust in energy providers can motivate consumers to purchase sustainable electricity.

actions that would assist with the prevention of environmental degradation – such as switching off lights and putting appliances on standby to reduce carbon emissions – consumers became much more amenable to change. We are well aware that behaviours vary, depending on context and circumstance. Similarly, the mismatch between attitudes, intentions and behaviours directly stems from context and circumstances. However, research also demonstrates that we are more likely to be able to predict behaviours if a specific attitude is favourably aligned towards the comparable behaviour. There is a consistency in attitudinal research that enables us to recommend some roads towards more sustainable behaviour awareness and change.

The Role of Price Consumers are not likely to embrace an alternative product if it comes at a premium. However, studies demonstrate that people are willing to pay more for products that provide key benefits not otherwise obtained from other suppliers. While sustainability is an essential purchase criterion, the consumer often evaluates this after price and quality. Companies must provide quality products that show a point of difference, and demonstrate environmental benefit in their production and use that appeals to consumers. Consumers must use price as a signal of quality, question the legitimacy of sustainable products and reward environmental beacons with their support.

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In the know: reviewing the role and effectiveness of labelling and certification There is a lack of consistency and much confusion between labels, often even within the same sector, which means that many consumers don’t feel like they are being adequately informed. As such, the role of eco-labels becomes increasingly important. The organic food industry is a victim of this.

The energy rating label represents one of the most effective forms of simple and accurate energy saving information for consumers. Image provided by Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Research shows that approximately 50 per cent of consumers consider organic labelling to be unreliable (Smith and Paladino, 2010). This level of mistrust makes it more difficult for consumers to identify ‘fakes’ and, in turn, will negatively affect their purchases of organic goods. To address these concerns, we need to move towards national and international standards regarding the environmental impact of diverse product categories. Simplified labelling would also play a role.

Terrachoice has helped people to understand the notion of greenwash using its seven sins typology. Image used with permission from Terrachoice.

Such a move has been the object of contentious debate in Australia, with the government deciding in December 2011 not to move forward with the adoption of traffic light labelling for food. This labelling system sought to provide quick and simple information for consumers to maximise the nutrition of their purchase. Evidence demonstrates that consumers don’t read detailed information, including, for example, the contents of nutrition labels on food packaging. Traffic light labelling sought to overcome this. However, more modifications are required before such a labelling system becomes approved by the government, not only in Australia but also in Europe (Sacks, 2011; Packham, 2011). This debate demonstrates the importance of labelling as a mechanism of behavioural change. *The first government-certified eco-label was The Blue Angel, started by the German government in 1978 and awarded by an independent jury to products that are environmentally friendlier than others serving the same use. Nowadays it is applied to about 11,500 products and services; see: www.ecolabelindex.com.

Awareness and Behaviour

The Role of Information Consumers are increasingly aware that their purchases impact on the environment, and are receptive to pertinent information. This information is of greater benefit to environmentally concerned, altruistic consumers as they are least likely to be price sensitive. Research also indicates that while consumers do not wish to be overloaded with information, they do want to be accurately informed about environmental problems, the impact of their behaviours on environmental degradation and how they can make feasible changes to their behaviours. Consumers need to feel that they have control over the changes that they make. Therefore, informing them of the environmental impact of each purchase is critical. Companies must provide unbiased, simple information to minimise misperceptions and build trust. The introduction of sustainable product standards will simplify information for consumers, assisting them in making attitudinal and behavioural changes. Consumers must demand unambiguous and timely information so they can make better-informed choices.

The Importance of Sharing The sharing of information between consumers and significant others also provides an impetus for change in that people may switch to what their friends are using â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Â or what a person they aspire to be like is using. Research shows strong, consistent results that demonstrate the driving role of subjective norms and interpersonal influence.

Companies should enlist experts or people with similar values who will encourage consumers to pay attention. Furthermore, it can prompt people to discuss arising issues with friends, family and peers, increasing the dissemination of information. Consumers should share new information with friends, family and peers. Discussing environmental issues and purchases helps to make people more mindful of their purchases.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Consumer attitudes and consumption are changing, and the degree of change varies between consumers in diverse industries. However, there is one element of consistency that threads through all sectors: the urgent need for concise, simple and understandable information for consumers. To activate change in attitudes and consumption, consumers require digestible information that is unbiased and trustworthy. The bulk of this responsibility lies with government and industry bodies. They need to provide consumers with the tools to recognise sustainable products as viable alternatives, and enable decision-making through the use of mandatory cues and stimulus such as labels and certifications. This should be supported by an accompanying publicity campaign to draw consumer attention to the role of these labels. It would not only simplify the process of product evaluation for consumers but present sustainable products as attractive options in the fast-changing consumer market.

09 Local Matters Matter Kate Auty

nyone who works on environmental, scientific and/or engineering projects knows that incorporating ‘the local’ is fundamentalwhentryingtoachievesustainability. Many past failures in environmental science, community development and aid work inform this view, where theories have been put into practice without sufficient local consultation. We need to actively seek out local knowledge and combine it with scientific findings in order to carve out successful, sustainable responses to environmental challenges. Science works to inform local understanding and yet, at its purest, it works in isolation from local issues. Subsequently it struggles for a broad, communicative appeal and dialogue. Clear communication of scientific findings is crucial for sustainably, and sharing knowledge about environmental issues is a fundamental part of this process.

As It Always Was When examining Australia’s cultural and environmental foundations, local understanding of environmental matters, as distinct from ‘scientific data’, has always had huge importance. This is evident from the earliest experiences of non-Indigenous travellers. In the early 20th

century, surveyor Alfred Canning would not have been able to carve the 1850km Canning Stock Route from Wiluna to Halls Creek without using local Aboriginal knowledge. Canning and his survey team chained and coerced Aboriginal people to lead them through vast expanses of desert from native well to well, enabling the party to map the new stock route. Their captive guides’ knowledge of the land saved the survey party from dehydration and failure. Other early white pathfinders, who are reported to have resisted the practice of chaining local Aboriginal people to extract essential water knowledge, still relied heavily upon them, and exploited their store of local knowledge extensively and collaboratively. When the Woomera rocket tests were being carried out in Western Australia in the 1960s, the Martu people of the Western Desert used their knowledge of water sources in and around the Percival Lakes to evade those trying to remove them from their home-turned-testing-zone. These examples illustrate how valuable local water knowledge was. While non-Indigenous people had all manner of mechanical, technical and scientific perspectives of the times, they needed local knowledge in order to put them to good use.

Local Matters Matter

In southeast Victoria in the 1990s, the Bryant family native title claim in Gunai Kurnai country disclosed highly specific, long-standing, local Indigenous knowledge about fresh water sources on the coastal fringes, none of which was mapped in the non-Indigenous archive. The Bryant family were not of the Gunai Kurnai people but had been residents of the Aboriginal settlement at Lake Tyers until they were evicted in the 1960s as a function of what they and Aboriginal people called ‘the half-caste law’. They moved to a specific place in the coastal reserve land where Gunai Kurnai people showed them a concealed freshwater soak some distance back from the beach. The Bryant (and their now extended Gunai Kurnai) family took native title lawyers directly to this fresh water source in the 1990s, to demonstrate ongoing cultural connections. The information was particularised, localised, age-old and continuing. It was this fresh water that made the lives of the Bryants possible on the fringe of white townships. Many other examples of localised knowledge about the environment will be stored by non-Indigenous people. As Paul Carter suggests in his study of the Victorian Mallee bio-region, these stories will be of variable quality and depth, they will evoke tensions and contradictions, but they will nevertheless exist and be informative. Contextualised, these stories are ostensibly about biodiversity, water, environmental memory and ground-truthing, but they are also culturally grounded and comprise information and knowledge that we need to build sustainable futures. Local matters matter: sometimes intensely so.

As the Victorian Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, I am dedicated to local consultation in order to find out local knowledge. I believe science communication will be improved if environmental reporters incorporate localised understandings, information and knowledge as well as scientific data in discussions of environmental quality and sustainability issues. Each of these sources can contribute meaning, impressing upon us possibilities for, and alternative routes to, sustainable outcomes. The Victorian ‘State of the Environment Report’ is specifically required to include rounds of consultation with the community and its object is to both inform and incorporate citizens as well as policymakers and politicians.

A Form of Consultation In consulting with the public, we – effectively a team of five working on the ‘State of the Environment Report’ – carved the state into quadrants (very mechanical and Western) and members of my team have assumed roles compiling and collating information from the regions. Simultaneously we have been conducting a broad cities conversation, meeting with metropolitan groups and individuals as invitations and issues arise. What my staff and I have learned in the past two years as we have travelled around Victoria, speaking and listening to members of the Indigenous and non-Indigenous community about environmental issues, is that they want to be consulted; they believe they have insights to offer; they regard the information they wish

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to share as grounded in their practical daily lives, their work, and their cultural, social and leisure practices; and they think it important that the centre heeds the local and regional knowledge. It is clear that the information proffered by non-Aboriginal people does not have the same historical and cultural depth as that offered by Aboriginal people for whom this country is their only memory, but it has legitimacy and should also be referenced when reporting on the environment. Our regional consultation has involved local media presentations, public meetings, and broad-ranging question-and-answer sessions over five days in each region, with follow up as necessary. We have held numerous meetings with individuals, local organisations (both aligned and non-aligned), state and local government, and schools. People have

volunteered their time because they are interested in what we are doing and because they believe they have a contribution to make to the conversation about environmental matters. Three short examples of this attitude are in Heyfield, a timber town where the community has developed an innovative energy-saving project that is marked with coloured flags on rooflines across the whole town. At Clear Lake, the Jackman family has set aside productive land for the installation of a wetlands. The Wimmera River Improvement Committee have been developing wetlands and encouraging people to enjoy this very interesting waterway for 30 years. Across the whole range of meetings, only four people have rejected the IPCC climate science. Notwithstanding the often expressed, and concerned, view that scientists are being

Some of the Heyfield Flags team, the Jackman family Clear Lake wetlands, members of the Wimmera River Improvement Committee.

Local Matters Matter

‘rubbished’ – that has not been my experience. In fact, regional people in agricultural settings, in large and small country towns, in schools and in gender-specific groupings, have a long and respectful relationship with agricultural scientists and this appears to be the general tone of the discussions we have had. Regional people do not think that the scientific community is engaged in a massive ‘conspiracy’ to misinform them. There has been an extraordinarily enthusiastic localised take-up of the information we have provided. Among wellinformed people we have found a keen, often unsatisfied, interest in reports, journal articles, and even the development of their own networking lists. There is a great appetite for credible, authoritative information: people want a sustainable world and they want to play a part in its creation, thoughtfully and with purpose. The ‘State of the Climate Report 2010’ (CSIRO and BOM) has been actively sought out and avidly taken off tables. Our meetings made it possible for people to extend and even commence networking. I assumed that networks existed everywhere and that they were robust and well supported. This is not necessarily the case, and people need to be provided with opportunities to meet and talk around the specific questions of sustainability, environmental concerns and climate change. The level of community engagement is uneven and it can be either undeveloped or robust in the most surprising places, depending on the assumptions we may make about community cohesion. This revelation has implications for the manner and method of communicating

environmental science and sustainability issues and reinforces my view that it is important to recognise and attempt to speak to local people. Fundamentally, Victorians have expressed concern about the level of information that they can access and they say they want information that they can digest, not dense impenetrable reports full of jargon and acronyms.

A Common Language It appears to me that we have to find a common language to overcome communication difficulties in environmental reporting. We need to recognise that academic disciplines and employment contexts can produce ‘codes’ that make commentary opaque to outsiders. We have heard from all parts of Victoria about the need for better communication. At the local level the students of the Middle Kinglake Primary School (burnt down in the February 2009 fires) are amongst those who have spoken to us about better communication: they want a ‘State of the Environment Report’ that uses new technologies but also picks up on their issues – about biodiversity protection, food production and waste management (including in the National Park and the skate-park). The community has welcomed suggestions that we find ways to incorporate specific case studies in sustainability reports. Case studies, as exemplars of local practice, are instructive, engaging and can be illuminating well beyond their narrow narrative confines. The use of case studies to illuminate issues has long been a methodology used in narratives about aid and its successes and failures, and this method finds

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Practical local change Local consultations have raised other issues including enormous interest in environmentally sustainable innovation. This has been evidenced, for example, in the work of no-till farming and specific agricultural possibilities in relation to climate change. The South East Councils Climate Change Alliance (SECCCA) used a 2010 Agricultural Greenhouse Emissions Project at Koo Wee Rup to show a productivity improvement of 15 per cent, reductions in energy use of 35 per cent, and reductions of waste to landfill of 54 per cent. The Blackberry Taskforce working out of the far northeast has generated a participatory method that has now started to spread to other regions. Farmers came in from work in their overalls to talk about the success they were having in their endeavours. Blackberry control might have been the focus of their discussions but climate change and adaptation were also elevated in their minds and conversations. Local meetings provided the focal point for these discussions and community and individual action.

a ready audience amongst those about whom it reports and to whom it speaks directly. Local government is also driving change in a number of ways with its proposal for a pyrolysis plant in the Wimmera, to a shire-wide solar panel installation program organised by the Shire of Toowong (Corryong) and, across the state, the establishment of inhouse sustainability teams and State of the Environment and Sustainability Reporting. In listening to Victorians talk about their highly diverse local environmental interests, we heard some similar and divergent, placespecific, local concerns and many stories of best practice. As an indication of same-butdifferent complexity, planning is inextricably

tied to environmental sustainability issues everywhere. Planning is capable of addressing a range of very different problems such as isolation, population and urban encroachment, or access to environmental information. For example, people in Orbost have very different planning concerns to those in Mansfield. People said they continued to struggle with the lack of information available to help them make choices that favour innovation, and it was clear again that better communication and better connections with local people and organisations is necessary. I also heard from many people making environmentally sustainable choices quietly and purposefully. For instance, I visited a farm

Local Matters Matter

Stand of Bulloak protected under the ‘Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999’ together with new plantings by Project Platypus and private landowner.

where Landcare (see box on next page) was an active part of the farming enterprise and the young, next generation farmer, having returned to farm after a time away in the metropolis, took pleasure in pointing out a stand of Bulloak which had received Australian government protection status under the ‘Environment and Biodiversity Conservation Act’. Biolink zones (see box on next page) were mentioned all over the state and their importance is increasingly well understood. Wetlands that have finally received some water were being fenced and giving joy to farming families who

were pleased to surrender land for the potential biodiversity outcomes. Choices about planting regimes and crop and orchard-tree selection are being made with climate change in mind, as a function of the immediate, felt present and the projections for the future. While we have seen outcomes from personal exertions in tree planting, reductions in energy and other utility use and improved local waste management processes, the public has also spoken extensively about the social and cultural value of the environment, in respect of things as ordinary as soils and as ephemeral

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Landcare is a community-based action for caring for land. It started with a small group of farmers at St Arnaud, Victoria in 1986. There are now 4500 landcare groups across Australia. They are practising then-Premier of Victoria Joan Kirner’s idea that: ‘Community development requires that the affected community participates in the decisionmaking, identifies the challenges, develops the solutions and owns the outcome.’ Biolink zones are a categorisation of landclasses that was developed for biodiversity conservation and landscape adaptation under changing climates. The term was coined in 1992 and is based on distribution of vertebrate fauna in Australia and scenarios of their likely responses to climate change.

Dimboola Weir damaged by floodwaters.

as water and biodiversity. The destruction of the Dimboola Weir by floodwaters and the social meaning of this water resource to the community reflects a real, and yet technically/ mechanically immeasurable, understanding of the environment and its value. This care and concern for the environment played out in this same river system when the public walked with the river as it flowed for the first time in years. For non-Indigenous people the Wimmera has been a sump – a source of water for irrigation, and now it is the subject of an award-winning water conservation pipeline project. The Wimmera is a river of extraordinary localised beauty and national significance given the number and range of Aboriginal canoe and Coolamon trees along its course. Aboriginal people speak of ‘cultural flows’

Local Matters Matter

Lake Condah in southwest Victoria, showing a constructed rock wall leading back into an eel trap.

just as non-Indigenous people might reflect on social and environmental flows â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which are also â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;culturalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; in a different way. These stories and understandings will only become evident to those who turn their ear to the localised voice. It is important to hear these stories as they are an essential part of understanding the environment and its meaning, and therefore of finding ways to protect and conserve it. Just as water has been given meaning by the people who use and appreciate it in multiple ways, its ephemeral nature in the Australia landscape is also becoming better understood. It is the public as well as bird monitors, water

testers, wetland regenerators, who have drawn our attention to this, in the southwest and northwest. It seems that we are once again coming to terms with rivers and watercourses as they pass across the landscape. Water as a resource in transition can graphically and historically be understood in local settings through local discussions. Flowing on from this more nuanced understanding of water in the landscape at the local level is an incipient recognition of the uncertainty associated with climate impacts of extreme weather events. The problems associated with the major flooding in northwest

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Victoria in February 2011 were uppermost in peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s minds as our team passed from Mildura to Macedon. People sought clarity and certainty about climate change and its direct connection with such extreme events. For local people, climate change and its impacts have a poignant urgency but it was understood that there were no certain formulaic solutions and this was pondered. Recognising the cultural importance of the environment, each round of consultation has actively involved Indigenous people. They have suggested that case studies might be drawn from the Gunditjmara application for World Heritage status for the Lake Condah eel traps and wetlands. Figure 4 shows what a beautiful area this is, worthy of both legal preservation and community protection. The Yorta Yorta people have embarked on work with my office to further the understanding of the uses of the cultural mapping of land and water. People from the Wotjaboluk cultural enclave are interested in talking to university architecture faculty members to incorporate sustainable design features in potential building programs.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Localising our rounds of consultation in a highly involving and intense manner helps shed our separateness from those with whom we consult. Expertise of local presenters, the commitment of the volunteers and the localisation of their concerns can all be ear-splitting in their quiet insistence about

sustainability and the environment, about ways of valuing the environment and about methods of caring for and cultivating it. It is this insistence that I hope we will be able to capture in compiling the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;State of the Environment Report for Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and in other championing of sustainable society. Public and local interest in environmental issues is driven by an ethic of care, which has deep roots in this very localisation. This interest resists centralisation but recognises there is a place for expertise from the outside. In recognising that local matters matter, we are working towards a better understanding of the ways in which we can continue sharing knowledge about and for the environment in all its manifestations in all the spaces from the local to the central.

10 Public Wisdom Tim van Gelder

ill change to a sustainable society be wisely and pro-actively managed? Or will it be forced on us in unwelcome, disruptive and possibly catastrophic ways? Wise management will require governments at all levels to make lots of decisions, and to make them expeditiously. In this decision-making, public opinion is a critical constraint. For example, Australian roads are becoming ever more congested. There is a good case that this would be best managed by some kind of ‘user pays’ approach, with payments varying according to where and what time one drives. Yet major political parties dismiss this option, fearing a public backlash – no matter how illinformed, short-sighted or self-serving that reaction may be. Meanwhile our cities become increasingly gridlocked, with escalating economic, health and environmental costs. Simply put, unless we can improve the relationship between government decisionmaking and public opinion, we’re going to ‘hit the wall’ in numerous respects. As part of this effort, we need to develop better ways to find out what the public opinion is, ie what the public actually thinks. But what is the problem? Don’t we already

Citizens are often rationally ignorant about major issues.

know pretty much what the public thinks, from the endless stream of opinion polls? And isn’t the problem in fact that there is too much monitoring of public opinion, and that governments are too sensitive to it? It is true that public opinion, in the standard sense – what might be called the public attitude – is in oversupply. What we almost never know is the considered opinion of the public – the public wisdom.

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Public opinion rejects road use pricing to alleviate congestion in Australian cities. Source: Scott Davies, Flickr.

Public Attitude versus Public Wisdom Public opinion, as we usually understand it, is the kind of information generated by the familiar polls run by organisations such as Morgan and Gallup and delivered as fodder to the mainstream media. The public wisdom, by contrast, is the collective, considered opinion of the public, what the public as a whole would think if it were able to think seriously about the matter, ie become wellinformed, reflect carefully, and pool its thoughts into a coherent position. Thinking seriously in this way requires collective deliberation; in other words, constructive discussion and debate.

Public opinion falls a long way short of public wisdom. In When The People Speak, noted theorist of democracy James Fishkin points to a number of problems with public opinion: • Respondents are generally ill-informed; they are usually ‘rationally ignorant’ on the topic. • Individuals’ attitudes are subject to manipulation by powerful forces pursuing their own agendas: eg, major corporations resisting tax system changes. • The opinions elicited in standard polls may be artificially manufactured by the polling process itself: ie, may not reflect any real view held by the respondents but rather views shaped by that process.

Public Wisdom

To which we can add, the respondents will generally not have engaged in any serious deliberation (on their own, or with others) on the issue, and the polling process provides no opportunity for such deliberation. In short, standard opinion polls give us a distorted snapshot of the attitudes the respondents happen to have at that moment – not a fair reflection of what they (would) think about the issue. To compound matters, standard polling processes simply tabulate individual opinions. They do not synthesise or aggregate the viewpoints of the respondents into a common or collective position, as would be required for genuine ‘wisdom of the crowd’. For an example of genuine collective wisdom, consider the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These are generated by means of an elaborate process, involving much highquality deliberation, in which exceptionally well-informed scientists pool and refine their knowledge, coming up with an agreed expression of what their community as a whole believes.

Establishing the Public Wisdom Why does a safe and timely transition to sustainability require the public wisdom on sustainability issues? First, because it will help governments to make necessary decisions. The public wisdom can provide the kind of ‘mandate’ or authority a government needs to tackle divisive issues and make tough decisions, even when doing so may be going against the tide of public opinion as

measured by the polls. This potential benefit was behind Julia Gillard’s recommendation, in the 2010 election campaign, that a 150-person Citizen’s Assembly be convened to develop some common ground on climate facts and policy. Second, because on many issues the public wisdom would be the best guide to the truth of the matter. If we’re serious about making the right decision, then we must find out what the public really thinks. Consider an issue like whether we should have more large dams to better manage scarce water resources. This simple-sounding question sits on top of a complex web of issues, involving not just factual and technical matters but diverse competing interests and conflicting values. Certainly many individual experts and interest groups are highly knowledgeable about particular aspects, and their input should be given due consideration. However, such folks always have a particular perspective; they see only their part of the elephant. The wider the involvement – the more diverse and comprehensive the selection of participants – the more chance that all the relevant information can be brought to the decision, and the relevant interests and values recognised and accommodated. I’m not claiming that the public’s considered opinion is the best guide on any complex matter. Many issues clearly are matters of specialist expertise, and the general public is in no position to assess the merits of different theories. An obvious example is the science of climate change. Only the body of climate scientists has the knowledge and competence

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to settle the scientific issues. Neither laypeople individually nor the public as a whole have any business trying to make up their own minds on this topic. However, on major sustainability issues there are no individuals or special groups in a uniquely privileged position to discern the truth. These decisions are matters of interests and values as much as they are matters of knowledge or expertise, and the Australian people are the relevant authorities on what their interests and values are. The problem with the public wisdom is that we almost never know what it is. Indeed, that wisdom usually doesn’t even exist, in the sense that nothing has been done to put it together. We do have many windows into the public mind, but they’re all either ineffective (don’t

deliver public wisdom) or impractical (too cumbersome and expensive). For example, standard opinion polls, for reasons described above, don’t tell us what the public wisdom is. A large step up from standard opinion polls are well-designed surveys, such as those conducted on climate change by Joseph Reser and his colleagues. However, these surveys provide little opportunity for the respondents to engage in any sustained reflection, individually or collectively. They are just more sensitive ways of identifying the attitudes people happen to have. Ideally, such surveys would play a larger role than they currently do in the gauging and reporting on public opinion. However, they can’t identify the public wisdom in the sense described above.

Deliberative democracy in action – the Australian Citizen’s Parliament, 2009. Source: Rosemary Shapiro-Liu.

Public Wisdom

Deliberative Democracy Currently the best alternatives to standard opinion polling are those provided by the deliberative democracy movement. There are many variations, but a deliberative democratic process (DDP) typically involves the convening of a representative sample of the public – a ‘mini-public’ – to learn about and deliberate over the issues, and produce some kind of expression of their considered views. Australia has had dozens of DDPs, including the 2009 Citizen’s Parliament; the proposed Citizen’s Assembly mentioned previously would have been another example. Australia would benefit greatly if DDPs were held much more often, and if their results were more influential in major decisions. However, deliberative democracy, in its standard form at least, can’t meet the need to deliver the collective wisdom for the purpose of guiding timely decision-making on major sustainability issues. They are too few, slow to set up, and expensive.

What Do We Need? If the transition to sustainability requires the public wisdom, and if we currently have no practical and effective mechanism for ascertaining that wisdom, then we need to develop something better. What would such a mechanism look like? Here’s a wish list: • It would generate public wisdom in the fullest sense – ie, the collective considered opinion based on large-scale deliberation.

• It would be generating that wisdom on all major issues, including new issues as soon as they arise. • It would make that wisdom available to anyone at any time. • It would be inclusive in the sense of providing a practical opportunity for any interested citizen to participate, and would in fact involve participation of numerous and diverse members of the public. • It would be politically and ideologically neutral; independent of government, corporations or other powerful interest groups. Surveying the wish list, it is obvious that any mechanism capable of delivering the goods would have to be internet-based. It would have to be, in other words, a kind of national virtual forum (NVF). No such forum exists today. The good news, however, is that a NVF plausibly could exist. The internet of course hosts innumerable forums already; many address serious social, economic and political issues, and support deliberation that is often of surprisingly high quality. While it is de rigueur to sneer at the quality of online discussion, and indeed much of it is rubbish, we should at the same time acknowledge that every day literally thousands of Australians jump online and vigorously debate major issues. Further, and more profoundly, there is the fact that internet-based environments or systems have been proven capable of synthesising collective intelligence or wisdom of various kinds. Wikipedia, prediction

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In only a few years, social media have become major forces in democratic movements, such as in the Egyptian revolution. What’s missing is a way to harness such forces for the purpose of divining the public wisdom. Source: Ahmad Hammoud, Flickr.

markets, Amazon.com and Stack Overflow are all well-known examples. To be sure, none of these generate public wisdom of the kind expected from the NVF. How exactly that form of collective intelligence will be assembled or extracted is a major design challenge. But important precedents do exist, and they do more than just prove that collective intelligence can be generated: they provide a wealth of insights and hints for the development of an NVF. An NVF would clearly face numerous major obstacles. In my view, these are best regarded as challenges to be overcome rather than fatal objections to the whole exercise. Here are four, with brief hints as to how they might be tackled.

1. Critical Mass. The NVF will have to attract many and diverse participants. To do this, first and foremost the NVF must be easily accessible – simple to use and available via any major channel (website, mobile apps, etc.). It must be thoroughly and effectively integrated with social media. ‘Gamification’ techniques will help deepen participants’ engagement. Finally, a major media alliance would situate the NVF in the public’s attention. 2. Representativeness. For its outputs to count as the wisdom of the public as a whole, the participants would need to be sufficiently similar to the public – ie, to statistically represent the public. On the

Public Wisdom

face of it, this will be a problem if the NVF has an open-door approach, allowing its participants to self-select. However, various strategies can be used to approximate and enhance representativeness, approaching full representativeness as a kind of limit case. For example, assuming there are demographics on participants of a known degree of reliability, and a sufficiently large and diverse set of participants, it would be possible to select suitable subsets of participants to form the pool for the purposes of computing group wisdom. 3. Gaming. If it builds any kind of momentum, the NVF will become a target for ‘gaming’ (eg, astroturfing) as groups attempt to manipulate the outputs to suit their own interests. This problem can never by fully solved, but could be handled adequately. The problem of distinguishing genuine from bogus participation is similar to the problem of distinguishing genuine email from spam, and Google has shown that this can be done remarkably well. 4. I nfluence. The main point of setting up the NVF is to help governments make the best decisions. For this to work, governments would have to take the NVF outputs seriously. This problem would start to solve itself just insofar as the NVF achieves critical mass and credibility – not because governments will be virtuous and do the right thing but rather because politicians will start to respond out of political expediency. If the genuine considered opinion of the public on a major issue is

available, and if it diverges significantly from the public attitude as expressed in the polls in a politically convenient direction, then it will constitute another kind of cudgel with which to beat opponents.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Clearly, establishing a National Virtual Forum would be no mean feat. Yet we need such a thing if we’re to make a smooth, timely transition to sustainability. The NVF proper will not be built in a day or even a year. Rather, it will evolve in a series of stages, incrementally approaching the full vision. Eight years to 2020 is a reasonable timeframe within which something worthwhile could be achieved: Twitter is less than eight years old and has already played a key role in democratic movements worldwide, such as the uprisings in North Africa. It is high time we had practical and effective mechanisms for knowing what the public really thinks on the major issues affecting it. The ubiquity and sophistication of the internet and the systems built upon it provide a historically unique opportunity to realise this democratic ideal.

11 Mental Health Grant Blashki

ocally and globally, stress, anxiety and depression are very common. Many of the contributing factors relate to the fact that we live in an accelerated culture where instant gratification can hardly come quick enough. We are caught in a cycle of hyper-consumption and in the back of our collective minds (not yet at the front, unfortunately) is the ominous feeling that things just can’t keep going on like this. A more sustainable, nurturing society will promote the mental wellbeing of our communities. This chapter explores the role of sustainable societies in nurturing this mental wellbeing.

A Fragile Mind The human psyche is a fragile thing. Mental illnesses are incredibly common and disabling for many, often disrupting people’s capacity to work and maintain loving relationships. They creep up on the young, the old, people from all different sorts of cultural and socio-economic background, and no one is exempt. Though often trivialised, poor mental health is the biggest contributor to the worldwide ‘burden of disease’ from disability, an estimate calculated by the World Health Organisation to assess how much good quality life is lost from the various global diseases.

Apart from the formal, medically defined anxiety disorders there is a big slice of our population that experiences unhealthy levels of stress, be it related to work, home life or just everyday living. Such people walk around highly strung and on edge that something terrible is about to happen. Not surprisingly we’ve seen a huge surge of interest in stress management approaches including meditation and yoga and mindfulness to name a few. Drugs and alcohol also are big problems in our culture as found in the Australian National Mental Health survey reported by Burns and colleagues in 2002. Australians consume unhealthy levels of alcohol and take drugs such as marijuana, ecstasy, ice, speed and other psycho-stimulants, either for recreation or in attempts to calm troubled minds. Young people are overrepresented, messing with their minds at just that critical stage of life when they could be studying, forming long-term relationships or building a career. An alarming research finding by Tucci and colleagues in 2007 in a survey of Australian children was that ‘a quarter of children are so troubled about the state of the world that they honestly believe it will come to an end before they get older’. And who can blame them for

Mental Health

coming to this conclusion? The media is littered with stories of environmental apocalypse, of human indifference and political failure. Not exactly a fairytale with a happy ending for our young people to contemplate. And these worries do play on the minds of children. In the same way that nuclear war loomed in the minds of the previous generation and children were being drilled in nuclear war scenarios such as the famous educational video showing children hiding under the wooden school desks (I sometimes wonder if this would really have made much difference in a nuclear attack!). Many of these mental health problems are determined by factors other than how sustainably we live – for example, genetics, family upbringing and socio-economic status. And it would be naïve to think that going green would somehow magically solve society’s mental health problems. Yet, how we live, the

way we set up our societies, our cities, our homes, our schools, and our transport and recreation all determine the experiences of our citizens in their day-to-day lives. When we acknowledge the delicate nature of mental wellbeing and accept that mental health emerges from patient nurturing by families and societies living in our modern-day villages, the choices we make become critically important. Engaging our young people in helping solve these issues is an important way to give them a sense of hope and make them feel empowered rather than passive in the face of these immense environmental challenges.

A Fragile Earth Stepping away from mental health for a moment, imagine you’re an alien looking down on at humans on earth. Wouldn’t it be striking how rapidly they are diminishing their environmental capital. Wouldn’t you

The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man. Author unknown As a general practitioner seeing patients over the last 20 years I sometimes ask myself, ‘What do people want from their short time on this earth?’ Fame? Wealth? Maybe for some. Though for the majority in my experience, if you’ll excuse the cliché, health and happiness trump everything. People don’t lie on their death bed saying, ‘I wish I’d just topped up my superannuation a little more!’ or, ‘If only I’d had a few more likes on my Facebook page.’ It’s their time with loved ones, with family, travel and holidays and meaningful achievements in their work life that people reflect on. And I guess it’s fair to say, most people in their latter years are more concerned with the lot of future generations, and most hope that the world they leave behind will be better than the one they were born into, for their children and grandchildren.

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wonder what humans are planning as they pump billions of tonnes of fossil fuels into the atmosphere until it starts heating up their planet. You might be perplexed as they overfish their oceans to the point of near ecological collapse, and think it strange that their forests – which apparently they need to replenish the oxygen they breathe – are being chopped and flattened into paper to wipe their bottoms and distribute annual reports. So, what can we do (you’re back on earth now) as we face the dual dilemmas of environmental catastrophe and the burden of mental illnesses? Like all monumental problems, we have to start with small steps. I present here the cases for three societal reforms: more active transport; more healthy sustainable workplaces; and more green spaces.

More Active Transport What a dry term for such a joyful slice of the day. ‘I’m just going to “Active Transport” to work now dear,’ somehow lacks zest. Yet this term has become the accepted terminology for getting around by means other than by driving – to walk, run, ride, tram, train or bus. Movement is such a basic need that our bodies crave and our minds too often forget. A reminder to me of the simple delight of getting around by foot is the sheer excitement dogs have when their owners suggest a walk – tails wagging, chests panting, hearts pounding. And Australians desperately need to move more; obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis and osteoporosis are at epidemic proportions. We are getting fatter and more unfit as we sit in our cars, and sit in front of our computers and sit at home watching bigger

Mental Health

and better TV screens. No surprise that the Australian government is spending millions of dollars on the Preventive Taskforce with one of its three major planks to reduce obesity. State governments recognise the problems of a sedentary population too and are urging people to get off the bus or the tram one or two stops earlier and walk more each day. Exercise is good for mental health too. Salguero and colleagues in 2011 found that people suffering from depression who are undertaking exercise improve more than those who don’t. In 2006 Harris and colleagues found that people with active lifestyles experience less mental health problems in the first place. Monique Conheady addresses the opportunities for “active transport” directly in Chapter 23.

Healthier Workplaces For most of us, the workplace is our second home. We are immersed in a design and culture usually not of our own making for most of our waking hours, which can have positive or negative consequences for the environment and for our wellbeing. Business leaders are more cognisant than ever of their social responsibilities and of their workers’ wellbeing. Health and environmental sustainability have become very real considerations for corporate boards and CEOs, usually couched in the detached language of Risk Management. Yet the message is clear – neglect your employees and you’ll lose your best workers, neglect the planet and you’ll lose your brand.

In 2009, the Australian People, Productivity, Planet survey of about 11,000 business people and professionals explored their attitudes to their workplace in terms of how well it promotes health and sustainability values. It was undertaken online in association with the professional bodies, and provides a strong case for businesses to adopt sustainability practices, especially as this helps attract and retain employees and improves their levels of satisfaction.

Key findings of People, Productivity, Planet survey • 41 per cent of employees in organisations already committed to sustainability said if they changed jobs they wouldn’t want to work somewhere that doesn’t tackle sustainability issues. • 54 per cent of employees say that as a result of their organisation tackling sustainability issues, they feel more proud of their organisation • 70 per cent of employees working in organisations that don’t report on sustainability say that they would feel they were promoting a healthier and more productive workplace if their organisation made a commitment to sustainability.

More Green Spaces As the quote at the beginning of this chapter captures so aptly, there is something so basic to human happiness and spirituality about natural spaces. A park, a forest, a stream, an ocean –

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The benefits of green spaces Sugiyama et al. in 2008 found that people who perceive their neighbourhoods as very green are shown to have up to 1.6 greater chance of better physical and mental health, when compared to those who rate their neighborhood as lower in greenness (Sugiyama, Leslie et al. 2008). A Danish survey in 2007 by Neilson and colleagues found that people who lived a greater distance from publicly accessible green spaces and who had less access to shared gardens experienced higher levels of distress and were more likely to be overweight. Batt-Rawden in 2005 found that participating in health-promoting group activities such as hiking, physical activities and gardening had a range of benefits for health and wellbeing (BattRawden and Tellnes 2005). Participants with psychosocial problems such as depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances and stress reported that involvement in outdoor activities contributed towards their understanding of ways to cope with the crises and challenges of everyday life.

natural rhythms, natural smells and sounds, they touch us all deep in our minds, sparking something from our childhoods or even from ancient memories somehow buried in our genes. Though hard to capture, scientists have been able to measure some of the benefits of green spaces. For instance, Melbourne researchers such as Maller in 2006 have found that children suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) who have greater exposure to nature-based activities in primary school are calmer, less disruptive and have an improvement in their neurobehavioral disorder. The box above overviews some facts about green spaces adapted from the report ‘Beyond Blue to Green’ that researchers Townsend and Weerasuirya undertook for beyondblue.

Living Together Sustainably One side benefit of a more sustainable society is that it provides more opportunities for communal living and social interaction. In a

society of walking, riding, public transport, open workspaces and local green spaces there is more opportunity for people to build a sense of connection with the community. For people with mental illnesses, a sustainable society can provide a more supportive setting for healing and recovery. Despite our sophistication, we are indeed social animals. A child denied love and affection from parents literally fails to thrive, actually physically fails to grow, like an unwatered plant. We depend on each other more than we’d care to admit. There’s no doubt that social isolation or even insufficient social interaction has profound influences on our wellbeing. For instance, research such as that by Leifheit-Limson in 2010 consistently shows that people’s level of social support after a heart attack predicts long-term survival. Similar research finds that support groups for a range of cancers improve long-term survival.

Mental Health

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Withdrawal from social engagement and social roles is a hallmark for most people suffering from mental illnesses. For instance, depressed people often withdraw from work, family and other social roles. Anxious people often avoid feared situations, eventually resulting in social seclusion. A large part of rehabilitation for mental illnesses is getting people to re-engage socially, and a sustainable society provides more opportunities to do so. Beyond the hard science of improved health outcome measures, there may be more subtle benefits in understanding the links between the way our minds work and the workings of natural systems. Appreciating the natural cycles

of our world may help us to better comprehend our complex brains, to appreciate what happens during mental illness and to understand what we can do to help restore mental wellbeing. For example, our conceptualisation of what our minds actually are has been dominated for some decades by the powerful metaphor of the mind as a machine, indeed as a computer of sorts. And while there are similarities between our minds and our laptops â&#x20AC;&#x201C; data in, processing, data out â&#x20AC;&#x201C; there are vast differences too. In fact, the rhythm of our minds seems more akin to the rhythms of the many natural systems around us â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the ebb and flow of tides, the growth and shedding of leaves, the annual

Mental Health

cycles of seasons and so on. Our diurnal rhythms of sleep and wakefulness are critical for mental health and often the first to be disrupted during mental distress. Many mood disorders fluctuate with the seasons. Thoughts flow and link more like branches and roots than binary connections between computer chips. This may be more than just an esoteric philosophical notion. Consider for a moment that mental illness can be thought of as a disturbance of the rhythm of the mind: depression/too slow, anxiety/too fast, the asynchrony of autism, and the syncopation of psychoses. Could it be that we need to consider troubled minds more like gardens in need of tending than mere glitches in a computer? Perhaps our treatments need to be more about re-establishing natural rhythms than rebooting faulty software. No wonder history is filled with the mindhealing qualities of time spent with nature. For millennia, the Aboriginal walkabout or even the European country house have been havens for mental recovery and rejuvenation. Throughout the ages, our ancestors have returned to nature for calm and peace.

The mental health case for green spaces is strong â&#x20AC;&#x201C; fewer mental problems in kids, prevention of mental disorders and better recovery for people experiencing depression, anxiety or even just everyday stress. It will require smart urban planning and a real commitment from policy-makers in the face of financial pressures to accommodate growing populations. The public health and financial benefits from integrating green spaces in our cities, workplaces, and communities will become increasingly obvious. So itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up to our local, state and federal policy-makers to get serious about green spaces, through regulation and incentives, so that they become part of the culture for planners, developers and builders. And for our business leaders, whether they run small, medium or large enterprises, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to transform their workplaces for the good of employees, customers, the organisations themselves and ultimately the society within which we all live.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 While the wishlist for a sustainable society is long, my hope is that before 2020 cities will have more green places: city planners will mandate small recreational areas within walking distance of everyone, preferably adjacent to sites that are, or will become, foci for community socialising such as schools and coffee shops.

12 Disease Peter Doherty

t present rates of consumption and waste that so rapidly deplete resources, we will need three earth-like planets to meet future requirements – even in the relatively short term. Poor people bear little responsibility for the rapid depletion of non-renewable resources and they do not use the massive amounts of energy that contribute so substantially to climate change, though grinding poverty is one driver of the continued clearance of those great ‘carbon sinks’, the tropical rainforests. And the poor majorities in developing nations, together with the disadvantaged in wealthy societies, suffer disproportionally from infectious diseases and inadequate access to basic human rights such as clean water and food. This inequity is an obstacle in our collective ability to transform into a sustainable society.

A Historical Perspective The long, slow growth rate in global population, discussed in chapter one, reflects the ‘trimming’ effect of both man-made catastrophes (wars, religion-inspired episodes of mass murder) and other factors that were outside human control. The chaos in Europe described by Barbara Tuchman in her book A Distant Mirror was a consequence of the disruption caused by

bands of armed thugs who were unemployed after the end of the Crusades, together with other disasters including the massive mortality associated with the incursion of the bubonic plague. Likely originating from China to strike as ‘the black death’ (1348–50) in England, successive outbreaks of infection with the organism that was finally identified (in 1894) as Yersinia pestis killed one third to one half of the population of many European cities. Such outbreaks persisted for centuries. Then the increasing sophistication of navigation tools and sailing ships led to contact between previously isolated human populations that facilitated a continuing, two-way exchange of lethal infections. Syphilis (caused by Treponema pallidum), for example, likely traveled with Columbus and his men from the Americas to what was then considered to be the civilised world. In a time when superstition and ignorance still ruled (at least when it came to pathogens), major infectious disease events served to limit human numbers. While the mid-19th century saw our first clear understanding of the nature of infection and immunity, ruins like Melrose Abbey in the Scottish borders show that intelligent people had long understood something of the principles

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of sanitation. The Cistercian monks who built Melrose from the 12th century diverted fresh water from the nearby river Tweed in a ‘great drain’ that flushes through the Abbey complex. Fresh water for drinking and cooking came from the input flow, then the ‘drain’ served the need for both bathing and laundry and the exit flushed both human and tannery waste back into the river downstream. In London, the diarrheal disease cholera (caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae) was not linked to the water supply until 1853–54. That in turn established the basis of sanitary science, with the closure of contaminated wells and the progressive establishment of pumping stations and everything else that goes with providing clean, piped water for drinking and bathing. Then human death rates were further diminished by Lister’s development of antiseptic surgery, and by Semmelweis who insisted on thorough hand washing prior to performing obstetric procedures. Before Semmelweis, many women died of puerperal fever and sepsis (caused by a spectrum of invasive bacteria) subsequent to childbirth. These practical advances were underpinned intellectually by the science of Pasteur, who established (1860–64) the germ theory of infectious disease that led, through the 20th century, to the development of vaccines and antibiotics. Prior to the efforts of Pasteur, Koch, Yersin, Ehrlich, Salmon, Fleming, Florey, Theiler, Salk, Sabin and many other great scientists, even the wealthiest families suffered the loss of one or more children from

infection (TB, diphtheria, whooping cough, meningococcus, measles, etc). This experience is now uncommon for all who have the good fortune to live in the better-resourced societies. Through the sanitary revolution of the 19th century, the numbers of people on the planet only grew from 1 to 1.6 billion. At least in Europe, the negative effects of those increases were blunted by colonialist expansion into Africa and Asia, and the emigration of large numbers to fill-up the ‘empty’ landmasses of the Americas and Australia. Both ethically and socially we are still dealing with the disastrous, but perhaps inevitable, consequences of these events for Indigenous people, which (apart from taking their land) were made even more toxic by the transmission of unfamiliar infections (smallpox and measles) and prevailing attitudes based in spurious ideas of inherent racial superiority. To some extent, both the current shift of economic power from the West to Asia and the legal and illegal mass immigration from poor to rich countries can be considered to reflect a measure of payback. Then, despite the mass murder that occurred in World War I, World War II, various ‘small wars’ and African tribal conflicts (the Ibo in Nigeria, the Tutsi in Rwanda), the deliberate genocide practised by regimes led by psychopaths like Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot, the more than 40 million deaths during the influenza pandemic of 1918–19, the starvation in the Sahel region of Africa, the continuing HIV/AIDS catastrophe, and the loss of life from various ‘natural’ disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis), human numbers

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increased four-fold through the course of the 20th century. The point I’m making here is that we can no longer rely on plagues, pestilences and other natural disasters to control human population size. We are, in fact, living in a much better ‘historical space’ where we essentially have many such threats under control. The recent Hollywood feature film Contagion illustrates what could happen if an incredibly infectious, novel pathogen suddenly crossed over from wildlife (fruit bats) to cause a human pandemic with a 30–40 per cent mortality rate. What the movie also suggested, though, is that the application of molecular science, together with the implementation of sound public health strategies, is capable of bringing such an incursion under control in the space of less than a year. My sense is that, given an element of artistic/dramatic license, the situation shown in Contagion is completely realistic, though there is no evidence that anything quite so awful is lurking out there. So far as we know, most of the truly dreadful infections (haemorrhagic fevers, like Ebola, Hendra, Tacaribe) are unlikely to make the switch to ready transmission (like influenza) via the respiratory route, the ultimate danger with any potentially pandemic pathogen. Could some crazy bioterrorist organisation initiate a global infectious disease catastrophe? Unlikely: unless we’re talking about a mad ‘greenie’ group that wants to depopulate the planet. By definition, pandemics go everywhere and ‘the chosen people’ will be just as vulnerable as everyone else. Then the pandemic itself would

Poster for the film Contagion, a realistic scenario of a dangerous pathogen crossing from wildlife to humans and its subsequent rapid control.

be the story, displacing any discussion of the ‘just cause’ that motivated these self-righteous maniacs in the first place. Publicity is their oxygen. Still, security agencies should watch out for some ‘rogue state’ that might initiate an aggressive and unusual vaccination campaign. In summary, if we maintain our science and social structures, our numbers are not likely to be greatly reduced at some future time by a hideous and unpredicted infectious disease pandemic. Such events did trim human population sizes in the past, but the challenge for contemporary

Disease

society is to limit our own reproduction in humane and ethically acceptable ways. Should we fail and continue on our present, increasingly unsustainable trajectory, other mechanisms will inevitable come into play. Perhaps what we have to fear most in that regard are the consequences of runaway climate change and the possibility of nuclear war that could follow the realisation that only a selected minority can survive. That is the global sustainability challenge.

Health and Wellbeing in the ‘Less Resourced’ World This is a massive topic, and I won’t attempt to cover all of the various parameters and ramifications, partly because I am ill-equipped to do so. What follows is an eclectic sample.

Food Other chapters deal with sustainable agriculture and food so I simply refer you to two recent books by Paarlberg and Falvey that seem to me to deal comprehensively and thoughtfully with this issue (see Further Reading at the end of this book). The consequences of many infectious diseases including malaria are much worse in those (especially children) who are suffering from macronutrient or micronutrient deficiencies. That profile of increased vulnerability to novel infections can also be true for people who are obese and/ or diabetic. Both conditions are related to inappropriate diets and poor eating habits, especially the overconsumption of sugar and other refined carbohydrates and the excessive use of alcohol. The recent, ‘mild’ 2009 H1N1

‘swine’ influenza pandemic was much more severe globally in Indigenous communities where such underlying disease problems are prominent. Sustainable production and equitable distribution of healthy foods need to be major international priorities that are, so far as possible, divorced from commercial imperatives and national politics based in perceived self-interest. Agriculture is one of the few areas where some of the ‘advanced’ countries seem determined to maintain subsidies that function effectively as tariff barriers, while (in some cases) also promoting practices that discourage the use of promising approaches (eg, the application of both commercial and public-sector developed GM technology) favored by many African food scientists. Then we are surprised when sophisticated fleets from the north ‘harvest’ the fish that have sustained poor people for generations and the dispossessed turn to piracy. The food question isn’t just about the supply of major nutrients and energy. When it comes to health, micronutrient deficiency is also a major issue in parts of the developing world. Some of this is related to the disease burden of, for example, roundworm infestation, a problem that also leads to macronutrient loss. The estimated dollar cost of worming children globally by treatment with inexpensive, generic drugs is in the range of $US250 million annually. The benefits of this relatively small expenditure would be massive. The list of prevalent micronutrient deficiencies includes iodine, iron, vitamin A, and folate, vitamin B9. Working in the

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public sector at the ETH in Zurich, Potrykus engineered ‘golden rice’ so that it contains 23 times the usual amount of the vitamin A precursor, beta carotene. The details were published in 2000, but this revolutionary product is still not in use. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, golden rice is being additionally modified to further provide greater levels of vitamin E, iron and zinc. Eating 150 grams or so a day would greatly alleviate the incidence of blindness and anemia in high rice-consuming countries. Hopefully this should, by 2013, have passed all the safety testing and regulatory hurdles and will be available for general consumption.

Water and Air Quality Many are aware of the disastrous long-term drought in the Sahel region of Africa. As we know from our own discussion about the Murray-Darling, implementing sound water policy can be very difficult, even in the wealthy democracies where at least some value is accorded to evidence. The issue of salt accumulation that we are trying to deal with here is, for example, of great concern when it comes to the Nile, the ‘life-blood’ of Egypt. Salt incursion into fresh water is also an increasing problem with ‘drained’ aquifers in India and in low-lying countries like Bangladesh, an effect that will be exacerbated by increased global temperatures and sea-level rise. Harking back to the ‘great drain’ at Melrose, it is also enormously important to provide people with fresh, clean drinking water. For poor rural communities, at least, the

19th century solution of developing a safe, piped ‘distributive’ water supply may not be realistic. One approach is to drill wells and provide the necessary pumps, perhaps powered by solar panels. Apart from water-borne infections like cholera and typhoid, though, there is also the issue of depletion, partly as a consequence of agricultural practices resulting from the ‘green revolution’, and of arsenic accumulation. Arsenic is especially a problem in the Punjab region of India, and in Bangladesh. One way to get clean water is to use (osmotic) membrane filtration. Portable units are available, but the technology is relatively expensive and takes a lot of energy. Another approach is to use distillation, which removes both toxins and bacteria. Villagers can use a simple still heated by burning dried cow-dung, but there are also clean and inexpensive solar evaporators that provide clean drinking water. Cow dung is a commonly used cooking fuel in parts of India that, when burned in an enclosed living space, contributes enormously to the incidence of the debilitating condition COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The problem is the amount of particulate matter that is released into poorly vented, enclosed spaces. A solution is to ferment the cow dung in an airtight circular pit, capture the resulting methane production, then pipe that to a gas stove. This ‘gobar gas’ is increasingly used for cooking and to power stationary engines in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Thinking ‘small scale and local’ rather than ‘distributive and networked’ can provide realistic and affordable solutions.

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Vaccines and Other Preventives People who live in agricultural communities where there are few, if any, social services, cannot be expected to think in terms of limiting family size if they are not assured that their children will survive. One of the 8 Millenium Development Goals (MDG4) is to reduce childhood mortality. As part of that, the aim has been to supply all the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s children with the common vaccines of childhood. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the increased use of measles vaccine between 2000 and 2010 has led to an 85 per cent drop in deaths from this disease. The size of the challenge to eliminate child mortality from disease, and opportunities

Other channels

Immunisation clinics

for disease prevention through vaccination, are shown in Figure 1: immunisation and antenatal clinics are widespread and reach most of the populations of Europe and the western Pacific whereas at this time they have little impact in Africa and southeast Asia. The difficulties posed by local wars and cultural perceptions for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have been greater than expected: localised pockets of poliovirus remain in Africa and the Middle East (Figure 2). Nonetheless, with the financial help of organisations like Rotary, we will soon see the end of this disease. So far, only two pandemic viruses have been eradicated globally: smallpox (from 1979) and the cattle disease, rinderpest (2011). Rinderpest

Antenatal clinics

Mass Campaign

100%

ITNs delivered

80% 60% 40% 20% 0%

AFRA

SEAR

EUR

EMRW

World

Key: AFR: WHO African Region

EUR: WHO European Region

AMR: WHO Region of the America

EMR: WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region

SEAR: WHO South-East Asia Region

WPR: WHO Western Pacific Region

Figure 1. Channels used by National Malaria Control Programs to deliver disease control in various regions. Source: WHO. NMCP reports.

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Figure 2. Localised incidences of polio remain in Africa and the Middle East, although eradication is likely. Source: www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring.aspx. Data at HQ as of 6 March 2012.

and measles virus are closely related and are thought to have diverged from a common ancestor about 1200 years or so back. Though measles is incredibly infectious, we could also hope to eliminate it if everyone would vaccinate their children. The problem here is that the antivaccine sentiment in some advanced countries has led, for example, to infected children from wealthy nations reintroducing measles into poor communities that had effectively controlled the disease. That can cut both ways, of course, with a child returning from an overseas vacation recently causing a measles outbreak in a Canberra alternative school. Insect-borne diseases like malaria and dengue are major causes of childhood mortality in warm, tropical regions where there is poor mosquito control. A vaccine to prevent the

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catastrophic hemorrhagic form of dengue is currently being tested, while there is also some hope for an experimental, partially-protective (though expensive) malaria vaccine that operates to reduce mortality rather than infection rates. What works with malaria are DDT-impregnated bed nets. While spraying DDT (which is very cheap) onto water sources and the like is banned because of negative environmental effects, particularly on birds, it can be safely used within houses. Figure 3 shows how protection is improving in malaria-susceptible countries. Another mosquito-borne disease that kills children and adults in South America and West Africa is yellow fever. We have had an effective vaccine for more than 50 years but, because of cost (including the need for a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cold chainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;), it is not widely used.

Disease

Population at risk

15%

10%

Africa Americas Eastern Mediterranean South-East Asia Western Pacific

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Figure 3. Protection against malaria is increasing rapidly in some parts of the world where the population is at risk because of exposure to mosquitos. WHO. Source: NMCP reports.

The Empowerment of Women (Education and Electric Light) It has long been clear that the way to limit population growth is to educate girls and women and to give them much greater control over their own destinies. That does not mean, of course, that boys should in any sense be blocked from schooling, just that it is important to ensure equitable access. It is also essential to promote the availability of basic healthcare, an issue that is, again, as true for boys and men as it is for girls and women (Figure 1). Though perhaps not perfect, the Grameen Bank microfinance model has been shown to greatly improve the basic economic situation, and thus the lives, of many poor women and their families.

Using a central solar facility to charge batteries that can then be taken home at night to provide electric light may prove to be as powerful as any other mechanism for improving educational opportunities (and diminishing reproduction) at the village level. The Indian entrepreneur and humanitarian Bunker Roy has, for instance, promoted the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Solar Grannyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; initiative. Reasoning that village grandmothers are sensible people who want to stay near their children and grandchildren, he has taken poor, uneducated women and trained them to install and maintain solar panels. His initiative provides a great example of how small, pragmatic steps that are sensitively developed from the perspectives of local, human realities can be of immense benefit for poor but close communities.

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The Global Polio Eradication Initiative

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

By mid-2010

By end-2010

By end-2011

By end-2012

By end-2013

Cessation of all polio outbreaks with onset in 2009*

Cessation of all ‘re-established’ poliovirus transmission **

Cessation of all polio transmission in at least 2 of 4 endemic countries***

Cessation of all wild poliovirus transmission ****

Initial validation of 2012 milestones†

Polio cases by country The Global Polio Eradication Initiative strategic plan for 2010–12 has put in place targets towards interrupting wild poliovirus globally. All polio eradication activities are focused on achieving these global targets. Polio eradication targets 2010–13 * validated when > 6 months without a case genetically linked to a 2009 importation (ie by end-2010). ** validated when > 12 months without a case genetically linked to the re-established virus (by end-2011). *** validated when > 12 months without a case genetically linked to an indigenous virus (by end-2012). **** validated when ≥ 12 months without a case genetically linked to an indigenous virus (by end-2013). † Certification will require at least 3 years of zero polio cases in the presence of appropriate surveillance across an entire epidemiologic region.

Recompense for Sustaining Global Carbon ‘Sinks’ While we are accustomed to spending dollars to purchase tangible products, the idea that the wealthy nations should recompense the poor for sustaining what are essential natural resources has only come to prominence very recently. Apart from providing ‘development’ advice, expertise and financial assistance for promoting sustainable agriculture practices that limit the destruction of natural forests and

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jungle environments, the introduction of carbon taxes and carbon trading schemes supplies a mechanism for paying farmers to maintain the great carbon ‘sinks’ that scrub the atmosphere and limit the effects of greenhouse gases. This is one area where we can act immediately in ways that will, in the long run, improve the future prospects for all human beings. The poorer, tropical and subtropical nations have an invaluable ‘product’ that we all need and should not expect to access without cost.

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ACTIONS FOR 2020 A sustainable society must be a fairer world that promotes health and global wellbeing. Medical, agricultural and other professionals can provide expertise, but what is really needed are innovative economic models and courageous political leadership. Hopefully we can mobilise the necessary will before we are forced to act in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;fire engineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mode to counter some major, and perhaps irreversible, global disaster. Though agreed international regulatory frameworks and collective action clearly have important roles to play, any effective action can only work via mechanisms that also emphasise individual enterprise, insight and inventiveness. Perhaps what we need most is innovative investors and business entrepreneurs who function as global gamekeepers, not poachers, and focus as much on human as on financial capital. A dedication to greed makes people fundamentally callous and less than human. Giving back enhances lives, not least the life of the giver.

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13 Corporate Sustainability Liza Maimone

ustainability, once treated as a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sidelineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; by corporations, is increasingly central to their strategic planning. This chapter outlines the drivers for corporate sustainability, the journey for progressing a sustainability agenda and a leading practice model for integrating sustainability considerations into day-to-day operations and reporting.

The Sustainability Agenda Many people in corporate organisations have long viewed sustainability as a matter of corporate philanthropy, with no relevance to their corporationsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; core strategies. The cost of sustainability activities (eg, waste and recycling initiatives, community partnerships, product and social marketing) was seen as detracting from profitability and was often accounted for in a public relations or marketing budget. But those days are gone, or at least fading from view. Most progressive organisations understand that the traditional trade-off between sustainability and profitability is an outdated perspective. Corporations have come to realise that their ability to prosper depends upon their responses to the challenges of a carbon-constrained world and other issues critical to sustainability.

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Business leaders who operate sustainably recognise that social, environmental, economic and ethical factors affect their core business strategy. They know that operating sustainably creates and protects long-term stakeholder value, and they identify and respond to the changing needs and demands of society. These leaders evaluate the range of sustainability issues and respond by mitigating risks and leveraging opportunities. They also understand that to operate in a sustainable manner, they must work collaboratively with all stakeholders, including suppliers, shareholders, employees and regulators. The following diagram (Figure 1) represents the potential linkages between sustainability activity and stakeholder value.

The Sustainability Journey Sustainability encompasses a broad range of issues such as water quality and quantity, pollution, climate change, poverty, health, safety and human rights. While the global challenges relating to sustainability are evident â&#x20AC;&#x201C; defining how corporate organisations can meet the challenges can be daunting. Not surprisingly, corporations often wonder where to begin when it comes to progressing sustainability.

Corporate Sustainability

Reduced regulatory intervention

Access to and lower cost of capital

Minimise risks and impacts of our operations

Enhanced reputation and stronger brand

Improved integration benefits

Sustainable returns to key stakeholders

Cost savings

New business opportunities

Better stakeholder relations

Rewarding work environment for our employees

Customer satisfaction â&#x20AC;&#x201C; loyalty and higher sales

Figure 1. Sustainability drivers of stakeholder value. Source: Adapted from ABN AMRO Morgans.

Corporations around the world are at different points in addressing sustainability issues. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) developed a framework (Figure 2) that identifies three phases in the corporate response to sustainability, from simple regulatory compliance to making sustainability a competitive advantage.

Phase 1: Recognition and Understanding Organisations in Phase 1 are beginning to recognise and understand the implications of not addressing sustainability issues effectively. They realise that issues such as climate change and safety can present material risks and potentially impact their profit and brand if not effectively managed. At the same time, regulations might compel them to develop a sustainability strategy.

Phase 2: Management Organisations in Phase 2 are managing sustainability risks and issues by implementing programs that are able to cut costs (eg, by using less energy, reducing waste and recycling more). These corporations start to reorganise their operations in order to exploit sustainabilityrelated opportunities and can thereby promote their brand as more sustainable.

Phase 3: Performance As organisations in Phase 2 start seeing the benefits in cost-efficiencies and brand differentiation, organisations in Phase 3 develop a deeper understanding of the long-term value of sustainability and how it can become a strategic advantage. They are able to measure their sustainability performance internally and

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Opportunity

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Business opportunity This is where the leaders are heading

Cost inefficiencies

Risk

Licence to operate Brand protection

Compliance and risk management Phase 1 1 year

Cost efficiencies

Brand enhancement

Brand differentiation

Build market share

Risk management This is where many organisations start

Managing for value Phase 2 2-3 years

Strategic advantage Phase 3 3+ years

Figure 2. The Sustainability Maturity Framework. Source: PwC.

externally and have a true competitive advantage often signalled by increasing market share. There is no quick fix that will make an organisation sustainable; it is a journey that takes time. The time to move through the phases depends on an organisation’s strategy and the level of investment they are willing to make. Most Australian corporations are in Phase 1, with only a few in Phases 2 and 3. Some industry sectors – such as finance, retail and telecommunications – have not been as quick as their global peers to seize sustainability opportunities. Many Australian corporations either do not have a stance on sustainability or are only focusing on specific issues such as water and energy consumption, packaging rather than product innovation, ethical sourcing or supply chain issues. Global experience indicates sustainability will soon be a mainstream concern and a core part of business rather than an ‘end game’.

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An Integrated Approach One of the biggest challenges that organisations face is integrating their sustainability approach with the broader objectives of the organisation. Sustainability programs run the risk of being short-lived and viewed as ‘nice to have’ unless they demonstrate tangible business value and are hardwired into day-to-day operations of the organisation. Essentially, it is about making the shift from ‘doing’ sustainability to ‘being’ sustainable. The model set out in Figure 3 provides a logical structure for thinking about the information needs of a business and the critical links and interdependencies that exist between the various information sets – external, strategic, business and performance. The suggested model is grounded in years of PwC research and work with investors and organisations from broad industry sectors.

Corporate Sustainability

organisations excel in this space, at this stage. But we believe that it is now a key determinant of corporate success. The four core categories are common to all industries and organisations, but their relative importance and the information that sits beneath each category will need to flex depending on how these dynamics impact industries and influence corporate strategies and business operating models. Each category is discussed in more detail on the next page.

rs ive r ld

Str at

Technological Societal

Geopolitical

y eg

Ext ern a

None of the information that flows from each category of the model is new â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the real insight and value comes when each category is considered in the context of another, rather than in isolation. It succeeds when governance interfaces with remuneration and risk; when strategy is designed to exploit a changing market environment; and when strategic priorities align with key performance indicators (KPIs). It is this cohesive and integrated way of thinking thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s critical to the model and to being a sustainable organisation. Few

Governance

Economic Competitive

Strategy & Objectives

Environmental

Remuneration Risk Business model

ps shi

hips

ti o

io n

rela

lat

rces

Value drivers

Strategy

Key performance indicators

rf Pe

Funding Wealth creation

fi n a n ci a l r

Social contribution

nancial re so n-fi no

es urc

Consumption

Performance

Corporate contribution

ce Reso

s rc e

Figure 3: Integrated approach. Source: PwC.

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1. E xte rn

External Drivers rs ive r d al Technological Societal

Geopolitical

Economic Competitive

Environmental

Some shifts in strategy are the result of internal activities, but many are inspired by shifts in the external environment. The more an organisation can identify and respond to these shifts and then explain this process – including its connectivity to the market environment and the ecosystem on which it relies – the better able it will be to secure a competitive advantage The ability to identify the main ‘emerging’ risks to which organisations are increasingly exposed is a key driver. There are a number of external drivers that present sustainabilityrelated risks: • Scarcity of raw materials • Regulatory, political and economic factors • Changing societal expectations • Climate change/physical risks Operating sustainably is broader than identifying and containing risks. For leading businesses, risk identification can yield rich opportunities if they are identified, assessed and managed for competitive advantage.

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Organisations must focus on enhancing their market intelligence, leveraging it in their decisions and making this visible in their stakeholder engagement and reporting processes. Keeping abreast of market developments and ensuring that a longer-term perspective is brought to this process will require most organisations to rethink their current processes. Scenario planning and stresstesting will become more commonplace to help organisations identify their sustainability risks and issues. For example, the growing number of consumers seeking healthy and sustainable lifestyles constitutes a potentially vast market for new products and services. Consumers’ environmental, ethical and social concerns mean that their definition of quality is increasingly extending to the product lifecycle. Wherever environmental, social or ethical issues can be addressed, organisations have an opportunity to innovate, differentiate, create value and attract more customers. These issues can also create opportunities to attract and motivate employees. Although organisations now understand that pursuing sustainability is a long-term investment, they constantly face the challenge of balancing short-term shareholder concerns with long-term business objectives. The global reach and complexity of supply chains, the raw materials required for production, the nature of products and the special characteristics of an organisation’s workforce all determine which risks play the most significant roles in any given sector, and which opportunities exist.

Corporate Sustainability

Strategy

Until recently, most corporate organisations’ sustainability efforts operated outside of their core business strategy. But as corporations become increasingly aware of the strategic implications of climate change, population growth and resource use, this situation is changing. In fact, in future we expect the term ‘sustainability’ to disappear altogether as sustainability issues are integrated into core business thinking. These issues pose a unique set of challenges and afford a distinct set of opportunities to every industry. However, there are components to every strategy that are critical to all businesses, some of which must be reconsidered in the context of sustainability, for example risk and governance. A clear understanding of the culture, values and governance practices of any organisation is important when determining how a sustainability strategy should be embedded. Ideally, it should be developed with consideration of how it will be integrated and cascaded through the organisation, with reference to risks and opportunities, people and relationships, and

performance measurement. Failure to consider the capacity in the organisation in all of these areas when developing a sustainability strategy will limit its chances of success. For example, a well-considered strategy that is aligned to risks and opportunities may not yield results if there is no one in the organisation to champion the strategy, or if there are no mechanisms in place to measure its success or outcomes. Good strategies are built on a foundation of clear goals and objectives. A goal is a statement that clearly describes desired longterm improvement/change in the organisation through the integration of sustainability into the business. Once goals have been defined then objectives can be developed. Objectives describe the specific changes within the organisation that are required to achieve the goals, and ideally should relate to risk factors. Objectives are the stepping-stones to achieving set goals.

Resources and Relationships

Unlike organisational functions – such as marketing, logistics, information technology and human resources – the responsibility of

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sustainability seldom fits discreetly within a single group. Sustainability issues are often all-encompassing and impact a number of different areas. For example, sustainability activities could be leveraged by the marketing team to differentiate an organisation’s product from the competition; the logistics team could use sustainability to improve the efficiency of the supply chain; and the human resources team could use the organisation’s commitment to sustainability as a point of differentiation to attract and retain employees. As such, an effective sustainability strategy needs to be integrated across all functions and operations. Key performance indicators (KPIs) need to be established for particular sustainability issues and cascaded across the business, and a comprehensive range of communication and engagement initiatives are needed to help employees understand how sustainability is relevant to them. Many organisations are in the early stages of the maturity curve when it comes to integration of sustainability within the business (in Phase 1 of the sustainability journey depicted). This is similar to where many organisations were in relation to safety culture in the 1980s and 90s. Safety was once seen as the responsibility of safety professionals within an organisation but nowadays it is largely part of corporate cultures. As with safety in the past 20 years, the concept of sustainability is expected to become a shared responsibility that delivers benefits across all areas of an organisation. However, organisations that are currently in the early

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stages of their sustainability journey will find that significant investment into education and integration of sustainability will be required to create a culture of shared responsibility and strategic advantage.

Performance

Performance measurement is the final link in the integrated approach to sustainability. Assessing performance allows management to evaluate the implementation of the sustainability strategy and determine targeted actions for the future. Accountable personnel and reliable data are both critical factors that will influence the effectiveness of an organisation’s sustainability strategy. Systems and resources must be capable of delivering the strategic objectives of the organisation’s sustainability vision. Specifically this requires personnel with accountability to performance, and data that is complete, accurate and timely. Performance can be measured on a personal level or in the context of the organisation as a whole. In leading organisations, KPIs of individuals in the organisation are linked to the

Corporate Sustainability

Identifying leading practice In a recent survey conducted by PwC, which investigated the quality and maturity of sustainability reporting of the top 30 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), a number of best-practice examples were identified: • Amcor disclosed its stakeholder engagement process and the issues of concern that emerged. It directed the reader to sections of the sustainability report addressing those issues. • Westpac charted the impact or potential impact of several sustainability risks to the business and the level of stakeholder concern.

overall goals and objectives of the organisation and are used to assess an individual’s annual performance and often linked to remuneration. Personnel sustainability-related KPIs can often assist an organisation to progress and deliver its overall sustainability strategy. Effective performance measurement allows for scrutiny of a sustainability strategy. Based on this process, management can assess the effectiveness of the strategy and the relevance of the goals and objectives leading into the next performance period.

Corporations manage what they measure Origin Energy has a five-year sustainability strategy with quantitative targets for various indicators. Year-on-year performance data is presented graphically to show how progress is being made against the target and to disclose actions for the forthcoming year.

Reporting Over recent years, the demand for greater transparency in corporate environmental, social and ethical performance reporting has risen significantly. So much so, there is now a large and growing movement worldwide toward mandatory public company disclosure of sustainability information, often referred to by the investor community as non-financial or Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data. • The Australian Stock Exchange released Guidelines from the Group of 100 about the Review of Operations that suggests companies provide information including discussion and analysis of non-financial KPIs, risk profile and investments in future performance of the business’ dynamics: environmental, social, legal and regulatory compliance. • The importance of ESG risk consideration has been discussed, and has gained increasing recognition in recent years. A 2009 report by the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) supports the view that

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pension funds should address climate change as part of their fiduciary duty, and should be pursuing investment strategies that will mitigate the potential systemic risk of climate change and profit from low-carbon capital opportunities. Not surprisingly, there has been an increase in the number of Australian companies preparing sustainability reports. The Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) has been surveying sustainability reporting practices of ASX 100 over recent years, and the number of companies reporting on sustainability has increased from 83 per cent in 2008 to 96 per cent in 2011. Despite this, ‘sustainability’ reports are usually stand-alone documents with little

connection to the company’s annual or other shareholder reports. Sustainability issues are often discussed in isolation from information on corporate strategy and therefore result in disjointed and inconsistent messages about the company’s overall performance. Disjointed reporting confuses stakeholders and raises questions about the quality and integrity of an organisation’s management and governance frameworks. ‘Integrated’ reporting, where both financial and non-financial (ie, sustainability) data is reported together in mainstream annual reports, is being proposed as the best way of reporting. It recognises that financial information alone does not provide a complete view of the company’s overall performance or respond to the varying interests and concerns of multiple-

The evolution of sustainability reporting – where are you today?

Past

Present

‘I have someone who looks after the sustainability agenda’ Silo

Future

‘We need to incorporate the most material sustainability issues into our mainstream thinking and reporting’ Mainstreamed

‘We’ve transformed our business model, culture and values of the company to reflect the new business landscape’ Integrated

Mainstream Reporting

Sustainability Reporting

Figure 4: The integration journey. Source: PwC.

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Inclusion but isolated

Strategic and aligned

Hardwired

Corporate Sustainability

stakeholder groups. Integrated reporting does not mean adding the sustainability report to the annual report. The process demands the integration of information, which can flex with changing dynamics and can deliver truly valuable strategic and operational insights to management and stakeholders. Figure 4 depicts the integration journey. An organisation cannot move to integrated reporting in a single step. Organisations must first manage their business in an integrated manner, in order to monitor and assess the performance of both financial and nonfinancial KPIs. While the concept of integrated reporting is getting more attention, the benefits have been known for a number of years. In 2003, the Australian Government commissioned â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Corporate Sustainability â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an Investor Perspective (The Mays Report)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;. It found that those companies which integrated sustainability activities into their core business had a lower risk profile while enhancing their brand and reputation.

value. Companies that intend surviving and prospering long-term will need to more clearly demonstrate that they are currently thinking long-term. Such a perspective allows shareholders and other key stakeholders to understand the quality and sustainability of performance by providing insights into external influences, strategic priorities and the dynamics of the chosen business model, as well as the key drivers of success.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 The integration of sustainability into core business requires a fundamental rethink of the corporate business model, culture and values. It requires corporations to identify and address the most material sustainability issues into dayto-day operations and business decisions. A short-term focus on business survival will remain important for many, but the shift to a longer-term strategic perspective will be essential in the battle to build trust and market

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14 Governance John Brumby

uring my seven years as Treasurer of Victoria it was very common for the media to cover sustainability as a conflict between ‘economics’ and ‘the environment’. The ‘browns’ and ‘greens’ lined up against each other and argued from extreme positions – which all too often resulted in stalemate and inaction. It quickly became clear to me that the way forward lay in harnessing economic solutions to achieve positive environmental outcomes. That meant reconciling the two points of view by encouraging better resource management, investing in more efficient infrastructure, reform of pricing, and incentives to reduce waste and protect valuable environments. In December 2007, a few months after I became Premier of Victoria, I had the privilege of attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali. There I was impressed that many governments were looking at the challenge of climate change as an opportunity – a new door opening to a future based on green jobs and sustainable prosperity. Victoria had been an early mover on greenhouse issues – since the Cain Government in 1988 – but I was struck by the practical progress being made by many countries which were well down the track in adapting their economies to

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the realities of a resource-constrained future. There was a ‘climate of opportunity’ for those governments willing to make innovative investments in new industries that adopted cutting-edge environmental technology.

Organisational Reform to Achieve Change For these reasons, sustainability reforms became a centrepiece of Victoria’s economic agenda. My predecessor Steve Bracks had already put in place a range of important policies and targets. Several small government bodies were merged to form Sustainability Victoria, which was given a broad mandate to develop policy and promote change at a legislative, policy and community level. An Office of Climate Change was established within the Premier’s Department to coordinate government-wide action and shift budget priorities. A Cabinet Committee was established to oversee the development of consistent government-wide policies. We decided on a Green/White paper process to engage business and the community in the detail, and allow everyone to have their say. The result was a productive discussion that gained support from business, environment groups and many other

Governance

The Council of Australian Governments meets in 2010. Source: taken by AUSPIC and supplied by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

stakeholders, and the end-product in 2010 was the passage of Australia’s most comprehensive Climate Change legislation, with the support of all political parties. This set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, based on year 2000 levels. Victoria’s ‘Climate Change Act’ requires that climate change become part of the mainstream business of government, to be considered systematically at all relevant points of decisionmaking, and that climate-related policies be integrated across government agencies.

Federalism Australia’s governance is built on three separate levels: Commonwealth, State and Local Government. Substantive reforms require

cooperation between all three levels and a commitment to joint goals. The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has existed in different forms for many years, but around 2005 a common cause was found between the Howard Coalition Government and the states (at that time mostly Labor). A new round of national economic reform was agreed that focused on rationalising regulation, investing in infrastructure and boosting our ‘human capital’ by investing in the health and skills of the Australian population – starting from preschool and lasting right through the workforce to retirement. The power of COAG was also applied to sustainability – most notably in setting future strategies for managing the Murray-Darling

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Basin and climate change. Sadly these efforts were compromised as party politics and local interests intervened, and entrenched interests resisted change. Having led the way on water reforms, for example, Victoria stood to be punished as other states refused to make their own savings.

Targets Clear, well-thought-through targets are essential in achieving substantive change. They challenge government agencies and the community to work towards a clear goal, and give the market and private sector a reliable indication of government intentions and timeframes, which can then be incorporated into planning. Examples include Victoria’s 20 per cent target for renewable energy to be achieved by 2020, and the Target 155 campaign to encourage Melburnians to conserve scarce water resources. The most important target set during my term as Premier was that of a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2020. Contrary to public perception, many countries around the world have set more ambitious greenhouse targets than Australia, and a number have gone the extra step of legislating them. The progress at the UN Conference in Durban in November 2011 suggests the terms for a global agreement on binding targets for all nations may be finalised by 2015. The question is sometimes raised: Should one jurisdiction set a target first to encourage the others and thereby risk putting themselves at a disadvantage – or will each country hang back and refuse to commit until everyone

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else has? In my view, leadership is the most important factor in achieving change. Someone must be brave enough to set a target and back it up with the policies to achieve it. Being first also positions you to reap the rewards by pioneering new industries and jobs. Victoria has one of the highest per capita production rates of greenhouse emissions due to our historic reliance on old brown coal power plants. The onus thus fell on us to set an example by establishing a legislated target and by showing clearly how the reductions could be achieved. The Federal Government has recognised this by not only setting a 5 per cent overall national target, but also providing funding to buy out 2000 megawatts of old brown coal capacity. Under a ‘business-as-usual’ (BAU) scenario Victoria’s emissions are projected to increase to around 130Mt in 2020 (the dark blue line in Figure 1). This scenario includes the National Renewable Energy Target (RET), but excludes the carbon tax commencing on 1 July 2012. The green line represents a likely emissions trajectory if Victoria is to achieve a 20 per cent reduction by 2020. This can be achieved through a combination of investments in energy conservation and renewables; retirement of 2000 megawatts of brown coal; and more efficient homes, buildings and appliances. In the medium and longer term, significant reductions will also need to occur in the transport sector. Victoria worked with Toyota to secure the manufacture of hybrid Camrys in Australia and undertook to buy fuel-efficient vehicles as part of the government fleet to set an example

Governance

Cutting Victoria’s emissions by 20% 2020 BAU ~ 130 Mt

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2008 = 121.9 Mt

Greenhouse gas emissions (Mt)

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20% target = 96 Mt

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Victoria’s historical emissions (Dept. of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency

Victoria’s projected emissions – BAU (Access Economics)

‘Likely’ emissions reduction trajectory (Victorian Government)

0 2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020

Figure 1. The current trend in greenhouse gas emissions and the trajectory needed to reach a 20 per cent reduction by 2020. Source: Victorian Government White Paper Implementation Plan 2010.

to fleet managers generally. We also invested $5 million in a trial of electric vehicles, designed to examine the practical issues involved in using EVs for urban commuting.

Green Jobs Setting targets also helps create the green jobs of the future by getting Australia into growth industries on the ground floor. Victoria’s early investments in wind power paid dividends as a strong industry developed, injecting jobs into rural communities. Initially Victoria was successful in attracting one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wind equipment to establish a plant in Portland. Unfortunately when the then

Federal Government failed to act on national targets the plant was closed and production moved offshore. Early on, Australian scientists developed several promising technologies – but again, lack of government support and follow-through meant these patents were taken overseas. For example, Dr Zhengrong Shi obtained his doctorate on solar power technology at the University of NSW before returning to China to establish SunTech, which is today one of the largest renewable companies in the world, employing thousands of people. Given our skill base and innovative culture, many opportunities exist for Australia to create green jobs. There is merit in governments providing funding to enable the establishment of new

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technologies through pilot plants and research. However, past examples demonstrate that if those subsidies are excessive they create a short-term boom which cannot be sustained – particularly if the technologies fail to realise their full promise.

Renewable Energy and Conservation Victoria’s reliance on brown coal is a major reason why Australia has the highest per capita production of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. It is a problem that must be addressed – particularly considering the age of our power plants: Morwell is now 55 years old and Hazelwood 45 years old. But as well as achieving our renewable energy targets, we must also continue to explore technologies that have the potential to utilise brown coal with greatly reduced carbon emissions. We should continue to examine the possibility that carbon emissions can be captured and stored permanently underground. The geographic conjunction of the Latrobe Valley coalfields and the Bass Strait oil basins appeared promising, but the progress in developing a viable technology has so far been disappointing. Our Climate Change Act altered legislation to encourage carbon sequestration in forestry on public land, which is now complemented by similar Commonwealth measures for private land. The sequestration of carbon in soil shows great potential for both reducing emissions and improving soil fertility. When it comes to renewable energy, Victoria started from a low base with only three per cent of our electricity coming from renewables in

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2002 (with another three per cent coming from Victoria’s one-third ownership share of Snowy Hydro). Due to strong support from our government, wind energy has grown rapidly – although total renewable generation was hit by the drought and a halving of available hydro power. The latest figures from the Clean Energy Council show that both wind and solar have continued to grow strongly, while hydro production is now higher than in 2002 (due to a return to more normal rainfall patterns and the new 140 megawatt Bogong hydro power station that I officially opened in late 2009). The Basslink cable to Tasmania also allows Victoria to draw substantial renewable peak power while exporting off-peak electricity from the Latrobe Valley. Given the large number of projects in the pipeline, Victoria’s target of 20 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 remains challenging but feasible. Another 537mw of wind turbines are under construction at three places in Victoria and are due to be online by 2013. Despite cutbacks in subsidies some 4.5mw of rooftop solar panels are being installed each month as costs continue to come down. The Silex plan for a large solar plant (500GWh) for Mildura is making slow but positive progress; but the TruEnergy proposal missed out on federal ‘Solar Flagships’ funding, throwing it into doubt. Around five such plants would be needed by 2020 to achieve the target – assuming continuing good take-up of domestic rooftop panels.

Governance

2002 (a)

2009 (a)

2010/11 (b)

Wind

1,027

1,280

Biomass

360

525

591 est

Hydro-electricity

1,100

500

1,200

Solar photovoltaic

negligible

200 est

Total renewable generation

1,520

2,079

3,205

Total Victorian generation (c)

48,200

52,000

50,900

Proportion of generation

3.1%

3.9%

6.3%

Snowy and Tasmania imports

1,300

2,450

Proportion of consumption

5.8%

6.5%

11%

Table 1. Modest growth since 2002 of renewable electricity generation within Victoria (GWh). Sources: (a) Victorian AuditorGeneral’s Office, Facilitating Renewable Energy Development, April 2011 from Figure 1D. (b) Clean Energy Council and Sustainability Victoria data. (c)Australian Energy Regulator data from State of the Energy Market 2010.

Water The protracted drought from 2002 to 2009 necessitated water restrictions across Victoria, and this received strong public support. There were big changes in attitudes to water consumption, and per capita consumption dropped sharply. As a result, when the drought started to ease in 2009, our government was able to implement permanent changes to water rules, and we set Target 155 (155 litres of water per person per day) as a goal to encourage continued sustainable water use. There was a strong public response, shown in changed consumption patterns that have largely continued since the end of the drought. These behaviour change messages need to be consistently pursued and hence require the support of successive governments to make a long-term difference.

A good example of the application of economic solutions to environmental problems was Victoria’s Northern Food Bowl project, along with the Wimmera-Mallee Pipeline. Long-term neglect of irrigation infrastructure meant farmers were burdened by leaky channel systems that lost a significant proportion of irrigation water through evaporation and leakage before delivery to the farm gate. Lining channels and replacing pipes enabled large increases in environmental flows while at the same time increasing farmers’ productivity. In 2008 COAG achieved significant agreement on the future of the basin for the first time since Federation – and despite some continued wrangling this will mean massive water savings and more efficient water use.

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Community Engagement The capacity of governments to implement reform is limited by the degree of community support for change. Hence it is critical to match legislative and policy reform with community education and engagement programs, and to encourage those in the community who want to implement local sustainability solutions. Our BushTender program was an innovative way of involving local landowners in conservation efforts, and also an example of using competition to achieve positive environmental outcomes. Landholders are now able to bid for government funding to protect areas of their own land that are identified to be of high environmental value. Preserving native vegetation is an important way of both addressing groundwater hydrology and maintaining biodiversity.

Source: Chris Taylor

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Our Climate Communities program is another good example of community engagement. It was backed with $102 million over four years, which came from an increase in the levy on waste disposed to landfill â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in itself an incentive to increase recycling. The objective was to support local communities to reduce emissions and try new ideas, by providing local groups with advice, information, research and funding to take action.

More Efficient Government Leadership means setting an example. Government agencies are large users of energy, water and paper and need to be seen as leaders in implementing the policies they are asking the broader community to adopt. We succeeded in reducing the energy consumption of government buildings by 20 per cent over

Governance

the decade to 2010, and set a target to reduce this by a further 20 per cent by 2020. To achieve this our government invested $160 million in the Greener Government Buildings program to upgrade schools, hospitals and government buildings. We also paid a premium through the GreenPower scheme to reduce emissions by buying from renewable sources. Local governments are often best placed to help their communities prepare for climate change impacts and contribute to the broader response. The Victorian Local Sustainability Accord enabled the development of regional environment strategies, renewable energy projects, biodiversity projects and joint initiatives between councils. A Local Government Climate Change Summit was held to hammer out plans to finance the installation of high-efficiency street lighting and to develop regional climate change adaptation plans.

The Need for Bipartisan Consistency A key governance challenge is to seek a bipartisan approach to sustainability policy. There is little point in implementing new policies if they are subsequently undone within a few years. The solar industry in particular has been beset by frequent changes in policy settings. Hesitancy on wind policy killed our foothold in manufacturing turbines and Australia now relies on fully-imported equipment. The sort of investments required to make Australia more sustainable require consistency over a decade or more – beyond the life of

most governments. Business will be loath to act unless they have a clear signal from both sides of politics that change is predictable and consistent. Of course, achieving bipartisan support is easier said than done as both sides are tempted to look to short-term political benefit ahead of the long-term national interest. Australia needs a serious national discussion on sustainability to ensure the opportunities don’t pass us by. There is an urgent need for a positive approach and a commitment from leaders across the spectrum to a consistent agenda of reforms.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Australians have embraced solar energy with great enthusiasm. In the last decade, no less than 1000 megawatts of capacity (half the size of the Loy Yang A power station) has been installed on household rooftops. As the volume has gone up, the price of photovoltaic panels has tumbled and government subsidy schemes – critical to kicking off the move – have been able to be scaled back. It is predicted that within five years the cost of power from solar energy will match the cost of electricity from the grid and subsidies will no longer be necessary. But the real gains will come from using solar photovoltaic and solar thermal technologies at an industrial scale. My big idea is that Victoria should aim to have five medium-size solar power stations (up to 500mw) operating by 2020, in the area between Mildura, Echuca, Bendigo and

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Horsham, to lift the contribution from solar to five per cent of Victoria’s future electricity needs. Victoria would then have a more balanced transmission network with solar in the northwest, gas and wind in the southwest, hydro from the northeast and a diminishing reliance on Latrobe Valley brown coal – from 95 per cent to below 80 per cent – enabling the retirement of an old inefficient plant such as Hazelwood (1600mw). The investments in the Basslink cable to access Tasmanian hydro, and stronger links to South Australian wind and NSW coal and hydro, have already given greater security of supply for Victoria than ever before. This diversification is bringing hundreds of new jobs to regional centres and strengthening local economies. The opportunities for solar in our northwest are excellent. There are large areas of marginal farmland available for solar developments and most of the environmentally significant land is already protected in the many large national parks across the Mallee and Wimmera. Skilled operators would be in demand, creating new job opportunities for young people in the region. A solar industry for northern Victoria would be good for both economy and environment – a link we need to continue to strengthen as we seek a sustainable future.

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Natural Resources

15 Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Rodney Keenan

limate change and other pressures on our society will increase the frequency and severity of hazards such as flooding, storms, bushfires and heatwaves. Coastal areas will be impacted by increasing sea levels and storm surges. Greater appreciation of how ecosystems work, and how they can buffer against hazards, will help address future uncertainty and disaster. Using ecosystems for protection from hazards is not a new idea; some of the earliest laws regulating forest use in Europe and Japan were implemented to manage and restore forests to protect mountain villages from avalanches and landslides. Increasingly, ecosystem-based adaptation is being promoted as a way of avoiding the impacts of climate change and providing benefits such as clean water, soil protection and biodiversity conservation. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) defines ‘ecosystem-based adaptation’ as ‘the sustainable management, conservation, and restoration of ecosystems in ways that enable people to adapt to the impacts of climate change’. It can maintain and increase resilience and reduce vulnerability of ecosystems and people in the face of the

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adverse effects of climate change. This article presents some examples of different situations where ecosystem restoration and management are contributing to climate change adaptation and discusses policy measures to facilitate their implementation.

What is biodiversity? The United Nations has declared 2011–20 the International Decade on Biodiversity. The aim is to halt and eventually reverse the loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is the total variability within living organisms. It can be applied at any level, but is usually the number of species (that we can measure, or consider important enough to measure) within a catchment or region, although in the case of the United Nations, its goal is global.

Coastal Mangrove Forests in Vietnam Vietnam is regularly impacted by coastal storms and typhoons. With climate change, higher sea levels and potentially greater intensity and frequency of storms, these impacts are likely to become considerably worse.

Ecosystem-Based Adaptation

As Colls and colleagues wrote in 2009, mangroves can guard against storm impacts by dissipating the energy and reducing the size of waves as a result of the drag forces exerted by their multiple roots and stems. For example, according to Quartel and others in their 2007 paper, mangrove forests can reduce wave heights by 5 to 7.5 times more than bare beach surfaces. They can also stabilise the sea floor, trap sediment and change the angle of slope of the sea bottom. Maintaining and restoring mangroves can also contribute to the effectiveness and stabilisation of other barriers such as dikes, and well-managed mangrove forests can provide direct-use benefits such as seafood, and timber for poles and local buildings. However, about 75 per cent of mangrove forests in Vietnam were lost during the American war, cleared for aquaculture or have become degraded through overharvesting. The task of replanting mangroves is significant. Mangrove restoration is not straightforward – the working conditions are difficult, the trees need to be grown to advanced size before planting and the initial planting density needs to be about 2000 stems per hectare. Better coastal planning can facilitate mangrove establishment. Manage-ment of activities higher in catchments that affect the long-term viability of mangroves, such as sediment elevation, nutrient runoff and pollution, can assist in facilitating the establishment and maintenance of mangrove forests.

Urban Heat Impacts and Water Use It is not only in coastal or forested areas that ecosystems can assist with adaptation to climate change. Higher temperatures arising from climate change and increased population density will cause rising heat loads, or ‘heat islands’, in cities. These will place greater stresses on urban communities, particularly older people and the very young who have limited capacity to regulate their body temperature. Heat loads in cities are exacerbated by the ‘urban heat island effect’ where heat is trapped by concrete buildings and hard road surfaces that radiate stored heat and keep overnight temperatures higher. Incorporating more grassy areas, parks, street trees and permeable surfaces into city environments can reduce the heat-load on buildings and people by providing shade and shelter as well as cooling through increased plant evapo-transpiration. This ‘green infrastructure’ can also include green walls and rooves incorporated into buildings that have a similar effect. The Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research is sponsoring a project being undertaken by the University of Melbourne and Monash University to identify areas in metropolitan Melbourne with the greatest heat-load using airborne infrared photography, combined with social information on the most vulnerable communities, to plan where green infrastructure can provide the greatest environmental and community benefits.

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Green infrastructure can also assist in mitigating impacts of storms and high rainfall events that could increase in some regions in a warming climate. For example, Grunwald in 2011 indicated how the city of Philadephia in the United States has developed a campaign to keep stormwater out of its drainage systems by using rain barrels and rain gardens, vegetated green roofs and permeable green roads, new trees and new parks. The goal is to capture runoff from one-third of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impervious surfaces and make around 40 square kilometres of man-made urban area function more like a natural forest. A research team from Melbourne and Monash Universities are investigating new approaches to stormwater management that focus on improving the health of creeks and rivers in the Little Stringybark Creek catchment in outer urban Melbourne. A combination of water tanks, water gardens and woody vegetation in and around the creeks will reduce erosion and pollution and the cost of managing storm water as well as providing cooling benefits in hot weather and alternative sources of water during extended droughts. Creeks and rivers will function more as they did before urban development, increasing habitat quality and providing other benefits. More broadly, managing, restoring and protecting ecosystems can also contribute to sustainable water management in a changing climate. In their 2003 paper, Dudley and Stolten found that about one third of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest cities obtain a significant proportion of their drinking water directly

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from protected forested areas. Forest restoration and improved catchment management can improve water quality, increase groundwater recharge and save costs on water purification systems.

Integrating Woody Vegetation into Farming Systems Integrating restoration of woody vegetation into farm management can also assist farmers in adapting to climate change. Globally, farmers are at the forefront in responding to climate variability and longer-term changes. Easterling and others in 2007 reported that production of some crops and pastures may increase under moderate warming but farmers will be subject to additional stressors from lower water availability in some places or perhaps more rain and increased flooding in others. Climate change may result in reduced soil fertility and there is likely to be increased impacts of pests, diseases and weeds. Trees can be used to reduce risk, increase resilience and create complementary income opportunities when there is reduced or more variable income from traditional crops. Trees, in combination with restoration of wetlands and other forms of water management, can be used to ameliorate the effects of extreme storms and unpredictable climatic events on agricultural production and provide shelter for stock from increased heat. By diversifying income sources and creating products and services that are independent of traditional agricultural markets, farming may be less susceptible to climatic variability.

Ecosystem-Based Adaptation

• Mainstream adaptation and ecosystem services • Linking ecosystem and other sectors in adaption • Develop innovative funding • Influence international policies • Strengthen the links between adaptation and mitigation • Transfer power to local communities for adaptation • Recognise local diversity • Promote environmental education

Policymakers

Ecosystem-Based Adaptation

• Inform policy-makers about local needs • Define and implement adaptation • Reward ecosystem service providers

• Dialogue with scientists • Understand scientific uncertainties • Finance research and monitoring

Society (local communities, private sector, civil society)

• Invest and participate in science

• Dialogue with policy makers • Support policy design and negotiations

Scientists

• Quantify and value ecosystem services • Evaluate uncertainties • Work at local scales • Communicate results to non-scientists • Increase multidisciplinarity

• Involve society in research • Increase social science representation

The links required between scientists, policy-makers and society to support the implementation of ecosystem-based adaptation. Source: Vignola et al. 2009.

Well-designed agroforestry ecosystems can maintain production during wetter and drier years. Using drought-tolerant tree species with deep root systems that can explore a greater soil depth can help farmers maintain production when annual crops relying on regular rainfall might fail. Incorporating trees into farming systems can increase soil porosity and water infiltration and reduce runoff. Consequently, there could be more water in the soil profile during seasons of low rainfall. Well-designed belts of trees can also reduce wind impacts on pasture and crops, maintaining or increasing production if winds get stronger.

In some cases the products from trees can be of higher value on an annual basis than agricultural commodities. In a farm-based study in the Otway Ranges in Victoria, farmers Andrew and Hugh Stewart found that timber products provided a higher economic yield over a 10–15 year period than grazing, and that planting 17 per cent of their property with woody vegetation resulted in no evident reduction in their lamb and wool production. This type of farm forestry has provided water quality, landscape, habitat and animal productivity benefits. Plantings include development of riparian buffer strips and linkage of wildlife corridors. Fences have been

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Top: Ecosystem restoration in northeast Thailand being undertaken by the Forest Restoration Research Unit at the University of Chiang Mai. Bottom: Integrating trees and pasture or crops can increase production and provide many other benefits in adapting to climate change. Source: Rod Keenan.

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Ecosystem-Based Adaptation

moved out wider than conventional landcare plantings with the addition of wide-spaced trees for high pruning for sawlog production. A key element of the design is land-class fencing, which largely defines the location and purpose of the revegetation. Integration of commercial and non-commercial trees and shrubs tends to be along drainage lines and land-class boundaries. Stream sides and drainage lines have been revegetated with a choice of species and pattern of planting that provide environmental benefits as well as prospects for commercial timber production. Adopting a long-term view has improved sustainable agricultural production, reduced climate change risks and increased income security with commercial trees playing an integral role as superannuation. In a study in a drought-prone region of Kenya, the accumulated income from tree products was estimated to exceed the accumulated value of crop yield lost through competition, with the assumption of 50 per cent crop failure due to drought. Planting the right species with strong demand for a range of products, high value timber and the ability to produce this range of products continuously provided good financial returns in a relatively short time.

Win-Win Adaptation and Mitigation Mitigation and adaptation are often seen as independent strategies in policy and planning. Many of the examples of ecosystem-based adaptation can contribute to both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping people

and landscapes adapt to climate change. This can also help build greater diversity into landscapes and farming systems, increasing the resilience of natural and managed landscapes to different stressors such as fire, insect pests, diseases or other hazards.

Policy Requirements While the value of natural ecosystems in processes for adapting to climate change is being increasingly recognised, how can policymakers facilitate the integration of these principles into adaptation policies? In 2009, Vignola and others identified a number of approaches for improving policy in this area. Incorporating ecosystem management and adaptation to climate change into national development policies is an important starting point. Ecosystem degradation as a result of economic or industrial development will increase vulnerability and reduce adaptive capacity. Future societies will have more limited options for adaptation if processes in natural ecosystems are impaired or dysfunctional. Policy-makers should create and enforce linkages between ecosystem managers and vulnerable sectors benefiting from ecosystem services. This could occur through education and outreach to raise societal awareness about the relevance of ecosystem services, or through market-based approaches where those benefiting from the services provided by natural ecosystems pay for the management to provide those services. While climate change is a global issue, requiring global responses and national policy

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support, adaptation is ultimately a local process. As indicated in the box below, in the future scenario in northern Thailand, promotion and implementation of ecosystem-based adaptation is best managed by those with a direct interest in the health of their ecosystems and the services they provide. Communities should be actively involved in designing and implementing strategies for ecosystem-based adaptation as part of their local planning. This will require building an increased capacity to understand what Tim van Gelder calls ‘public wisdom’

(Chapter 10) within communities, recognising current power differentials and creating more equitable partnerships between communities and public and private actors in deciding on appropriate development pathways and the implementation of adaptation responses. NGOs can play a role in strengthening the capacity of populations their rights and values in the design of development and adaptation plans. As also demonstrated in the scenario, many of the ecosystem management actions to meet adaptation objectives will require

Ecosystems save lives The call rang out around the hills as Thanom woke. There had been heavy rain for days. He looked out his window and during the night a large mudslide had gouged a deep ravine in the slopes above, bringing down a dense tangle of scrub and mud. Thanom looked around and his neighbours’ houses all looked to be in good shape. They had survived the deluge. Thanom’s village, in the headwaters of the Chao Phraya River in northern Thailand, had been protected by a belt of forest established by the Ecosystem Restoration Service 30 years earlier, back in the early 2020s. This service, supported by international climate adaptation funds, had provided expertise, training and resources for local people to plan for increased flooding under climate change by restoring hillslope forests. Over the past 20 years they had gradually reforested 70 per cent of the hillslopes above their villages, relocated houses from exposed areas, and established riverside vegetation and restored some of the floodplain functions along streams with wetlands and barriers. Restoring forest and river ecosystems in this way was much cheaper than engineering works. Villagers could also collect medicinal plants, bamboo shoots and other foods during drought periods and harvest timber for local use and sometimes sale when crop yields were low. Automated systems higher in the catchments provided rapid warnings to local of flash flooding and the villagers had access to sophisticated flood mapping to manage risks and guide location of roads and houses. Despite a 30 per cent increase in high rainfall events, many fewer lives were lost and there was less disruption to people, services and the economy than earlier in the century when national and world leaders dithered over how (or even if) they should take preventative measures against climate change.

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funding. In recent United Nations Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) negotiations, an international adaptation fund has been proposed to help developing countries meet their adaptation challenges such as rising sea levels, increasing temperatures, more frequent or lengthy droughts, more severe flooding or changing ocean currents, and impacts on marine resources. Market-based arrangements such as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) can complement international adaptation funding for management and protection of those ecosystemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s that provide immediate service benefits such as watershed protection or carbon sequestration. Policy-makers need to create an institutional environment that facilitates agreements between users and providers of ecosystem services.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Successfully adapting to climate change is not just about building stronger bridges or bigger levee banks; it is about communities and ecosystems. Adapting to climate changes will require foresight and leadership. Successful adaptation will require strategic thinking, resourcefulness, creativity, collaboration and effective communication involving meaningful conversations within the community about what we value and what we might be prepared to lose. We need to talk about how to overcome barriers to understanding, planning for and managing the impacts of climate change. Like sustainability, adaptation is not an endpoint, but a journey. We need institutions,

societies, communities and indi-viduals that are continually adapting to a changing and uncertain set of environmental, social and economic conditions. While complex, adaptation can be seen as a social learning process. It requires a capacity for individuals and society to identify potential future changes and what it means for them. This will require agreement on common goals that allow us to cope with or benefit from the challenges that future climates will bring. Managing our natural ecosystems effectively and intelligently can be a big contributor to those goals. This can be best achieved not by creating more large â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;protected areasâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, where the goal is to have little human interaction with natural systems, but by designing and establishing integrated, multi-functional ecosystems that provide for climate protection, biodiversity conservation, human living spaces and the production of food and fibre to meet human needs. Other chapters have made specific recommendations about how people, or our institutions, should change to become adaptable and more sustainable. My one specific recommendation for action to enhance ecosystem-based adaptation is to establish the International Forest Ecosystem Restoration Service and set a global target to restore natural species composition and ecosystem function to 20 per cent of deforested areas by 2030, focusing on situations that provide the best protection for people and nature from future climate risks.

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16 Water Hector Malano and Brian Davidson

he global challenges relating to water are large. Despite the fact that 75 per cent of the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface is covered by water, less than one per cent of that amount is available for human use. The demand for water continues to grow with increases in population, the growth in the general economy and the desire for better environmental outcomes. Balancing supply and demand is made more difficult because markets for water are either underperforming or nonexistent. Water systems are developed to fulfil many economic, social and environmental objectives (Figure 1). It is often assumed that these three

objectives can be maximised and are nonexchangeable, when in reality there are always trade-offs between them, particularly between the economic and environmental goals. This question has been at the centre of the recent debate on the Murray-Darling Basin, in the Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan, which seeks to redress the environmental impacts caused by more than a century of irrigated agriculture. It is important to recognise that water resource strategies and policy apply to more than just natural water resources. Almost always, these policies apply to systems that have been heavily modified by historical development.

Figure 1. Water is everybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s business. Source: Cunera Joosten, Hydrocomplexity: New Tools for Solving Wicked Water Problems, 2010.

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What is meant by water resource sustainability? Sustainable water resource systems are those designed and managed to fully contribute to the objectives of society, now and in the future, while maintaining their ecological, environmental and hydrological integrity. Source: Loucks and Gladwell, 1999.

Systems such as the Murray-Darling Basin have large water storages to regulate flows, and are used to support significant increases in population and economic activities that sustain the livelihood of many communities. While it is never possible to reverse changes and create an environment that fully mimics the natural state, it is possible to maintain the integrity of an adapted or modified environment, provided that the environmental and economic objectives are clearly set out and water management processes are put in place to achieve these objectives. Achieving sustainable management of water resources involves a change of thinking around the analysis and debate about water management. This is based on three key principles: • A comprehensive understanding of the complexity and connectivity associated with the water cycle and the various uses of water, at a temporal and spatial scale; • K nowledge of and improvements in technically and economically efficient water use, which will be critical in meeting future increased demand; and • Adherence to evidence-based decision-making.

In the following we explain these three principles. Based on these key principles we suggest that the best way to achieve sustainable management of water resources is to establish fully functioning markets for water, where all those who need to trade water from one use to another can participate without any artificial restraints placed upon them.

Understanding and Managing the Whole-of-Water Cycle Freshwater that is available for human use forms part of an interconnected system of stocks and flows. During much of the 20th century, water resource development focused on the construction of infrastructure to regulate flows and improve security of supplies for agriculture and urban use. Often this development occurred in isolation from the possible downstream impacts, called externalities. For instance, dams alter the flow of a river with large impacts on its ecology. These impacts can be ameliorated if the flow from the dam and the underlying processes that support river ecosystems are understood.

Why is water resource planning important? ‘A nation that fails to plan intelligently for the development and protection of its precious waters will be condemned to wither because of its short-sightedness. The hard lessons of history are clear, written on the deserted sands and ruins of once proud civilisations.’ – LB Johnson, 1968

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Our ability to evaluate the efficiency of water use depends on understanding these quantities and flows of water. The water cycle concept is an effective and comprehensive way to account for all the fluxes, storages and sinks in a river catchment. Underlying the systems’ connectivity, it is critical to consider all the sources, uses and functions of water and the way actions in one part of the system or its environment have impacts and repercussion on other elements of the system (Figure 2). Describing the components of the water cycle is necessary if there is a need to:

• A ssessing external connections of water resource systems with associated systems, such as infrastructure, energy and associated carbon emissions needed to provide waterrelated services.

• A ssess the potential impacts of climate change on water security and availability;

The importance of improved water accounting in the search for increased productivity and sustainability cannot be overstated. Molden in 1997 wrote, famously, that if we can’t measure water we can’t manage water. Accurate accounting plays a critical role in reducing uncertainty about water flows, providing a valuable insight into water valuation practices, and can be used to inform investors on the provision of water services. Adequate water accounting can also lead to:

• A ssess the impact of population growth and efficiency gains; and

• Improved design of data collection networks to reduce uncertainty and error;

• Integrate alternative sources of water into the urban supply mix such as effluent recycling, rainwater runoff, etc.

• More accurate allocation of flows to the environment and economic uses;

Water Cycle Characterisation Involves Three Steps: • Recognising what is in and what is out, by delineating the systems’ boundaries and interconnections with environmental drivers such as climate and water policies; • Identifying internal connections between system components to assess the integration between multiple sources of water (waste water, drainage, surface and ground water) and multiple demands (potable water, industrial and environmental demand); and

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• Improved and easier business case for enterprises; • More access to credit for investors based on less risk for investors; and • Better understanding of the impacts of interventions to improve water efficiency (as gain in one part of the catchment may imply reduced security at other parts). Water accountability is also an important element in the process of establishing and maintaining markets for water, as markets require transparency and their participants must be accountable for their actions.

Water

Water Cycle South Creek, Western Sydney

evapotranspiration rainfall

Potable Water Supply STP

interception

overla

surface storage

nd flo

irrigation

ce flo

urfa

subs

percolation

Soil water storage

uife

FLO

Soi

E STR

l La

yer

Figure 2. Water cycle components in the South Creek catchment, Western Sydney. Source: CRC for Irrigation Futures. 2009.

Recognising the External Connections Water resource systems interact with the environment and with other resources in a number of ways. Between the point of capture – river or aquifer – and the point of wastewater disposal, the provision of potable water supply involves energy inputs in each step of the supply chain – capture, purification, distribution, usage, treatment and disposal. For instance, Melbourne Water is among the top 15 electricity users in Victoria and the top 150 users in Australia as it supplies 361GL of drinking water and treats 271GL of sewage.

Electricity generation uses water: directly to generate hydroelectricity or 1300L of water per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated from brown coal. Globally, agriculture is the largest user of water. Water in agriculture uses substantial energy and emits greenhouse gases. Indian farmers lifted some 150,000GL of groundwater using electric pumps and around 80,000GL using diesel pumps in 2000. In total, 14.4 million tons of carbon dioxide is emitted in supplying groundwater to agriculture, which is 16 per cent of India’s greenhouse gas emissions.

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Recognising the Time Dimension

Technical Efficiency

Identifying the time dimension is critical in water management. Two dynamic factors impacting on water resource systems are climatic variability and the need to analyse the lifecycle implications of water management interventions. The natural variability of climate has a direct impact on freshwater availability. Often, water system analyses are conducted without consideration to climatic variability. Such a simplistic approach is likely to lead to misleading conclusions about the level of security provided by water services, and has important implications for the appropriate selection of infrastructure and technology. Similarly, an objective economic and environmental assessment of water services and their infrastructure can only be made by systematically evaluating the impacts of all processes from â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cradle to graveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Apart from environmental services, most water services involve complex, expensive infrastructure. Lifecycle analysis is often used to carry out this type of assessment. In this approach, water, materials, energy and environmental implications throughout the lifecycle of the water service provision system are evaluated.

Technology has a critical role to play in advancing the efficient use of water resources. With technology, both economic and environmental objectives can be achieved with less water. In other words, technology can be an important enabler in improving both economic and environmental outcomes. A case in point is the provision of environmental watering to maintain or enhance aquatic ecosystems within rivers. Providing more water does not necessarily provide more benefits to the environment either. The accurate provision of water in time and space is equally or more important than the total amount of water provided. Thus technology plays an important role in achieving more efficient environmental watering. The total economic and environmental output is determined by how efficiently water is used. Technical efficiency is achieved when the ratio between the physical output and inputs are maximised. That is, when a given level of output is achieved with the minimum use of inputs, or when a given set of inputs is used to maximise the level of output. We define water use efficiency as the quantity of output produced by a unit of water deployed: for example, crop production per unit of water applied (kilogram per megalitre). On the other hand, if water is used for environmental watering, the main output is the amount of habitat generated (something that has not been adequately quantified in a consistent manner to date) per unit of water applied.

Managing Water Efficiently Under conditions of scarcity and competition, the best outcome is to use water as efficiently as possible, satisying both a technical and economic criteria. Distributing water in the most technically efficient manner does not necessarily mean that it will produce the highest economic output to society.

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Economic Efficiency There are many examples of projects that maximise technical efficiency, yet result in their owners losing money. Economic efficiency is maximised where the difference between the total returns and the total costs is greatest. Economic efficiency is an important element of resource allocation as it ensures that any good is used to create most value, without allocating more than the cost of providing it. With respect to water, society is getting value for money when investments in infrastructure to ensure water security satisfy the provisions of economic efficiency. In addition, it is possible to compare different strategies to solving water scarcity by evaluating the economic efficiency of each. In that way, society maximises its benefits at a minimal cost. Knowledge of the economic efficiency of an investment also

helps decisions regarding what users should be charged for their water. This in turn leads to markets being a mechanism for allocating water and in providing the correct pricing signals to society, not only for the water itself, but also for any future investments in water infrastructure. Examples of problems that arise from not considering both the technical and economic efficiency impacts of decision making are easy to find. Victoriaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s desalination plant has been widely criticised for failing the economic efficiency test. The desalination plant passes some (but not all) technical efficiency tests, but fails on the grounds of economic efficiency in relation to other solutions. Having built the Northâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;South pipeline, it would have been far more economically efficient to use market instruments such as water trading to acquire additional water when required.

Technically efficient water allocation mechanisms exist, but are they economically efficient? Source: Rubicon Water - Shepparton.

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Water resource decision making must be factually based Water management actions always impact on a number of stakeholders due to the very nature of interconnected systems. Transparency and objective decision making are paramount to sustain a responsible involvement of stakeholders in setting down new water management strategies. Understanding the water cycle is a prerequisite to transparency.

Resource Allocation and Water Trading Water trading has been in place in Australia since 1994. However, it is still hampered by various regional and state restrictions, including the exclusion of trading between rural and

CREDIBLE EVIDENCE

urban areas. If greater water efficiency is to be achieved we must overcome these restrictions. Ways we could do this include setting up a wholesale water market, whereby a number of water types (recycling, reuse, desalination and others) compete in a spot market in a similar fashion to the national electricity market. By revealing the actual price of water, an efficient water market could provide the appropriate price signals and incentives to water users to make better decisions that justify the adoption of more efficient water technology. Just as the tests of technical and economic efficiency apply to the development of new water strategies and projects, they should also apply to water used for environmental purposes. The environment has long been recognised as a legitimate user of water and government policies

TIMING

Appropriate methodology and approach

Time to gather data and analysis

Research capacity and transparency

POLICY

Policy environment receptive to assess policy and strategy options

High data quality control Independence

EVIDENCE-BASED POLICY Figure 3. Key elements of evidence-based water management policy.

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Three critical and often misunderstood concepts The price, the cost and the value of water are three entirely different concepts: - The cost of water is defined as the actual costs of providing water to its end-use point. It should be noted that if this activity is subsidised, two different costs might actually exist: the private cost which is the cost to the end user, and the social cost, which is the cost to society. - The value of water is equal to the difference between what people are willing to pay for all they consume and what they actually have to pay for that quantity of water. - The price of water is what people actually pay for it in a marketplace. For example, in the South Creek catchment of Western Sydney in 2008, these quantities were as follows: Cost

Value

Price

$3.32/kl

$8.72/kl (households)

$1.61/kl plus $75.70 fixed cost

$1.75/kl (industry)

per household

$1.06/kl (primary production)

ensure that it receives an allocation. However, this allocation needs to be assessed under the criteria of technical and economic efficiency. The fact that government has not sourced environmental allocations from existing water markets, preferring to purchase them directly from existing irrigators, is a concern as they are not valued within a market process.

Evidence-Based DecisionMaking After collecting accurate information, stakeholders and policy makers need to make decisions on how to use the water. Decision making in water management is a challenging process, due to the complexity of water resource systems. Decision-makers are confronted by strategies that involve a large

number of participants and stakeholders, often with conflicting objectives and interests. Sound policy can be achieved if based on facts, rather than beliefs or perceptions (Figure 3), and by integrating knowledge and information from several disciplines. A key to achieving succesful evidencebased decision-making is a policy-making environment that is receptive to ongoing learning. An ongoing partnership between decisionmakers, stakeholders and scientists is also critical. All evidence, and in particular modelling, must be open to examination and must be explicit about its assumptions and methodologies. Above all, modelling must be able to deliver results free of any influence that may compromise their robustness.

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The 2020 Water Sustainability Challenge To ensure water sustainability we must first ensure water security â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in the face of increased human activity and environmental demands, and potentially reduced supplies due to climate change. We need to vastly improve our water use efficiency in order to meet this challenge. Such improvements must be underpinned by both a clear understanding of the water cycle systems and decision-making that results in an objective assessment of any suggested water management interventions. Assigning water its actual market determined price is essential to achieve improvements in technical and economic efficiency. Water markets can be used to drive dramatic improvement in water efficiency, as demonstrated by the limited application of this policy in the past decade in Australia. Notwithstanding this level of success, there are still many constraints imposed on the water market that, if removed, would result in significant efficiency improvements in future.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 The most important challenge for water policy reform in Australia is the removal of myriad barriers to water trading, such as limits between interstate transfers and ruralâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;urban trade. In addition, we need greater acceptance of the water market as the primary place where the government purchases environmental water when it is required. Property rights of those who control the environmental entitlements to water also need

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to be established. They should be similar to those of the irrigators and include the right to store water from one season to another. In that way, trading can take place to balance the desires of the farmers who wish to even out the variability of flow in a catchment with environmentalists who wish to enhance it.

17 Food Sunday McKay and Rebecca Ford

lobal food production is under significant stress from a confluence of economic, political and environmental factors. The 2008 global food crisis illustrated the fragility of the current food system, sparked renewed interest into its complexities, and highlighted challenges for improvement. Concurrently, increasing population and consumption are placing unprecedented demands on agriculture and natural resources. To meet the world’s future food requirements, productivity must increase while agriculture’s environmental footprint must substantially decrease. This chapter explores some of the fundamental challenges facing agriculture in securing future food production.

Population Agricultural production is theoretically sufficient to feed the world’s population; yet more than a billion people do not have adequate access to food. One in seven people have insufficient access to protein and energy in their diet and 40,000 die everyday from hunger. With an estimated global population of 9.1 billion by 2050, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) predicts that food production must almost double over this 40-

year period. This will require agriculture to produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history. Total agricultural production will need to increase 70 per cent (100 per cent in developing countries) by 2050 to cope with this additional population. According to the FAO, this translates to an additional billion tonnes of cereals and 200 million tonnes of meat annually compared to current production. Figure 1 illustrates the proposed increase in cereal demand in developing and developed countries between 1995 and 2025. Most of the expected growth in population will occur in the developing world and will be associated with the ‘march to the cities’. By 2050, it is estimated that 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Urbanisation, together with growing wealth and higher incomes, is already significantly changing the composition of the food demanded. The food basket in many regions is shifting away from basic staple foods (cereals, wheat), towards high-value food products (such as meat and dairy). Specifically, overall meat consumption in developing countries is expected to account for around 82 per cent of the projected global growth in consumption

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3000

million metric tons

2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0

1995 Cereal demand

Developed countries

2025 baseline Developing countries

World

400 350 million metric tons

300 250 200 150 100 50 0 1995 Meat demand

Developed countries

2025 baseline Developing countries

World

Figure 1. Top: Cereal demand in developing and developed countries, 1995 and 2025 baseline. Bottom: Meat demand in developing and developed countries and world 1995 and 2025 baseline. Source: Rosegrant et al 2002.

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of protein in the next decade. Studies by Bruinsma (2009) have projected increases in per capita consumption of meat from 37kg to 52kg in developing countries by 2050 and 26kg to 44kg in low-income countries.

• Wheat between 9.2 and 13 per cent • Beef between 9.6 and 19 per cent • Lamb between 8.5 and 14 per cent • Dairy between 9.5 and 18 per cent • Sugar between 10 and 14 per cent

Agriculture and Climate

Whether there is sufficient fresh water to satisfy both agricultural and non-agricultural needs (such as household and industry uses) remains uncertain. Water is fundamental for food production and uses up to 70 per cent of the fresh water withdrawals in the world, which has led to growing concern about global water scarcity. Many of the large water basins in the world are already significantly physically stressed. Furthermore, irrigated agriculture plays a critical role in the food equation and has the potential to greatly increase land productivity. Irrigated agriculture currently accounts for 40 per cent of total global food production. By 2050, it is projected that 53 per cent of cereal production will be under irrigation. By 2030, water sources will need to increase by at least one third to support agriculture, at a time when severe water stresses are predicted to affect at least half of the world’s population. Agriculture releases significant amounts of CO2, CH4, and N2O. The sector’s total global contribution to GHG emissions is estimated to be 10–14 per cent of total emissions. This figure rises to more than 30 per cent when costs beyond the farm gate and especially land conversion are added. In Australia the agricultural industry is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and according to

Agriculture and climate are inextricably linked. Anticipated future climate change presents the agricultural industry with two complex requirements; to adapt to a changing and more variable climate, and to reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. These challenges will need to be met while delivering significant increases in food production. Agricultural production is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which in itself will have major implications for future food production and food security. Food production is critically dependent on local conditions, and changes to these conditions can severely alter crop growth and livestock performance. A 2.5 degree temperature increase could lower global agricultural productivity by up to 40 per cent (Cline, 2007). Agriculture in Australia is likely to be more adversely affected by climate change than other developed nations. With projections that Australia will experience warmer, drier conditions with more variability and extreme events, southern Australia can expect to experience drought-like seasons every two years on average in the coming decades. According to Gunasekera, Australia’s production of key agricultural products is estimated to decline between 2030 and 2050 as follows:

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6000 Selling

Daily calories per capita

5000

Transporting Packaging

4000

Processing Farming

3000

2000

1000

0 Pet food

Cereals

Dairy

Meat & Eggs

Oils, sugars, snacks, baking

Figure 2. Daily per capita energy input to the US food system, by food group and production phase, excluding household energy use. Source: Beyond food miles by Michael Bornford.

the Garnaut report contributes 16 per cent to the economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total emissions and is the main source of both methane (67 per cent) and nitrous oxide (77 per cent). While agricultural production is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, agriculture also provides untapped opportunities for GHG mitigation (reducing emissions). These opportunities fall into two categories: reducing methane and nitrous oxide emissions from animal and plant systems, and sequestering carbon in soil and vegetation. Global research undertaken by Peter Smith has shown that if there were a carbon price of US$100 then the market potential for agriculture to undertake the above practices of reducing emissions and/or increasing soil carbon storage would be US$420 billion per

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year. With a carbon price of US$20, the market potential for agriculture would be worth US$32 billion per year. This is a potentially significant additional source of income for agriculturalists. Our dilemma is that in future the agricultural industry will be expected to reduce emissions. However, emissions from agriculture are presently increasing and are expected to increase further due to increased demand for food from population growth and shifts in consumption patterns. Can agriculture meet this challenge of doubling food production to feed the growing population and concurrently deliver steep reductions in GHG emissions?

Food

Our Energy-Intensive Food System

The Cost of Intensive Food Production

Food production is energy hungry, particularly when we consider the energy required for packaging and transporting food not grown locally. Industrial transformation of agriculture during the Green Revolution of the 1950s and 60s led to quadrupled increases in global food production. The energy cost for this was supplied through fossil fuels in the form of fertilisers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fuelled irrigation, requiring 50â&#x20AC;&#x201C;100 times the energy input of traditional agriculture. Post farm-gate, energy is required for processing, transportation, storage, wholesale and retail distribution, and home storage and cooking. Modern food production, packaging and transport are extremely energy-hungry processes, as highlighted in Figure 2.

We are practically eating fossil fuels, and the amount of energy that has been pumped into production systems in recent decades has not equated to similar increases in productivity gains. Instead we have become obsessed with the production of the perfect-looking apple or the easiest crushable wheat grain for highmarket returns or downstream processing. We have ridden the coat-tails of the Green Revolution until they have frayed and we are now reliant on transforming our production systems to keep up with the food requirements of our burgeoning population. Whether this will come from genetic modifications alone is unlikely. Rather, this is part of a much wider ongoing debate to find ways of greatly increasing food production on lands with fragile soils and significant pest and disease problems.

Figure 3. Source: reproduced from Foley et al. 2011.

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With fossil fuel production predicted to decline in coming decades, there will be less energy available for the production of food. Sustainability of global agriculture will require development and wide implementation of alternative and renewable energy systems. Within the next decade we will see a movement towards on-farm systems that provide energy from renewable sources. These must include greater adoption of solar, wind and small-scale hydro systems as well biofuels that do not directly compete with food sources. Indeed, the conundrum is growing over the division of cropland dedicated to growing food that is directly consumed by people versus animal feed, fibre, bioenergy crops and other products (Figure 3).

Food Waste We live in a wasteful world, with 25–50 per cent of food produced globally wasted along our supply chains. This includes crops not harvested, food lost during transportation, food discarded or rejected by growers or retailers, and household food waste. The causes and sources of waste are many, including: the low cost of food; overproduction; long-distance transportation and supply chains; the power of retailers to dictate appearance and quality standards; aesthetic preferences of consumers; increased consumption of convenience foods with short shelf-lives; food safety standards and litigation concerns; and excessive purchasing. Despite this, no comprehensive research into the causes and potential points for reduction of food waste has been conducted in Australia.

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Research has been limited to quantifying the wastage of single crops on farms, or on postconsumption food waste in households (which is estimated to be in the order of $5.2 billion annually in Australia alone). This trend is believed to be similar to the United Kingdom and, as shown in Figure 4, the vast majority of this food waste is avoidable. Chapter three, ‘Consumption’ discusses this. Furthermore, food waste constitutes 35 per cent of municipal waste nationally and imposes an enormous environmental burden, from the resources used in production to the impacts on landfill, including GHG emissions. In the context of a growing population, climatic changes and the challenges of achieving food security, reducing food waste is one means by which food scarcity can be alleviated. By addressing the sources of food waste, and by developing strategies for utilising food, we can close the supply chain loop and offer substantial environmental and social benefits. The Australian Government’s 2011 ‘Issues Paper to Inform the Development of a National Food Plan’ identifies reducing food waste as an import policy priority for achieving a more sustainable food supply and for increasing food availability to the food insecure. In order to help solve this complex issue, a full understanding of the drivers, social impacts and costs along the supply chain is urgently required.

Diseases Direct loss of plant-derived food from pests and pathogens is estimated to be anywhere from

Food

million tonnes per year 0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

fresh vegetables and salads drinks fresh fruit bakery meals (home-made and pre-prepared) meat and fish dairy and eggs processed vegetables and salad condiments, sauces, herbs and spices staple foods cake and desserts oil and fat confectionery and snacks processed fruit other Figure 4. Household food and drink waste in the United Kingdom. Where brown bars = avoidable; yellow bars = possibly avoidable and dark blue bars = unavoidable. Source: WRAP 2009; Parfitt et al. 2010.

40 to 100 per cent annually across the globe. Humanity is in a continuum of struggle to stay one step ahead of endemic diseases while keeping the doors and borders closed to exotic threats. This is particularly true in Australia, an island nation, free of many organisms ‘known not’ to occur and which contribute to our ‘clean and green’ marketing edge over our export competitors. State and federal governments are committed to maintaining and improving our nation’s biosecurity, pouring funds into risk analyses, constant surveillance and

development of national diagnostic protocols. Despite these measures, each food production industry suffers from several major disease factors for which management strategies must be put into place to protect yield.

Chemicals The majority of food produced from crops and horticultural industries relies on the application of synthetic chemicals to control pests and diseases, often multiple times within a growing season. Chemicals are applied to the

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FAO Food Price Index 2002-2004 =100

250 Nominal

210 170 130

Real*

90 50

* The real price index is the nominal price index deflated by the World Bank Manufactures Unit Value Index (MUV)

Figure 5. Source: FAO Food price index 1990â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2011. FAO 2011.

soil to reduce the impact of potential harmful waterborne pathogens that attack roots, and to the foliage during the plantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growth to protect the leaves, stems and seed or fruit. Chemicals are also applied post-harvest to protect against spoilage organisms and fungal species that may produce secondary toxic compounds. Although greatly effective, the longer-term impacts of several chemical classes have meant that many have been phased out already and removed from the permitted chemical list or are in the process of being so. Although many cropping systems remain reliant on chemicals, current research is directed towards reducing chemical inputs and altering the disease triangle through manipulations considered more natural. This includes brassica (Indian mustard) used in rotation with cereals as a biofumigant because it exudes

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glucosinolate (sulphur rich) compounds from the root system that suppress populations of harmful organisms in the soil and substantially increases cereal yields.

Prices Food prices have dramatically increased over the last decade. This was illustrated in 2008 where international food prices of wheat and maize tripled and the price of rice increased fivefold. By 2009, together with the global economic crisis, the total number of hungry people in the world had reached more than one billion. As Figure 5 illustrates, from the middle of 2010, food prices began trending upwards again with wheat prices surging by 60 to 80 per cent in response to drought-fuelled crop losses in Russia and a subsequent export ban by the Russian Federation.

Food

It’s important to understand the significance of fluctuations in food prices to comprehend the fragility of our food system. Agriculture is an essential sector of the world economy, as a significant proportion of the population depends on it directly or indirectly. It contributes 24 per cent to global GDP and provides employment to 1.3 billion people or 22 per cent of the world population. With one billion people currently living on less than $1 a day and one in two people living on less than $2 a day, if the cost of food were to rise 20 per cent, 100 million people would be forced back into poverty, according to the FAO. Higher food prices are likely to remain in the coming decades, due to the increased pressures on land and water resources, climatic impacts and rapidly rising incomes in Asia and parts of Africa.

Australia’s Role It is of strategic importance that Australia plays a pivotal role in global food production. We produce 93 per cent of all food consumed in Australia and 1 per cent of all food consumed in the world. It is estimated that food produced in Australia currently feeds 60 million people annually. As Australia is geographically located in the Asia–Pacific region, which has the highest proportion of malnourished people, we will need to proactively address the issues of food security. While there may not be an immediate threat of food insecurity in Australia, the effects of climate change are likely to affect our status as a premier food exporting nation and the health and wellbeing of our population,

which is expected to reach 35 million by 2050. This will place significant challenges on the carrying capacity of our food system to achieve food security. Finally, although Australia’s agricultural production accounts for only 1 per cent of all food consumed in the world, we are among one of the most significant net food exporters. We have continued to produce food on one of the driest continents in the face of continual climate variability. There are significant opportunities for Australian agriculture to contribute to a global solution of feeding 9.1 billion by 2050, and to achieve this, governments and research and development agendas will need to be aligned.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 We will face many challenges in meeting the global food demand of the future. They include population increase, climate change energy requirements, and reduced GHG emissions and chemical use. In Australia, it is essential that future public policy agendas be inclusive of both the national and local considerations that influence our food production systems and availability, from farm-gate to fork. Meanwhile, we the end consumers can make immediate changes to significantly improve the security of our food, including preparedness to accept aesthetically imperfect produce, reducing household food waste through better buying choices, and choosing low-impact packaging with recycling options.

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18 Zero Carbon Land-Use Chris Taylor and Adrian Whitehead

revious chapters have described the need to store more atmospheric carbon in vegetation and soils as well as the desirability of reinstating diverse vegetation, such as grasslands and native forests. However, at present, land-use activities – principally agriculture, livestock grazing and forestry – release over 126 million tonnes of CO2e or 22 per cent of the Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions (CO2e signifies carbon dioxide equivalent, which accounts for the warming effect of each greenhouse gas equivalent to CO2). Thus, changes to land-use offer a challenge and an opportunity. In this chapter, we argue that it is both desirable and possible to achieve land-uses that, in total, have no net emissions of carbon.

Land-Use in Australia Australia’s landmass comprises over 7.6 million km2, of which around 70 per cent is managed by agricultural businesses. The majority of this consists of grazing, which collectively manages nearly 5.0 million km2. Other businesses collectively manage a relatively smaller percentage of land area. Together, agricultural businesses produce goods with a gross annual value of $43.3 billion and employ 318,000 people, making them crucial to life in rural areas.

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They also play an important role geo-politically, where large quantities of food and fibre are exported to international markets. However, to enable the rapid expansion of agriculture and forestry, large areas of natural ecosystems have been cleared, often resulting in widespread loss of biodiversity and landscape degradation. In all, 1,015,885 km2 of native Australian forests, rainforests, woodlands and other vegetation has been cleared, with the greatest loss occurring in the southeast of the country (Figure 1). Land clearing in Australia has been rapid and epic in its scale. Within a relatively short period of time (200 years), entire landscapes were completely transformed for rural development. Settlers often sought to re-create the landscape in a European context in order to implement familiar farming practices. One such area is the South Gippsland region of Victoria, which previously contained large areas of tall eucalyptus forests and rainforests (Figure 2). These forests were referred to as ‘the scrub’ and the settlers who ventured into them were often referred to as ‘pioneers’. As opposed to destruction, clearing was initially seen as an improvement to the land. As environmental historian Tom Griffiths notes, this

Zero Carbon Land-Use

Figure 1. Extent of clearing for intensive agriculture in southeast Australia (shown in red for agriculture and black for builtup areas). Source: ACLUMP 2010; NVIS 1999.

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pastureland for grazing: in particular, dairy and beef. The entire region was transformed, with its biological legacies restricted to small remnants (Figure 2). The scene of South Gippsland is common throughout southeastern Australia. While agricultural production has increased in these areas, ecosystem functions and services have declined. These include biodiversity, hydrology, fire behavior and ecosystem carbon capacity. Furthermore, agricultural production on these cleared lands is a significant contributor to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. For example, the enteric emissions from the nation’s cattle and sheep equate to 54 million tonnes CO2e, with a significant proportion of this livestock grazing on previously cleared land. Tall wet forest in South Gippsland prior to clearing. Source: South Gippsland Development League 1966

Environmental Stresses on Remaining Woodlands

improvement was nostalgic. The ‘new country’ was to resemble the ‘old country’. Often the forests were seen as impenetrable and vast. They were dark and viewed as an impediment to development. The region’s tall trees were ringbarked and the understorey slashed one year and burnt the following year. This was considered by the settlers as one of the most effective ways of clearing land for effective pasture establishment. With the clearing of the vast forests and woodlands of Australia, land was opened up to pasture, cropping and plantations. In the South Gippsland region, the clearing of its tall eucalypt forests made way for extensive

Areas either abandoned or not cleared for agricultural development became remnant areas of vegetation. In most cases, they were fragmented and isolated from other native vegetation areas. Where land clearing had not significantly progressed, concerns emerged over the depletion of the timber resources in forests. This prompted a number of government inquiries, royal commissions and the establishment of forestry agencies to reserve areas of land considered valuable for timber production. This led to the declaration of ‘state forests’. While the initial motive to protect forests and woodlands was utilitarian, it did provide some degree of protection for ecosystem

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Zero Carbon Land-Use

functions and services. However, as logging practices intensified following World War II, so did the environmental concerns over these practices, which mostly consisted of clearfell logging and converting remaining forest areas to plantations (Figure 3). It has been argued that remaining native vegetation acts as a refuge for native species of animals and plants. It also provides specific ecosystem functions and services, including biodiversity, hydrology and ecosystem carbon capacity. Environmental concerns have led to the creation of conservation reserves throughout southeast Australia. However, significant areas of forest remain contested in the manner they are managed.

Land Clearance and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Land clearance and logging has, and continues to be, a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions for Australia. In 2009, land clearance in Australia emitted over 41 million tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere. In the past, it has been much higher; for example, it exceeded 130 million tonnes in 1990. Emissions from historic land clearance since European settlement have not been accounted, but it is assumed that the resulting emissions would again be significantly higher. In remaining forest and woodland areas that are subject to logging operations, research by the Cooperative Centre of Greenhouse Accounting, Australian National University and

Figure 2. South Gippsland Grazing Pasture in 2012. Source: Chris Taylor.

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New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service has revealed that these ecosystems only carry 60 per cent of their potential carbon carry capacity. Historically, the carbon stocks of remaining forests and woodlands would have been higher than their current levels. The unaccounted ecosystem carbon has been released into the atmosphere, which was the result of mature forests and woodlands being converted to young stands. Research in the United States has revealed that such conversion can release large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Opportunity for Carbon Sequestration in Land-Use While land clearance and management practices in remaining forests and woodlands have resulted in negative environmental outcomes

throughout Australia, they do provide landholders and governments opportunities to restore cleared and degraded ecosystems with the benefit of increasing ecosystem carbon capacity in the landscape. This results in the removal of historic and current greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere, with carbon being stored for long cycles in restored forests and woodland ecosystems. However, not all regions or vegetation communities have the same carbon-carrying capacity as each other. This becomes a critical point in any strategy on restoring land for carbon sequestration purposes. Any restoration will decrease or even displace some existing land-use practices. It is important to identify strategic areas for restoration and maximise the value to landholders and communities at large.

Figure 3. Clearfell logging in Victorian state forests. Source: Chris Taylor.

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Zero Carbon Land-Use

Figure 4. Above-ground maximum biomass potential of cleared areas. The gradation in colour from orange through yellow and green to blue, illustrates increasing potential to store carbon through revegetation, from about 2 tonnes per ha to 667 tonnes per ha. Source: DCCEE 2004.

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One approach to identifying strategic areas for ecosystem restoration with the benefit of carbon sequestration is to analyse the maximum biomass potential of any specific site. The Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency has developed such a dataset, which draws from an overall Forest Productivity Index (FPI). The Maximum Biomass Potential dataset details the above-ground dry biomass of plants at or near maturity. It ranges from arid shrublands (2 t per ha) to tall wet sclerophyll forests (667 t per ha). When the dataset is overlaid onto areas cleared for pasture and cropping, it can identify key and strategic areas for carbon sequestration through ecosystem restoration. Figure 4 provides a map of the maximum biomass potential for areas cleared in southeast Australia. Areas of high biomass accumulation are located in northeast New South Wales, southern Victoria and northern Tasmania. The areas of high biomass potential have been mapped onto areas of cleared land previously consisting of tall and open eucalypt forests, along with rainforests. Areas of relatively low biomass potential include those previously vegetated with mallee and eucalypt woodland. Although revegetation of any cleared land provides environmental benefits, restoring forests with high biomass potential will result in the highest sequestration potential per unit of land. Restoration of lower biomass potential areas would need greater areas to be restored to achieve similar sequestration goals. If a strategy to maximise carbon sequestration and minimise the displacement of

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existing land-use practices were to be adopted, then areas of the highest biomass potential need to be identified. In the case of southeast Australia, cleared areas that previously carried tall and open eucalypt forests and rainforests would become strategic areas for ecosystem restoration. Most of these forest types were located in eastern New South Wales, southern Victoria, and northern and central Tasmania. The tall open forests have been described as containing trees that are greater than 30m tall at maturity and foliage covering between 30 and 70 per cent of the area. The open forests have been described as containing trees that are 10 to 30m tall, and covering around 30 to 70 per cent of the area. In the Maximum Biomass Potential dataset, these forest types have been predicted to carry up to 667 tonnes of dry above-ground biomass per hectare at or near maturity. This would equate to around 333.5 tonnes carbon. Other studies have observed and modelled much higher volumes of carbon for these forest types. A study published by the Australian National University has noted that these forest types can carry up to 2000 tonnes of above-ground carbon per hectare. Figure 5 identifies the pre-European settlement, 1750, extent of these vegetation types as assumed by the National Vegetation Inventory System. In southeast Australia, around 69,250km2 of cleared land carried tall and open eucalypt forest and rainforest. If these forest types were to be restored with their original 1750 extent of forest, the maximum above-ground

Zero Carbon Land-Use

Figure 5: Areas of tall open forest restoration in relation to existing land-use. Source: ACLUMP 2010; NVIS 1999.

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biomass achieved in these forest types would equate to nearly 1.3 billion tonnes. This equates to roughly 640 million tonnes of ecosystem carbon, resulting in the removal of 2.3 billion tonnes from the atmosphere by the above-ground biomass alone. With maximum biomass achieved within 200 years, the annual drawdown of atmospheric CO2 would be 11 million tonnes or 14 per cent of Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s annual greenhouse gas emissions resulting from agriculture. These are conservative figures and higher sequestration potentials may be achieved by using other models and methods that have been developed to measure ecosystem biomass and carbon.

Regrowing Carbon Stocks As previously discussed, areas of remaining forest that have been subject to logging in southeast Australia have been noted to only carry 60 per cent of their full carbon-carrying capacity. Numerous studies have noted significant potential in carbon sequestration and protection through the adequate management and protection of remaining forests and woodlands. For example, a significant study published by the Australian National University estimated that the current carbon stock of southeast Australian forests is 3 billion tonnes. If logging in these forests were halted, the carbon stored in intact forests would be protected, and degraded forests would be able to regrow their carbon stocks. This carbon sequestration potential would equate to 2 billion tonnes or remove 7.5 billion tonnes of oxygen from the atmosphere.

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Land Required for Sequestration To achieve the goal of sequestering 2.3 billion tonnes of atmospheric CO2 into the Australian landscape, around 57,827 km2, or 16 per cent, of land converted to grazing pasture would be required for ecosystem restoration. Smaller areas of dryland and irrigated cropping, irrigated horticulture and pasture would also be needed. This does not mean that existing landuse would cease in these areas. In strategic areas, land-use could become multiple-use. Such multiple-use land management has been achieved through agroforestry and farm forestry. This is where areas of a farm are revegetated, while other areas maintain existing land-use practices, such as grazing or cropping. An example of farm forestry is provided in Figure 6. Areas that are revegetated can provide for greater quality in ecosystem functions and services to the landholder, shelter for livestock, windbreaks for crops and the potential for wood products. If a large number of landholders adopt this strategy, revegetated land allocated to production could potentially replace traditional sawlogs and pulplogs sourced from native forests and monoculture plantations. This can diversify rural communities and their economies. However, it must be noted that any resource extraction in restored ecosystems could result in lower carbon capacities for those specific areas.

Zero Carbon Land-Use

Figure 6. Farm forestry in southern Victoria. Source: Chris Taylor.

Advantages of Ecosystem Restoration There are many ways to revegetate land with the goal to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. The Commonwealth government is launching its Carbon Farming Initiative with such intent. However, not all carbon plantings are the same. A study published by John Kanowski and Carla P Catterall noted that diverse restored ecosystems contained greater volumes of carbon when compared with monoculture plantations, because ecosystem plantings are usually more densely stocked. Trees in restored ecosystems featured basal areas four times greater than

those in monoculture plantings. Diverse ecosystems can also be resilient to pest outbreaks. In some cases, specific forest types, such as rainforests, can mitigate the spread of unplanned fires. More importantly, restored ecosystems can become self-sustaining and not require inputs of energy from humans in the long term. But the initial cost of restoring a previously cleared ecosystem can be proportionately high in comparison to a monoculture planting. Landowners and governments may resort to implementing the least cost-effective means of sequestration if other economic incentives are lacking.

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Complementing Connectivity Initiatives and Broader Restoration Strategies The carbon sequestration strategy proposed here can complement larger projects that aim to bring connectivity throughout the Australian landscape and provide animal species opportunities for movement and migration. The re-establishment of tall and open forests and rainforests in southeast Australia would complement the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Great Eastern Ranges Corridorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; project that has been prepared by ANU Enterprises Pty Ltd and is supported by the New South Wales state government. This project proposes to join remaining areas of forests and woodlands to provide a continuous link from the Central Highlands of Victoria through to the Atherton Tablelands in far north Queensland. In this sense, the restoration of ecosystems for carbon sequestration will add to ecosystem resilience in the face of climate change, reduce habitat fragmentation, increase species diversity and ecosystem complexity, and reduce threatening processes.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Combined with improved agricultural practices (such as zero tillage, using more perennial plant species and less livestock), active intervention (such as biochar, restoring forest and woodlands in southeast Australia) will result in a net sequestration of carbon emissions. Our recommendation for action by 2020 is to strategically revegetate targeted

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areas of cleared forests, as in Figure 4, creating mixed forests and farmland that will remove up to 2.3 billion tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. However, while these ecosystems would initially sequester atmospheric CO2 rapidly upon planting, their rates of sequestration would progressively slow upon reaching their saturation or climax points. Thus, in the long term, land-use emissions would need to decline and progressively retreat to safe levels by changes to farm practice as well as the revegetation we recommend. Changes to agricultural practices would include reduced fertiliser production and use, reduced numbers in livestock that emit relatively large quantities of methane, and efficient crop harvesting that operates on renewable and net zero emission energy sources.

Cities

19 Changing Cities Peter Newman and Carolyn Ingvarson

magine a city that uses 100 per cent renewable energy…where most transport is by electric light rail, biking, or walking...where the solar office block is filled with green businesses… where the local farmers market sells fresh, bioregional produce…where parents meet in the parks and gardens while their children play without fear in car-free streets. The image you’ll have conjured is Vauban, a new eco-city of 5000 households within Freiburg, Germany. Vauban is famous for its achievements but what is little known is that the ideas that drove it and the community that built it were from a bunch of ordinary German householders determined to make something better for the future of their children and grandchildren. This chapter sets a context for action to move us towards a sustainable society, and then examines two Australian grassroots initiatives.

Why Sustainability in Cities? Cities have always been places of economic and social opportunity. They emerged when hunter-gatherer societies were transformed into settled societies based on agriculture. Today’s cities have grown large during the industrial era and still provide the main

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economic and social opportunities for the world’s growing population. But cities are now having a significant environmental impact as they are based, at increasing rates, around the consumption of fossil fuels and materials. They must continue to provide opportunities, but they must become more like Vauban – sitting lighter on the planet. Indeed, the key question now is whether cities can not only reduce their impact on earth but also contribute to its regeneration. Around the world, cities are becoming more sustainable through resilient buildings, alternative transportation systems, distributed and renewable energy systems, water-sensitive design, and zero-waste systems – with all the cleverness of a new industrial green revolution. From new cities like Masdar in Abu Dhabi to redeveloped areas like Treasure Island in California, Vauban and Hanover in Germany, and BedZED and the new Olympic village in London, these pioneers are dramatically reducing their ecological footprints. But what needs to be done in our existing cities and what does the grassroots involvement of communities mean in this brave, new, green world?

Changing Cities

Government Policies Several key government policies can help cities move toward sustainability: • Infrastructure to enable energy, water, transport, and waste to be managed with minimal ecological impact; • A design to ensure that the infrastructure is efficiently available to all; • Innovation through R&D and demonstrations to continually ensure that the latest ecotechnology becomes mainstream; • Tax incentives to direct investment into these new technologies and provide people with the price signal motivation to change their behaviour; • Regulations to set the standards high enough for sustainability technologies to cover their externalities; and • Education- and behaviour-change programs to ensure households and communities want to make the changes needed. These policy mechanisms are expanded in Figure 1 to show they can help to decarbonise cities by focusing on the front end of the economy (where the energy enters the urban system through power plants, oil refineries, industry, etc) and through the end-user part of the economy (buildings, transport and households). These all have their roles to play in the transition to creating low-carbon cities. Cities are built around people and if these policies do not reach inside how communities live and breathe then they will be much less useful; they will be policy without soul.

Helping Urban Residents Live Sustainably BedZED is a carbon-neutral development and social housing experiment in outer London. When a detailed assessment of residents’ ecological footprints was made, a huge variation was found in how people made use of the area’s ecological features. The average footprint for some residents was around 4.4 hectares per person (still less than the average for London of 6.6 hectares), yet some residents were able to get their impact down to 1.9 hectares per person. Experiences in many early European experiments in urban ecology may hold the explanation for this. Buildings and neighbourhoods that were not developed within a community can fail to achieve their design outcomes. If innovations are imposed on people who do not know how to use the new buildings as designed or why they should use less power or water or fuel, residents can simply transfer their old consumptive lifestyles to the new ‘eco’ situations. The growth of sustainable cities will only be mainstreamed when the green transformation involves all elements of the policy process – especially the processes that help people want to change – the grassroots does indeed seem an essential part of the process. Here we assess how far and effectively two grassroots movements, in Perth and Melbourne, are reaching into the Australian suburban soul.

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Examples Policies and mechanisms

Front end

End users

Mandatory emissions reporting – ie NGERS Renewable Energy Target (RET) Clean coal requirements

Building codes – ie BASIX, star ratings; carbon neutral reqt. Mandatory energy disclosure (buildings) Mandatory energy performance standards

Emission Trading Schemes Carbon Tax

Voluntary carbon trading National Carbon Offsets Standard Subsidies and Rebates i.e. Solar panels, home insulation, green loans, etc

International Treaties Corporate social responsibility (large businesses and utilities)

Carbon neutral businesses and local governments Corporate social responsibility (small businesses) GBC ratings Other environmental ratings for buildings Green power

Smart Grids Renewables links to grids Public transport (shapes cities) Infrastructure Australia (require a carbon reduction) Solar Flagship Program

Smart meters Electric Vehicle plug-in facilities Infrastructure for walking/cycling/transit Green infrastructure for local developments Green Transformers (City of Sydney) Power utility energy efficiency programs

Energy efficiency pgms, Solar Cities Pgm

Household Sustainability Audits, Travel Smart Living Smart

Investment in CCS/Clean coal Solar flagships Renewable Natural Gas

Carbon neutral communities Design models for low-carbon planning and building of precints

Visioning/strategic planning

Garnaut Report and Energy White Paper

Strategic planning, Clinton Climate Initiative ICLEI cities

Governance/focus

PM’s Energy Efficiency Plan

COAG Urban Planning focus on reducing carbon

Regulation

Market-based instruments

Moral pressure

Infrastructure and services

Education R&D and demonstration

Figure 1. Decarbonising policies and mechanisms.

Living Smart Living Smart is a program developed by the City of Fremantle with Murdoch University to enable householders to learn about their own lifestyles and begin to find ways they can change. It has been incorporated into a largescale State Government initiative now but at the same time it has developed its own life with

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groups of Living Smarties springing up across Perth suburbs and in country towns. Living Smart grew out of TravelSmart, a community-based program to help householders reduce their car use. It has reduced the kilometres travelled by vehicle by around 12–14 per cent in communities across the world – a result that seems to last for at least five years

Changing Cities

after the program ends. Where transit is not good and destinations are more spread out, the program may only reduce car use by eight per cent, but where transit is good it can rise to 15 per cent. This is not a revolution, but it has many synergistic positive outcomes. When people start to change their lifestyle and can see the benefits, they not only persuade their friends of the value, they become advocates of sustainable transport and climate change policies in general. Governments find it easier to manage the politics of transformation to reduced car use when the communities they are serving have begun to change themselves. An example of this was the development of Perth’s rail system. As shown in Figure 2, Perth has been progressively rebuilding its rail system since the decision to re-open the Fremantle railway line – first electrifying the old diesel system in the late 1980s, then extending 29km to the north in the early 1990s and finally 72km to the south in 2006. The modern electric rail system now moves people down four urban corridors faster than road traffic (eg, Melbourne’s rail system averages 33kph while Perth’s averages 70kph). Hence since 1992, the Perth rail system has moved from carrying eight million passengers a year to 60 million. The new Southern Rail has been particularly successful and now carries 55,000 people a day, compared with 14,000 who used to take the bus; this is the equivalent of eight lanes of traffic. In parallel to the building of the rail line, Perth had some 200,000 households undergoing the TravelSmart program. This has helped in the conversion of people from car use

Clarkson Line 4 km Currambine Line 29km Midland Line 14km

Fremantle Line Thornlie Spur Line 4km 21km Armadale Line 28km

Mandurah Line 72km Figure 2. The Perth city railway network, illustrating the expansion of rapid public transport associated with the north–south spread of the city since the 1980s.

to train use, as the Southern Suburbs Railway increased public transport patronage by 59 per cent in areas without TravelSmart but by 83 per cent in areas where TravelSmart was deployed. The TravelSmart program recognises a fundamental principle about cultural change: it works best when the change is supported by a community: when it is part of the development of social networks that support changes in lifestyle. TravelSmart develops this social capital around sustainable transport modes. It does this through relationships established with

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Fiesta in Freo One of the most inspiring outcomes of Living Smart is Hulbert Street in Fremantle where Shani and Tim live. The whole street has been drawn into living more sustainably since attending a Living Smart course together. Half of the houses have solar power; most recycle their grey water into gardens that are part of a community-based food production system that now includes goats and bees as well as vegetables and fruits; there’s a Hulbert Street Choir; Friday night movies in the street; and a Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta which attracts 5000 each year. An evaluation of people attending the Fiesta showed that over 80 per cent were going to change something in their lifestyle after seeing the street and its low-carbon household activities. See www.sustainability.curtin.edu.au/CUSP Films for the story of Hulbert Street.

the TravelSmart personnel and with others in the local community who are making the same first steps to get out of their cars. The same approach to cultural change that TravelSmart uses has been applied to other aspects of sustainability at the household level, in Living Smart. It deals with a broader range of changes that people can make in order to live more sustainably, including travel; home energy and water use; the products we buy; recycling; food gardening; and community building. The program helps to provide household infrastructure for new green technologies such as solar power, grey water recycling, energyand water-efficient appliances; house design issues to ensure there is maximum daylight and minimum waste of energy; and most of all, information on how to live with a lower footprint in household daily activities. Living Smart brings sound and locally relevant material into people’s homes. The ecocoaches who have worked with the first 15,000 households in a trial have found enormous

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enthusiasm: 74 per cent of households are interested in making changes. Half of the households are signing up for workshops, coaching for special energy meters, advice on gardens, and home audits. Evidence of the grassroots growth in Living Smart can be seen from its exponential spread across Perth and into country towns, in groups that are either self- or community-funded.

Lighter Footprints Concerned citizens in Boroondara, Melbourne, set up Lighter Footprints. It is not driven by government funding (as the WA projects have been), and it is not an isolated action but is part of a movement of climate action groups around the country. Lighter Footprints grew from the response of one person to Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth in 2006 – a letter written to the local paper asking that if anyone else felt that we were in a diabolical situation, and that we might be able to do more together than separately, then please get in touch. Twelve

Changing Cities

people attended the first meeting. There’s now a core of about 30–40 people with a base of community support (over 600) through email and a blog website (www.lighterfootprints.org). So what is significant about a group like this in working for change? It has no formal structure or membership or resources. (Other groups do choose to formalise their structure and raise funds to assist their activities, so this is but one approach within the wider climate change movement.) It has taken many people on personal journeys of discovery through discussion and access to information. Many have changed

their own practices to lighten their carbon footprints. But what became apparent to the group, surprisingly quickly, was the scale of change required from local, state and federal levels of government to build sustainable cities, and that personal choices are but one element of the whole picture. This group’s focus has become one of watching for decisions being made that impact on sustainability and targeting them. The emphasis on pressing for political change, rather than just individual practice, is illustrated here by its organised support for introduction by the Australian government of a carbon tax (below).

Lighter Footprints supports the Earthball Relay – highlighting the importance of the carbon tax legislation. Oct 2011.

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Lighter Footprints has identified various strategies for fostering change through community action, and by pressing for action on climate change, including: • Run forums on climate change with candidates for every election, both state and federal, over the years (two state and two federal). Survey all candidates for local election on their views on climate change and relevant action, and then post results in local press and on website; • Hold regular large public forums on issues of relevance and interest to the community; • Support campaigns to achieve national outcomes such as a carbon tax; • Run monthly meetings with speakers; • Run small project group meetings, also monthly, on federal/state politics, and on local government and community issues; • Make submissions to local government on budget and strategic plans as well as to state and federal government on climate change policy; • Establish regular meetings with local council officers; • Talk to the local paper on many issues related to climate change; • Visit politicians in the area, so they know who the group is and what they stand for; • Run stalls, speak to local groups, attend conferences (local and national), hold workshops; • Write letters to the daily papers; • Set up a website/blog, and keep it relevant; • Keep up a lively information base for members through email; • Support local network links around the nation; • And, not least, build friendships.

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One example of the impact of Lighter Footprint’s actions involves a submission made to Boroondara Council supporting the draft Activity Centre Strategic Plan in 2011. This strategy supported the development of medium-density residential and commercial buildings in designated areas around public transport and retail nodes of three-storey levels – higher in different cases – and was perceived by Lighter Footprints as fundamental to the long-term reduction of carbon emissions from energy use and transport in our local community. The strategy was opposed by other associations of community groups who saw it as a threat to current ways of living within the city in the name of support for the environment. These groups heavily lobbied the Boroondara Council. In the end, the council supported the Activity Centre Strategy by one vote. The council said it took into account the quality of the argument and not just the numbers. This provides encouragement that small groups supporting common-good outcomes can influence outcomes for sustainability, which the whole community then absorbs. The dissonance between the conservationist groups and the climate action groups relates to their differing views of the future – on the one hand, preserving the current state as far as possible, and on the other, requiring significant change in living patterns. There can be agreement on the restriction of McMansions and the preservation of tree canopies and parks, but the reduction of car dependence, and the need for significantly

Changing Cities

denser development around transport nodes and along transport routes, is quite fiercely disputed. Local government (as much as the other levels of government) must choose the kind of leadership role it will play in the face of the these issues, and good presentations (rather than rantings) from local community groups can be pivotal. There are now around 40 groups similar to Lighter Footprints across Victoria, not including the many groups that are part of the Transition Towns network or the rest of the Climate Action Network within Australia. It is the start of a vast and growing social movement that can lead to significant political change to address global warming, which will drive the sustainable cities of tomorrow.

Actions 1. Join a local Climate Action Group and record the lobbying actions taken and their consequences. 2. Record your household energy, water and fuel use and see if they are being reduced. Make projections to see if your reductions could keep up with Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s commitment of five per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050. 3. If you were to generate a community within your street based around reducing your footprint, what would be on the list of things that you would do? Invite a group of neighbours to afternoon tea to test out your list, and go from there.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 A range of policies can make cities more sustainable, but all of them will work better when supported by community action. The culmination of household grassroots action movements like the ones outlined above, combined with all the other policy initiatives that are happening, may be the beginning of a transformation, not just in the actual savings in fossil fuels and other valuable materials, but in the growing sense that the actions of households and communities can help achieve the transition to more sustainable cities. All important social movements have become mainstreamed through developing their own social capital. This hope is the currency of growth toward sustainable cities.

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20 Affordable Living Thomas Kvan and Justyna Karakiewicz

entral to any concept of a socially sustainable society is the critical need for communities to be economically viable. As a significant portion of household incomes are committed to the provision of accommodation, the affordability of housing impacts not only those in the household but, by extension, the community and beyond into the broader economy.

The House You Can Afford We all need housing and we are all prepared to pay a significant portion of our income for it. Our perception, based on reading the real estate advertising, is that most housing is unaffordable. Each time we start looking for a place to live, we start by looking at homes we would like to live in, located in neighbourhoods that are attractive, and we come to realise that we cannot afford these choices. Compromising

our wishes as we translate them to those we can afford, we narrow our choices. What features can we live without, what rooms are not necessary? Is what ‘I want’ the same as what ‘I need’? After a while, we realise that we are no longer in control of our decision on where and how to live. Homes located near opportunities for work, great entertainment or good schools all seem to be too expensive, so we must either think of living in a smaller house without some attributes or move further out and face a longer commute. If our budget is very tight, you seem to find less choice and so it is that those who are poor often have no choice. Most of them will end up in housing either at the periphery of the city or in economically devastated areas more centrally where work, schooling and even safety are chronically limited.

$$$ $$$$

The more you pay, the more choices you have. Does this need to be the case?

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Affordable Living

The more expensive the housing, the more accessible is employment

In either case, we can understand that there may be affordable housing but it is not affordable living. If you end up living on the city periphery, your chances of getting a properly paid job locally are slight and it is difficult to travel to an interview for a better job since transportation is often not available. Too often, affordable housing is far from opportunity. Of course, many people think of a home as their major opportunity to save money for later in life (or retirement) as the value of the house increases. This is often the justification for those who assign a major part of their income to the mortgage payment, often in excess of their ability to afford it. The assumption is that property prices usually rise, hence many people speculate on property. As we have seen from 2008 onwards in many parts of the developed world, such as Europe and North America, this is not something we can rely on.

Patterns and Problems in Affordable Housing A very large, poor workforce was attracted to the US city of Detroit in the first half of the 20th century to support the boom of automobile

production. These workers came looking for a better quality of life, but they were the lowest paid workers and housing them became a significant problem. Landlords started to subdivide apartments into small units and began constantly increasing the prices since the market for housing was booming. Because there was never a shortage of people willing to rent these properties, the landlords didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bother with maintenance and upkeep. The tenants themselves preferred to send their little money back where they came from to secure their future when they returned. As a result, the areas where the migrant population lived slowly degenerated. Those who had a little extra money moved out to more desirable areas, to be replaced by more who had none. After the automobile industry collapsed, a huge part of Detroit became deserted. Today land value is close to zero and you can buy whole blocks of the city for a small sum. With an opportunity to benefit from improvements made, residents will respond differently. Contrast Detroit with the example seen in South America, where the value of land in favellas rises the moment a migrant worker

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Figure a.

Figure b.

Figure a. A diagramatic map of Medellin in which the locations of favelas are seen to be isolated on the adjoining slope away from the higher cost housing located in the valley where the employment is also located. Figure b. Over time, as travel from favelas has been improved, the perceived access to employment from favelas has changed.

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Affordable Living

claims a piece for shelter. Favela dwellers typically cannot afford to construct anything significant at the start, but slowly build their capital. If they start earning some money or are successful in scavenging, they invest it in their house. Often, they will later extend their houses sufficiently to accommodate tenants, supplementing income that is then used to improve their housing. Through this slow evolution is observed the incremental development and improvement in such areas of informal housing. But the patterns and problems of affordability can be found closer to home because any major Australian city faces the same issues. With the majority of the country’s population gathered together in a few cities, there is difficulty in providing housing at a price everyone can afford.

What Is Affordability? Usually, we understand affordability as ‘inexpensive; reasonably priced’, which is the definition in the Oxford Dictionary and, in fact, illustrated with the sample phrase ‘affordable home’. An etymological dictionary will show that ‘affordability’ derives from ‘forward, onward, to put forth, to contribute, advance, accomplish’. This older meaning was associated with ‘opportunity’. How then do we understand ‘affordable housing’ if we consider the question of ‘opportunity’ rather than restricting it to ‘reasonably priced’? We can reduce the cost of housing itself by reducing each component cost; those of land, construction costs and

Choices of transportation change with the location of the housing; often affordable housing is isolated and offers few choices.

financing. Build something cheaply on cheap land and reduce the mortgage rate. Usually, this means land that is not wanted for anything else, such as green field sites, unproductive farmland which is somewhat remote from desirable neighbourhoods, or brown field sites, former industrial land that is surrounded by other industry or warehouses, again isolated from other desirable neighbourhoods. As noted by Anthony Downs in his 2004 book, Growth Management and Affordable Housing: Do They Conflict?, any simple metric as to ‘affordability’ hides issues such as income, choice and non-discretionary expenses. Although a simplistic, generally accepted target is that a household should spend 30 per cent of its income on housing, as Downes illustrates we do not necessarily perceive someone who

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spends more to live near the beach being less well off than someone further inland who spends less for a bigger house. The challenge is not just about how we can pay for a house to live in, we must also consider the larger social and climate costs of our choices. Carbon outputs are significantly affected by the housing sector. Carbon costs are incurred by the choice of building materials used in construction, house size, appliances and machines (especially those that heat and cool the air inside – the bigger the house, the more air) but, most dramatically, in the distances driven by the cars belonging to the occupants. As calculated by Fuller and Crawford in 2011, the carbon footprint of a city is largely determined by the form and distribution of housing across that city since the most significant carbon output arises from patterns of private transportation, most significantly from the impact of commuting patterns: the daily driving to and from work, schools and recreation.

Dealing with the Challenges of Affordability Many communities seek to address this by containing the sprawl. In such communities, Downs says ‘growth management’ is articulated as a ‘strategy to direct investments and to influence outcomes toward affordability, engaging planning, regulatory and fiscal authority of state and local government to influence patterns of growth and development in order to meet projected needs’.

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The goal of growth management, as summarised by Downs, is to ‘preserve if not enhance the provision of public goods’, which he identifies as minimising negative externalities and public fiscal costs, maximising social equity and enhancing quality of life. This latter he articulates further as comprising of satisfaction with housing and neighbourhood quality, including flexibility in choices and locations. Downs also observes that growthmanagement policies must be adopted as integral components of regulatory regimes, with projected outcomes. Communities are beginning to recognise that containing sprawl is only part of the answer, and that the opportunity for a good quality of life at an affordable cost in a supportive community should be considered. In Victoria, VicUrban defines affordable living as ‘quality affordable housing that is located close to services, transport, employment and community facilities’. In this statement, it is suggested that affordability implies addressing all living costs, including components beyond housing. Thus, affordability is more than just the cost of the house and the mortgage rate; it relies on infrastructure that enhances our capacity to live a life of some quality. Public transportation, parks, public spaces and other community infrastructures are all components to affordable living, as illustrated on the opposite page. The concept of ‘affordable living’ is greater than the financial cost of living and housing. Affordable living considers the way in which

Affordable Living

we live and move around, the resources we use and the wellbeing of our existing and future communities. As the Sunshine Coast Regional Council articulated in 2010, their understanding of affordable living is as follows: ‘Living on the Sunshine Coast is affordable The community has access to a good standard of living, adequate housing that is affordable, employment

opportunities,

sustainable

transport choices and education that meet their needs. There is social harmony and community wellbeing with opportunities for personal fulfilment and engagement. There is good leadership and high degrees of social capital. People’s needs guide the distribution of resources; economic growth shares wealth and opportunity amongst the region. Innovation is encouraged and current lifestyle aspirations are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’

The types of housing offered and the configuration of a city make a difference. The survey by Bretherton and Pleace of respondents in England and Scotland found that ‘only a few residents wanted to live in a detached home in suburbia or a rural area. Many preferred to live in a city and this was often one of the reasons why they chose to live in their current home.’ As they reported, ‘residents were attracted to their homes because they were near amenities and public transport was good. In fact the urban setting was viewed by many as an attractive point, and it is where developments had been largely successful.’ So how do we deliver affordable living? Earlier we suggested incremental changes. We can also think more radically. A group of young architects and designers in London in the 1960s formed Archigram, the name a contraction of architectural telegram. They had something important to say about architecture

High-rise affordable living in a volumetric configuration in which green space is available on only the ground plane. Work, play, live and socialise all in one volume.

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using as few words as possible. Peter Cook, a founding member of the group, wanted to question the idea of permanence in British housing, the concept of ‘house as a castle’. Why, he asked, do the British put so much effort to become prisoners of their own homes? Why is it that most families struggle under unaffordable mortgages, hostage to something that may not be what they need, usually either too small or too big, in a location that does not really suit them? He proposed, instead, housing that responded to individual needs by creating a ‘plug-in city’ in which units of the right size and right configuration could be plugged in to a framework at the right location, changing over a family’s lifecycle, responding to requirements of function and affordability.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 At the community scale, what might your neighbourhood look like if the community acted together to create different buildings that provide homes, places to work, places for sports and recreation all with shorter distances to travel and more opportunity for a better quality of life for everyone? Configure your neighbourhood and indicate where shops, sports facilities and schools can be placed to ensure that children can walk to them (800m is usually taken as the longest distance most people will walk for these activities). Take your map and talk to your community, your council and your mayor. You can make a difference. On a personal scale, consider how you could make your life sustainable by reducing the size of your home and not amassing

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unnecessary things. Affordability is a matter of supply and demand and a good part of that demand is obvious when you look at the use of space inside your home. How much of the space is used simply to store things that are never used? Do you need all the clothing, all those kitchen gadgets, all the sporting kits, etc? The smaller the home, the less energy it will use, the less house you have to rent or buy, the more compact your community. It would undoubtedly contribute to a more sustainable society if we reduced our consumption and wasted less land.

21 Built Environment Pru Sanderson

ustainable cities are typically resilient places with a long-term perspective. They are resilient not only in their ability to withstand sudden shocks, but also in their ability to endure over time through reinvention and adaptation. They are places where generations of occupants are in command of their domain, where society adapts to waves of change, economies have a broad platform and neighbourhoods provide a choice of lifestyle. They cope with, and even thrive on, growth. Above all else, it is the configuration of cities – the shape and nature of the environment into which buildings are placed – that make them more or less sustainable. Building densities strike the balance between high-quality private domains and neighbourhood amenity; have transport choice and good connectivity; and localised and varied places of employment and social connection.

Melbourne – Looking to the Future? Increasingly, Australian cities are being controlled by short-termism, whereby visionary blueprints have given way to more immediate financial and political gain. Melbourne is no exception.

Melbourne is an admired and seemingly successful city but the challenge now facing its residents, and those of all Australian cities, is how to equip the city for an environmentally uncertain future and a population growth reminiscent of that experienced in the 19th century and post-World War II. In each of these eras, Melbourne responded with farsighted plans. The 19th century blueprint for Melbourne was brave and confident; it not only accommodated growth, but it also catered for quantum change. Similarly, the planning undertaken by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) in the mid-20th century recognised the need for expansive change and designed accordingly. So how can Melbourne rise to this latest round of challenges? What are the barriers and how can they be overcome? Identifying these challenges seems to be the very first hurdle, because it seems some issues are proving too hard to tackle or even too sensitive to talk about. Ironically, some of these issues are a result of the city’s current prosperity and growth. Whatever their cause, these are the elephants in the room and it is time we talked about them.

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Elephant #1: The Dangers of Being Number 1 Melbourne is the most liveable city in the world: we have the number one liveability ranking from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) 2011 Liveability Ranking to prove it. But why would such an accolade be an issue? It is because it sends a message that everything is going right, and allows us to be complacent and blinded by conceit. True, it is far better to have our problems than those of Harare, the beleaguered number 140 at the bottom of the EIU list. But when we slow down to see what the ranking really mean, it reveals a very specific intent. The EIU rankings are based on factors that result from city planning and investment such as quality of road networks, and factors outside our control, such as climate. Being a hybrid of fortune and management, the list is a litmus test that rates the current performance of each city. The list is a moment-in-time scoring designed to inform human resource managers. It doesn’t try, in any way, to judge how well a city is planning for its future, nor does it describe the relative merits of different parts of a city. For example, if Melbourne’s west was a separate city, how would it score? So what has this number one ranking done for Melbourne? We believe we have the perfect city! Pride and confidence have grown, but so too have smugness, complacency and conceit. Why on earth would we want to entertain thoughts of a paradigm shift? Surely short-term incrementalism can continue. To deal with the elephant we should

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recognise that focusing only on the EIU ranking is counterproductive. Instead it would be ideal to complement the ranking with a rating that judges how well the city is planning for its medium- and long-term future and how effectively this is being delivered.

Elephant #2: Branding Melbourne’s pride is not a recent phenomenon. Rose-coloured generalisations use words such as ‘urbane’, ‘sophisticated’, ‘leafy’, ‘suburban’ and ‘a city of villages’. Such descriptors of a city, no matter how blinkered, are nonetheless very positive. They describe what people believe to be the essence of the city, reflecting community pride and a sense of place and belonging. The downside of this communal branding is that any attempts to discuss, let alone execute, substantial change are seen as a threat to the qualities people value. The ‘don’t-mess-withour-city’ factor comes into play. Movements such as Save Our Suburbs have sent a clear message not only about people protecting the amenity of their private domains, but also about the deep-seated concern of comfortable communities that the very essence of Melbourne may be under threat. There are two ways to deal with this issue. One is to tell Melburnians that brand Melbourne is an illusion offered by only some parts of the city (and not necessarily sought by all). However, this is unlikely to succeed as it could alienate, aggravate or even demoralise. The other option is to get Melburnians to talk about the positives of their lifestyles and outline the ways their lifestyles could be improved.

Built Environment

City Road.

Elephant #3: Fear of Population At the time of the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, the city’s population was about 1.5 million. It reached 2 million in the 1960s and by the early 21st century had doubled to 4 million. Public attention was captured when, after nine years of being the city with the fastest growth rate in the country, it was forecast that Melbourne was on a trajectory to overtake its northern neighbour as the country’s largest city. After the stagnant years of the early 1990s, such growth has been a welcome indicator of a healthy economy, aided by relatively competitive housing prices. However, not all Melburnians see rapid growth as positive. Many think the city is large enough. Increasingly congested public transport and freeways have rung alarm bells: the city’s infrastructure is under pressure. Melbourne’s very success is starting to affect its quality of living.

The conversation about population size has become very sensitive. At a national level it is linked to immigration policy and at a metropolitan level it is hardly a vote winner to start talking about a vastly larger Melbourne. With such a public aversion to the topic, it is not surprising that incremental planning is the norm. Planning strategy under the previous state government was called Melbourne @ 5 million – a trajectory that took the city to only about the year 2030 – not the stuff of long-term vision. The current government uses soft language and describes the forthcoming Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Strategy as ‘Melbourne moves beyond a city of 4 million people’. It is widely recognised that Melbourne will go past this mark. Variables such as economic prosperity, immigration policy and the ageing population all affect forecasts; however, seven million by about 2060 is commonly recognised

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as realistic. Why therefore are we not planning for an eventual doubling of Melbourne’s population? It may take until the end of the century, but that is not long in city-planning terms. The timeframe is irrelevant; the fact it is highly likely to happen is the point. To quote Tom Peters: ‘Incrementalism is the enemy of innovation.’ While such a radical conversation has proven unpalatable for elected politicians, it has started in the private sector through initiatives such as the Committee for Melbourne’s ‘Shaping Melbourne’ report that posits a city of 8 million and explores the measures required to equip the current city for such growth. The conversation now needs to extend into the broader public, with a collective imagining of our future that is de-linked from immigration policy. This imagining needs to leap into the future, say to 2100. Doing so will help avoid the pitfalls of shorter-term interests.

Elephant #4: Fear of Densification Urban sprawl is, above all else, the most unsustainable aspect of our cities. The urban equivalents of agricultural monocultures, our suburbs provide disturbingly little choice beyond detached dwellings for families. In order to markedly improve the environmental performance of our cities, a significant increase in densities is required. This will allow commuting distances to be reduced and improve the viability of district engineering systems, public services and transport systems. While plans for outer Melbourne attempt to encourage densification and mixed use

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centres, the reality is that there is considerable resistance both from the market and industry to depart from industry norms in our outer areas. While average housing blocks are now closer to an eighth of an acre (400–500m2), the densities that result are doing little to slow the growth of urban sprawl. New areas of Melbourne average only 12 dwellings per hectare. There is inertia in how we deliver housing and a fear of density and what it will do to our cities. This fear had been brought on by some very clumsy, greedy attempts to densify the inner areas of Melbourne. The apartment towers lining the south bank of the Yarra River are a case in point. They shade and overlook each other and provide extremely poor amenities at ground level. The polarisation of our housing stock between detached houses and high-rise apartments is a disturbing trend. Melbourne needs a substantial increase to its average density. This will be best delivered by adopting a large range of densities, in both established areas and across the fringes of the city. We need to look at increasing average densities through supplying a range of housing products, from detached dwellings and townhouses to low-, medium- and high-rise apartments. A range of densities should be planned for around transport nodes, retail centres, and centres of employment, public services, and community meeting and gathering. Clusters of modest height (say three to six storeys) are advocated for every small neighbourhood retail hub in Melbourne. Larger centres can accommodate greater height but even here this need not be extreme – five to eight storeys would

Built Environment

Elwood village.

allow a respectful transition between such clusters and the lower density neighbourhoods that may surround. Centres such as Elwood village already provide high amenity and a choice of dwelling type. While successful in urban form, they are being created in an environment of uncertainty. It is regrettable that community uncertainty inhibits these areas as being heralded as the future of Melbourne.

Elephant #5: The Private Domain Rules The 1997 film The Castle epitomised the Australian love of private domain. It became a classic because it struck a chord with the importance Australians place on home, and also rode on the back of the home-ownership aspiration of so many in our society. What was comedy in the late 1990s became reality

television a decade later: TV series such as The Block have become primetime viewing. The quarter-acre block is a reality long gone, but the mindset of many is that a house, on a block with private garden with separation from oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neighbours, is an Australian right. Investment in housing has grown with time. From 1955 to 2000 the average size of new houses in Australia grew from 155m2 to 221m2, while the average household size shrank from 3.6 to 2.6 people per household. That is, a doubling of space per person from 43m2 to 85m2, as discussed in chapter three. While there is evidence that straitened economic times have reduced the size of new houses, it is too early to know whether this is an enduring trend. So what is wrong with having a love of home? The aspiration of home-ownership means that a large proportion of Australians place undue emphasis on investing in and then protecting

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their largest asset. Private interests rule. At its worst, individual interests come ahead of community considerations and protection of the collective whole. We are defending the private castle, but what about the village? To propose a diminution in domestic status is striking at the essence of urban Australia: that is, the freedom to create oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own domestic world. A change towards collective thinking is surely an impossible proposition in the detached housing of suburbia. There may, however, be greater appetite for change in areas where housing types are varied and where the relationship between private domain and the offerings of the public domain are more in balance and interdependent.

Elephant #6: Power, Inertia and Lines of Least Resistance The construction industry is a key driver of Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economy; with housing starts an important litmus test of the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic performance and optimism. It is an industry that both reflects and affects economic health and its products cut to the core of the Australian dream of affordable home ownership. Like any industry, construction is in business to make profits and its path to profit is typically the line of least resistance. However, this presents little motivation to innovate in urban development. Why deviate into an unexplored, risky path of change? To their great credit, some developers and builders do take a path less trod; however, their investment is often rewarded by having to shoulder market risks, community reactions and planning uncertainties.

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Taking the line of least resistance has created an industry inertia where housing norms are only incrementally tweaked. The starkest example of this is in the way the fringes of our city are developed. Low density, largely detached dwellings are the norm. With at least three bedrooms, two bathrooms and two or three living spaces, our new housing stock is best suited to the mythical household norm of two-adult, two-child families. Two-parent households now only comprise one third of the housing market. The industry is geared to produce such stock, not to deliberate over the relative merits of urban renewal, densification, type diversification and demographic relevance. It is expensive and risky to develop new products, especially for small builders who have little capacity to invest in them. Foremost, the construction industry is powerful, and one that is listened to by politicians. This leaves politicians in an awkward space: if they want to make changes to urban norms, they also need to keep a large, powerful industry satisfied. Change will happen either where investment certainty is provided or when changes are mandated. Certainty is important in existing neighbourhoods, meaning developers and builders would not have to run the gauntlet with the community on a project-by-project basis and could better afford to experiment and take market risks. Changes to the fringe are harder. The market has learnt to accept housing that often does not really suit its needs, seemingly on the premise

Built Environment

that ‘even though this isn’t ideal for me, it will be a good investment on re-sale’. On the fringe, substantial densification and diversification of housing types need to be mandated.

Elephant #7: Untouchable Change Marked increases in population, and pressures brought about by the economics of climate change and increasing shortages of resources, will bring about major change. As the community has no control over population growth, it is not surprising that there is a fear of where we are heading and what impact this will have on the quality of life in our cities. In shying away from our future, we are presenting the general public with almost no tangible examples of how we may build and shape our city. Melbourne has a few good examples of buildings that demonstrate where we might head. Westwyk housing community in Brunswick, the Melbourne City Council’s CH2 offices and the commercial Pixel building in central Melbourne are good examples. While all excellent in themselves, these developments do not demonstrate to the public the future shape of our city. What could new neighbourhoods that house more people look like? How will we move around? What are the economic drivers and will they provide for personal choice? International examples such as Malmö’s Bo01 and Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm are large-scale examples of sustainable precincts. Each appears almost mainstream, with high-quality housing and public amenity.

To lead change and allay fear, we need precinct-wide examples for the community to visit, live and work in, to be open to study and critique, and for industry to use as a platform for change. Bold, large new neighbourhoods are needed to show the way.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Of all of the challenges facing Australian cities, exemplified in this chapter by Melbourne, just three actions would set us on a path to a large, yet liveable and sustainable future. Each is a form of communication with the community. The first action would be to tell the community how many people may be living in Melbourne by the end of this century. The intent would be to help people realise that a successful city attracts people and that we cannot put up a ‘house full’ sign. Associated with this would be to demonstrate the environmental, economic and liveability repercussions if we keep growing our city in the current manner. The second is through demonstration and celebration of different configurations of neighbourhoods that have ranges of densities, varied housing typologies and different ways of moving around. Let people visit, walk, touch, live in, talk about and critique them. Where the market is taking the risk into the unknown it should be celebrated and applauded, and where the unknown is an unreasonable ask on the market, demonstration by government is warranted. And the third, and perhaps most important, thing we can do collectively is to talk about those elephants!

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22 Infrastructure Colin Duffield

nfrastructure underpins our society both economically and socially. It involves longterm decision-making as the capital cost is typically large and the facilities are expected to last for a long period. Thus it is often difficult to conceptualise what infrastructure is required long-term versus what can be afforded today. Further complicating decisions is the fact that infrastructure is not a means to an end in itself but facilitates assets to achieve society’s expectations. This chapter explores the emerging issues concerned with infrastructure and suggests the levers that are available to encourage appropriate management of infrastructure on the journey to 2020.

Infrastructure and Societal Wellbeing To start to understand what is needed in the year 2020 by way of infrastructure it is worth reflecting on what infrastructure actually achieves for our society. Economic infrastructure is typified by the sectors of transport, water, energy and communications, and to some extent by the mining sector that provides essential resources. • Transport is the supply line that feeds import or export businesses and local economies,

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and it doubles as a mechanism to access social activities. • Water-related infrastructure includes storage and distribution networks for potable water, wastewater disposal (and frequently treatment thereof), stormwater and irrigation. • The provision of electricity, and to some extent gas supplies, to households and industry underpins productivity. • Telecommunications, broadband internet, video and satellite communication underpin business and, increasingly, social media and society.

Sea-change bridges The Barwon Heads community valued the coastal ambience and heritage vista brought by their old timber bridge, but the bridge was in poor repair and did not meet current design requirements or cater adequately for pedestrians or cyclists. The solution to build two new bridges, one in the form of the historic timber structure, met both expectations and design requirements but did so with a high cost premium. Such solutions are rarely possible.

Infrastructure

Barwon Heads bridge: An example of a reconstructed heritage bridge with improved amenity via an adjacent new pedestrian/cyclist bridge.

Society also expects good facilities by way of schools, hospitals, community centres, appropriate justice facilities, convention centres and the like. It is therefore essential in this context to include these so-called social infrastructure assets.

Current Investment in Infrastructure Rather than hypothesise on the benefits or otherwise of investing in infrastructure, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look at what the best advisors are encouraging countries to do today. Once this has been understood, we will then consider why this is occurring and how current infrastructure is performing.

Definition of some economic concepts: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the market value of all goods and services produced in a domestic economy. GDP per capita is often used as a proxy for a countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s financial standard of living. Externalities are costs or benefits experienced by a third party as a result of a transaction (or project) that is not directly included in the price of the transaction. For example, noise impacts of a new motorway would be a negative externality to surrounding landholders.

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Country Australia

Program

Purpose

Infrastructure Australia

Develops national infrastructure priorities and provides advice on strategies to invest US$20.2 billion as part of the Building Australia fund (a post Global Financial Crisis initiative).

Brazil

Growth Acceleration Program

A strategic investment program focusing on energy, urban infrastructure, sanitation and transportation. Launched in 2007 with $349 billion investment and extended through 2011â&#x20AC;&#x201C;2014 with a further $900 billion.

Canada

Infrastructure Canada

Responsible for a seven-year plan for Building Canada: US$33.5 billion plus US$5.1 billion for targeted programs.

China

12th Five year plan

$1 trillion was committed in 2011 for infrastructure spending over five years. Focus areas: high-speed rail, secondary emphasis on water supply, electricity and highways.

India

11th and 12th Five-year plans

Implemented by Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Planning Commission,$5000 billion was committed in 2007 with 1/3rd to be spent on roads and the balance on transit, water, electricity and other infrastructure. The 12th plan runs from 2012 to 2017 and has $1 trillion set aside for infrastructure.

Mexico

National Infrastructure Plan

Launched in 2007, this program has identified over 300 infrastructure projects to invest in. The focus is ports, airports, roads, railways, water and energy, with current commitments of over $141 billion.

New Zealand

National Infrastructure plan

A strategic group established in 2009 to develop a 20-year plan for national connectivity via highways.

Infrastructure UK

Established in 2010 with a charter to inform investment of $320 billion in energy, transportation and waster over the next five years.

U.K.

Figure 1. Current infrastructure investment programs. Source: based on Ernst & Young 2011.

The Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young provided a good snapshot of infrastructure activity in 2011 when they detailed a range of significant strategies for infrastructure investment. A summary of their findings is paraphrased as Figure 1. From Figure 1 it is evident that there are high expectations and needs. The difficulty comes in terms of the availability of funds, which in turn places pressure on decisionmakers to cut capital costs. Since 2009, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe has been convening

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workshops to discuss economic plans and strategies to counter the impost of the Global Financial Crisis in Eastern European countries. At the first of these forums, held in Geneva, all country treasurers spoke of infrastructure investment (usually with the hope of private sector involvement) being one of the pillar strategies for their countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recovery and longterm resilience. It was acknowledged that there were generally significant shortfalls in funds available for investment. It is understandable that developing countries recognise infrastructure investment

Infrastructure

Korea Czech Republic

New Zealand

Mexico Japan Ireland Iceland

Spain United States

Netherlands OECD - Total Greece Sweden Finland Portugal EU15: European Union of fifteen France

Canada Australia

Turkey

Norway

Switzerland Denmark Belgium

United Kingdom

Germany Austria

Public infrastructure investment, expressed as a percentage of GDP. Based on 2011 OECD data.

as a critical ingredient to improved prosperity but what drives developed nations to invest? The answer to this lies in the age, condition and appropriateness of the existing infrastructure. Infrastructure typically has a design life of 75 to 100 years. Countries such as Australia, Canada and the United States have critical infrastructure that is far beyond this and desperately in need of repair and regeneration. The assets in much of Europe are generally younger as they were reconstructed post-World War II. Engineering institutes have started to push the need for infrastructure investment on the basis of the poor condition of assets. A summary of recent audits in Australia indicates that overall Australia’s assets are but a little better than adequate, with local roads and rail being less than adequate.

Countries are all trying to invest more in infrastructure to stimulate their economy and to increase their country’s productivity. Unfortunately, the extent of investment appears to range from one per cent of GDP to a maximum in the order of five per cent of GDP, which is deemed less than required by most commentators and thus the broad-based initiatives (see Figure 1) put together when the Global Financial Crisis impacted growth in most countries. Jackson’s recent book, Prosperity Without Growth, based on his role in the Sustainable Development Commission, gives an excellent analysis of the varying extent to which stimulus-spending on infrastructure during the 2008–10 Global Financial Crisis targeted nextgeneration, green infrastructure, from eight per cent (Australia) to 80 per cent (South Korea).

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Current Infrastructure The intensity and frequency of destructive weather events has increased and this in turn requires revised design standards. Another question we have to ask is whether or not the infrastructure we currently have (and are still constructing) is adequate for the task at hand and fit for the purpose of withstanding natural and human-made hazards. In recent years, cyclones and hurricanes of large magnitudes have reached further inland than previously, with devastating loss; long duration droughts have had nations on their knees; floods are appearing all too frequently and previous barriers such as levies are simply not doing their job; and we’ve had

nuclear power station disasters, tsunamis and earthquakes (see chapter 25). It would appear our design standards need to be made tougher. The cost of retrofitting is often colossal and sometimes simply not practical, so it is vital that new facilities are designed to cope with the impact of climate change.

Benefits versus Socio-Economic Costs The world continues its transition from nationally based societies to an interconnected global system where the attractiveness of a country or region for overseas investment is in part premised on the level of infrastructure available to support productive service delivery.

Balancing investment In 2011 economists from the World Bank suggested that investment in transport, energy and communications results in an increased GDP of 0.07 to 0.1 per 1 percentage change in input regardless of whether a country is rich or poor. Such approaches conclude that the benefits of infrastructure investment are deemed to outweigh the negatives of greater CO2 emissions. (However, this simplified approach is skewed as evaluation processes do not consider externalities.) There is, therefore, limited incentive to spend additional capital to achieve enhanced environmental outcomes – for example, a new clean generating power station may cost $1 billion while an equivalent-sized dirty power station may be delivered for say $700 million. The impost of the likes of carbon taxes or levies is one mechanism to counter this bias. A more proactive mechanism is to strategically plan infrastructure investment so that productivity enhancements and sustainability results are integral to a successful outcome. The Parkville medical precinct in Melbourne is a fine example of how strategic investment can provide ongoing benefits. Its vision, as set out in 2006, was for: ‘a precinct that integrates world-class healthcare, research and education to rapidly translate research discoveries into clinical practice, nurture life sciences and biotechnology development and drive economic growth in Victoria.’ By 2011, a group of facilities is delivering state-of-the-art outcomes while reducing environmental impacts by creative energy savings and operational efficiencies (see the precinct plan opposite).

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Infrastructure

1. Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (under development 2012) 2. Royal Melbourne Hospital (upgraded), New Royal Women’s Hospital (opened 2008), Walter & Elisa Medical Institute 3. University of Melbourne Bio21 Institute 4. New Royal Children’s Hospital (opened 2011) 5. University High 6. University of Melbourne, including Medical School, Howard Florey Institute, new Peter Doherty Institute for Infectious Diseases and Public Health

The nature and struggle for market share is dominated by the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe and the emerging nations of China and India. Global environmental issues are directly affected by the strong relationship that exists between energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions and global warming and climatic change, attenuation of the ozone layer, excessive land, and air and water pollution. Generation of these adverse environmental outcomes is underpinned by our infrastructure and thus, for the world to become sustainable, the nature and style of infrastructure need to evolve further.

Likely Scenario for 2020 Long-term infrastructure planning should be undertaken over timespans greater than a decade or so, but the past lack of in-depth

planning, combined with the pace of change, means action is urgently required. So what likely global scenarios should be considered by infrastructure investors in preparation for 2020? Concepts and thoughts of what will be confronted in 2020 follow: • Population is likely to increase by about 25 per cent from 2012 to 2020. The additional 7600 million people will require a massive increase in facilities to maintain our current standard of living, a challenge compounded by the deteriorating condition of existing facilities. • The growth in prosperity of emerging nations such as China, India, Brazil and the former Eastern block countries increases demands for transport, energy and telecommunications, which will place accelerating pressure on the environmental balance of the globe.

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2020

• I ndividual nations will be required to balance their economic needs with competing challenges to address climate changes without overarching global policies and universal support. Thus it is unlikely that there will be political alignment on global warming. • The impact of global warming will become more evident through greater numbers of severe events that adversely affect communities. Changes to design standards and technology will be expected. • There will be growing pressure to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, starting with ‘dirty’ fuels such as brown coal. Alternative technologies will be required. Early focus is likely to be on high-speed trains (already evident in China, Japan, Europe and starting in the United States), greater use of electronic communication, and carbon-efficient vehicles. • Funding pressures will remain regardless of whether public or private finance is being sought. In summary, nations will likely seek to continue improving their quality of life through growth, productivity and modified consumption, which in turn will further increase the use of resources and energy. By 2020, there will have been significant development with limited radical change to the way we live or the expectations we have on the underpinning infrastructure. This will place the world in a desperate situation in terms of climate change consequences, unless action is taken urgently.

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Levers for Change Decision-makers face many difficulties when it comes to infrastructure. Specific issues include: • Uncertainties on the priority areas for investment to meet today’s needs and contribute positively over the next 50 years; • Lack of a precise understanding of the extent of physical changes caused by global warming; • The potential for major change in global leadership and influence; • Resource constraints, particularly liquid carbon fuels; • Balancing sustainability with short-term political and economic imperatives; and • Greater emphasis and accounting of externalities to take account of good and bad impacts on societal sustainability. Central governments can, if they choose, influence the outcome. In addition to the strategic planning tool, governments have the power to impose regulation on infrastructure. Such regulation can take the form of rules and regulations, oversight of pricing, rate/return regulation, establishment of the level of service, taxes and charges, and consumer pricing. Regulation, particularly taxation, is considered to be a dead hand to productive development and thus, while the planning angle is positive, regulation can be an impediment. Institutional structuring and clear positive governance arrangements can guide the market to achieve positive outcomes. Such approaches are generally driven by policy (strong vision), guidance and education.

Infrastructure

Local political unity for the developed policy and potentially global unity would of course strengthen the possibility of success. The opposite to government regulation is a free-market response, where the market will find a point of competitive equilibrium and thus take much of the guesswork out of forecasting where demand will be required. Unfortunately, such an approach takes little account of externalities such as global warming and is unlikely to drive a community in a balanced way. It is considered unlikely that market forces alone will lead to a socially acceptable global vision due to the magnitude of the investment required. A combination of public and private response in an orchestrated manner would appear ideal. The best outcome is for new infrastructure decisions to be made creatively, and the community to be positioned for a different world. The competing demands are well understood. The urgency for productivity gains, lifestyle enhancement and the need to reduce the vulnerability of the world caused by global warming is compelling.

â&#x20AC;˘ Design standards and regulations for infrastructure are amended to ensure that climate change impacts are fully considered. Ideally such changes would be driven by political leadership. But realistically, by 2020, proactive action by professionals such as architects and engineers to ensure that infrastructure that is designed and built for sustainability will be a good start. To ensure this is not simply rhetoric, standards will need to be updated and their use legislated.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Decision-makers must be bold and brave in planning the future from the perspective of infrastructure. They must take decisive action to present a vision that will drive a new community equipped for the future. This means ensuring that: â&#x20AC;˘ New infrastructure is designed and developed with long-term consequences in mind, regardless of the short-term cost of doing so.

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23 Transport Monique Conheady

ransport systems provide social and economic connections, moving people and goods between places and linking communities. For most of human history, transportation depended on walking, domesticated animals and small boats; long-distance walking tracks developed into trade routes and societies evolved through the exchange of ideas and innovation. Since ancient trade routes, the history of transportation has been largely one of technological innovation. We have created extremely sophisticated transport systems to serve the needs of the world today. But too little attention has been paid to meeting the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s needs of tomorrow. We have only recently realised or accepted the negative impacts of our transport systems on the longterm sustainability of our environment, society and economy. We have, you could say, reached an intersection.

according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 2007. In Australia the average individual emits 44 per cent of their greenhouse gases as a result of travel. This is the result of our personal transport system being primarily designed around the private automobile. Passenger cars will make up 53 per cent of Australian transport emissions in 2020, or 8 per cent of total emissions, according to a report by Climate Works Australia. Road-based transport is also a major contributor to local air pollution and smog. Domestic shipping

Railways Domestic aviation

Motorcycles Buses

Light commercial vehicles

Passenger cars Trucks

Environmental Impacts The transport sector accounts for between 20 and 25 per cent of world energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, greenhouse gas emissions from transport are increasing at a faster rate than any other sector,

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Off-road recreational

Figure 1. Transport emissions in 2009. Source: Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency.

Transport

A short history of mechanised transport By road 1662 Horse-drawn public bus line started 1769 Steam-powered self-propelled car 1804 First full-scale railway steam locomotive 1817 Bicycle invented 1825 Scheduled public railway transportation starts with Stephenson’s Stockton and Darlington Railway 1863 London underground rail opens 1888 Mass-production of petrol-powered cars begins 1897 Battery-powered taxi fleet introduced in New York 1908 M odel T Ford launched, the first widely affordable car, manufactured by assembly-line 2004 Commercial electric cars launched By air and sea 1818 First scheduled passenger ship service, New York to England 1903 F irst flight of fixed-wing self-propelled flying machine 1919 First scheduled passenger airship service, in Germany 1919 KLM, oldest surviving airline, begins. Qantas starts following year.

Social Impacts The social costs of Australia’s current road-based transport system are numerous – from road accidents to the health hazard of air pollution. Motorised transport is also a contributor to our increasingly sedentary lifestyle, which brings its own negative health impacts, including obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The direct links between transport systems and obesity are becoming better understood. Australia, with one of the highest rates of car ownership in the world and a transport system focused on the private car, also has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world. It is speculated that a car-dominated transport system may be a contributing factor to the increasing incidences of depression in Western societies, which has been linked to urban sprawl. We know social isolation is a major factor in depression, and in cardominated societies people live further apart and spend a lot of time travelling alone.

Economic Impacts The financial cost of road accidents in Australia was estimated by the Australian Government in 2009 to be upward of $17 billion annually. Furthermore, as our cities become more and more congested with automotive traffic, there are costs to the efficiency and productivity of our economy. Traffic congestion imposes economic costs by wasting people’s time and by slowing the delivery of goods and services. The Australian Government has projected that the financial costs of congestion will continue to rise strongly to an estimated $20.4 billion by 2020.

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2020

% Use Active Transportation % Obese

90 80

Percentage of Active Transportation Use and Obesity Rate Per Country

% of Country

60 50 40 30 20 10 0 a

tvi

e Sw

a erl

lia

tra

s Au

Country

Figure 2. Relationship between active transport and obesity. Source: ‘Walking, Cycling, and Obesity Rates in Europe, North America, and Australia’, Journal of Physical Activity and Health, 2008.

Another economic factor related to our road-based transport system is the impact of ‘peak oil’ or the ‘oil crunch’. To date, petrol has been relatively cheap and has been one of the reasons our vehicle-based transport system has flourished. However, oil is a finite resource and geologists, scientists, engineers and economists are now saying that we have either reached, or will soon reach, a peak in oil production. Therefore, supply and demand dynamics are likely to result in increasingly more expensive petrol over time, which will impact the cost of living and economic productivity.

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This economic impact has a social consequence as it is often those that have few alternatives to private car transport, due to a lack of public transport and other services in their area, that are the ones most vulnerable to fuel price increases. So if we know that our road-based transport system is affecting our climate, our waistlines and the air we breathe, while costing us a lot of money and possibly making us depressed, what can we do about it?

Transport

Figure 3. Vulnerability assessment for mortgage, petrol and inflation risks and expenditure. Source: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Unsettling Suburbia: The New Landscape of Oil and Mortgage Vulnerability in Australian Citiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, Jago Dodson and Neil Sipe, Urban Research Program, research paper No. 17 August 2008.

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2020

A healthy transport pyramid approach to sustainable mobility.

1. SPACE TRAVEL 2. AIR TRAVEL 3. PRIVATE CAR

4. RIDE SHARING

5. TAXIS

6. PUBLIC CARS/ CAR SHARING

7. PUBLIC TRANSPORT/RAPID MASS TRANSIT 8. CYCLING (including public bikes) 9. WALKING

Vision of a Sustainable Transport Future The road to a sustainable transport future should draw on our knowledge of transport history: the simplicity of our transport systems for much of human history, as well as opportunities offered by technological innovation. A vision for a sustainable personal transport system might be framed within a pyramid model, like the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;healthy eating pyramidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; we know from nutritional studies that has been adapted for transport. It would be an intermodel system, and like the healthy eating pyramid it would be those transport modes at the bottom of the pyramid that we should use most frequently, ascending through a personal transport hierarchy to those activities at the top of the pyramid that we should do least. A sustainable transport system of the future would make it easy for us to choose the ones that are best for us and for the planet.

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Walking Walking is good for our health, for our communities and for our environment. Walking was the main form of transport throughout much of human history and, in a sustainable future, it will be again. Our urban landscapes will be redesigned with a focus on walkability and ease of access to key community services. Everyone will walk a minimum of several hundred metres a day, and public awareness campaigns (similar to those on water and energy saving) will bring walking to the fore.

Cycling Cycling will be strongly promoted and provide a critical contribution to sustainable transport. Bicycle infrastructure, including bike paths and lanes, frames for securing bikes and end of trip facilities (lockers, showers etc) will be abundant. Most people will own a bike and ride it most days.

Transport

Public Bikes

Public Cars/Car Sharing

There will also be public bike schemes that provide on-demand access to a bicycle as and when people might need one. These schemes will be operated by a smartcard system that ‘talks’ to other parts of the public transport system, which in a sustainable future would include trams, trains, buses, ferries, shared cars and taxis. One smartcard will give most people access to all their transport needs. It will be a cost-effective, clean, efficient, fast, reliable and flexible system. Most people will not require anything more.

Cars will exist, but they will be powered by clean electricity, such as wind and solar, and usually shared. Indeed all cars parked on public roads will be public cars, with all private cars being required to park off-street in private car parks. We will have come to realise just how inefficient private cars are when one car can serve the needs of 20–30 people. Local streets will all contain a pod of cars – enough to serve the number of residents of the particular street – plugged into electricity banks that look like parking meters when they are not in use. Residents will use a ‘swipe & go’ smartcard system to access the vehicles and only pay per trip. These cars will be used for trips where people are carrying large loads, travelling cross-city or getting out of town to places not well served by public transport. The use of these public cars will vary, with most people using them between once a week to once a month.

Public Transport/Rapid Mass Transit For a sustainable transport system, there will be significant investment made in public transport, in recognition of its community and environmental benefits. The public transport system will work at a range of scales – locally through to large rapid mass transit scale. Services will be so frequent that timetables will not be required. You will never have to wait more than a few minutes for the next service. At this frequency services are not overcrowded. All the trains, trams, buses and ferries are clean and comfortable, and also offer free wireless connections enabling people to access the internet, work if need be, connect to their virtual communities, etc. If we had a public transport system like this, a significant percentage of the population would use it every day, and the majority of the population would use it regularly.

Taxis Taxis will continue to play a very important role in the public transport network, especially for complicated one-way trips. Due to the need to be always on the road, taxis will not be able to make the most of the greenest car technology, but will have improved performance via the use of LPG and hybrid technology. We will have greater respect for taxi drivers. Notably this will be demonstrated by paying more for this valuable service to ensure drivers achieve at least minimum wage. In return, the

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eventually redesigning both the local economy and built environment to incorporate more local lifestyles. The upside is that these vehicles will be fuelled by cleaner technology. They will be plugged into charging stations in the garages of homes in outer-suburban areas.

Ride Sharing

community will benefit through an improved taxi service, one that is cleaner and with more knowledge on locations and directions. The use of taxis will also vary, with most people using a taxi between once a week to once a month.

Private Car Ownership Private car ownership will still exist, primarily in the outer suburban areas where the poor planning regimes of the past mean that walking and cycling to local services is not practical, public transport services were not planned, and public bike and car share scheme are difficult to operate due to a lack of population density. These areas will sadly be our poorest neighbourhoods; their lack of transport options affecting the strength and connectivity of their communities, the health and wellbeing of their residents, and residentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ability to access education, training and employment opportunities. These will be the communities we will be focusing most attention on in terms of improving the public transport network and

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The other benefit of continuing private car ownership will be the emergence of greater ride-sharing. Road pricing will encourage private car owners to share their trips, and the costs, with others. Social networking sites and mobile phone applications will enable people to easily log their trip plans, connect with others travelling in the same direction, check out their profiles and traveller recommendation reports (like eBay seller reports) and easily arrange coordinated pick-up and drop-off points. Using a private resource in the public domain will strengthen community and interpersonal relationships. Most private car owners will make the most of their trips with ride sharers. Solo private car trips will be rare.

Air Travel Air travel may become cost prohibitive for many people as the true cost of carbon and pollution is factored in. However, the scientists and engineers who remember the extraordinary benefits of air travel in terms of cultural exchange and understanding, and an appreciation for the arts, music, architecture and the natural world, will work hard to engineer a clean fuel that can power air travel.

Transport

It may be a biofuel, perhaps made of algae. This will again provide future generations with the enormous benefits that air travel has given us in the past 50 years. Most people will take one flight a year; some will take multiple trips per year.

Space Travel And so it will be an understanding and appreciation of our transport history – of the most basic forms of transport, alongside technical innovation – that will lead us to a sustainable transport future. And if we achieve this sustainable future, there may even be one more trip in store for all human beings. A trip that will make the journey to a sustainable lifestyle worthwhile… After finding a clean fuel solution for air travel, our brightest scientists and engineers will focus their attention on finding a clean fuel solution to space travel. A difficult challenge but a solution such as a biofuel or liquid hydrogen will most likely be found. This will enable each of us to take a once-in-a-life-time trip. The clean green trip we take to outer space will be life changing. We will see for ourselves the image of the earth from outer space. It will seem so small that we could hold it in the palm of our hand. We will finally understand truly, deeply, innately the interconnectedness of our planet and all the creatures on it. We will realise we have nowhere else to go and that we must therefore share the earth’s resources equitably and work together to protect its future. When we return from this trip we will be changed forever,

thankful we made the changes we did, and willing to make more to ensure the future of the planet and all its creatures.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 To achieve a sustainable transport future we need a transport system that offers us a range of easy-to-use, integrated modes. We need to invest in developing an expanded and integrated public transport system that includes bikes, trams, trains, buses, ferries, shared cars and taxis, all accessed and paid for by one public transport smartcard ticket. Cars need to be powered differently. All this is possible through technological innovation. However, more than this we need to move beyond a paradigm of people being wedded to their particular preferred form of transport: whether that is the automobile, public transport or cycling. We need everyone to be doing a bit of everything, clearly understanding the cost and the benefits of each mode. Not just the environmental costs and benefits, but also the health, economic and social costs and benefits, and therefore when it is most suitable to use each mode. A coordinated public awareness campaign, with the promotion of a healthy transport pyramid approach to sustainable mobility, is a good first step.

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24 Adaptive Design Ray Green

e live in a highly carbon consumptive society; just heating, cooling and lighting our homes, cooking food, going to work, shopping or going away on holiday releases greenhouse gases (GHG), principally carbon dioxide. These gases have accumulated in the atmosphere, warming the planet, and in turn changing the climate. Adapting human settlements to the spectrum of impacts expected to come with climate change, and working to mitigate the causes by reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, will require innovative design thinking at all scales of the built environment, from household appliances to the construction of cities. We need a radical re-think of how best to use and manage the resources we depend on for our daily survival â&#x20AC;&#x201C; energy, water, food, biodiversity â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and this will require entirely new approaches for designing buildings, open-space networks, infrastructure and transportation systems in an effort to make cities of the future more resilient to face the predicted impacts from climate change. This chapter addresses some of these design challenges.

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Resilience Low-carbon cities will need to be planned, designed, constructed and maintained in ways that reduce their vulnerability to a myriad risks, such as extreme weather events, and to ensure that people will be provided with secure and diverse sources of energy, water, food and the other resources necessary for their daily survival. One aspect making this task more challenging is the significant amount of uncertainly with regard to predictions about climate change, its expected magnitude and timing. For example, the most credible report on climate change, produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), predicts that sea levels will rise by 0.6 of a metre by 2100. Yet many scientists, such as Jim Hansen who heads up NASAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the United States, believe this to be a gross underestimation and suggests sea levels could rise much higher, particularly if global temperatures increase more radically than what is predicted in the IPCC report, which many scientists believe will be the case, and if certain tipping points are reached (eg, if the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets were to melt).

Adaptive Design

Strategies for adapting vulnerable coastal settlements to sea level rises.

Because of this uncertainty it is vitally important we build a high degree of resilience into the design of future cities. The Canadian ecologist C.S. Holling wrote a seminal article in 1973 entitled ‘Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems’, which appeared in the Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. In it he pointed out that ecological systems typically process high levels of resilience, meaning they have ‘…the capacity…to absorb and utilise or even benefit from perturbations and changes that attain them, and so persist without a

qualitative change in the system’s structure’. When this notion of resilience is applied to the planning and design of human settlements, it suggests that they too will have to ‘absorb, utilise or even benefit’ from anticipated and unanticipated changes – long-term, incremental changes such as sea level rises and sudden, short-term events, such as flooding – without passing critical threshold limits. This way, they will avoid more radical changes that could severely impinge on the environmental quality, lifestyles, property and lives of inhabitants.

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Cities of Short Distances High-density cities such as New York, where people typically live in apartments as opposed to detached homes, and typically get around by means other than private automobiles, use much less energy per capita than people living in suburban and rural areas. Such highdensity cities often have more opportunities for people to walk, ride bikes or take public transportation than do suburban and rural areas, resulting in much reduced use of fossil fuels. Cities can be made more sustainable simply by providing people with more and better ways of acquiring the things they need in their daily lives without having to travel far from their homes. An important consideration in making this transition will be finding ways to provide urban dwellers with secure access to water and food produced and/or sourced locally. Our current practice of importing food from distant places, often from others parts of the world, is unsustainable. Achieving this re-localisation of cities will require engagement of local communities, government and industry in developing and maintaining low-carbon neighbourhoods where services, and the production and distribution of goods, are managed as much as possible at the neighbourhood and urban precinct levels. Urban settlements of the future will require not only food but all the other essentials of daily living to be produced and/or available to people within a short walk, bicycle ride or via public transport from their home, necessitating a shift in modes of transportation and particularly a

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reliance on pedestrian mobility with the aim of limiting the overall distance people have to travel in the course of their daily lives (see chapter 17). To realise this vision, better ways of producing food where people live and where the food is consumed will have to be found. This, in turn, will require a complete rethinking of how urban settlements and their open spaces are designed. Many cities are already promoting, in small ways, this notion of urban agriculture in the form of community gardens, which in addition to producing food can provide a new social focus for neighbours. To realise the benefits associated with this ‘city of short distances’ concept, greater reliance on production and distribution of food, water and energy at the neighbourhood and urban precinct levels will be needed, as will supplying a diversity of alternative, low-carbon transportation options and accompanying mixes of land-uses. Changes in tourism behaviour to encourage less reliance on travel to distant holiday destinations will likewise be needed and this will necessitate providing high-quality attractions near to where people live, which in turn will require people’s ‘holiday’ expectations to change accordingly. Perhaps most importantly, climate-adapted neighbourhoods of the future will have to provide attractive lifestyle options aligned with these land-use changes so people will be more likely to accept changes to their local surroundings.

Adaptive Design

Adapted Buildings Buildings are a large contributor of GHG emissions, representing approximately half of all emissions produced by Australian capital cities. Reducing the operational energy consumption of buildings, along with measures to ensure building construction materials have as low embodied energy as possible, are key design considerations. Locating buildings to maximise efficiencies in public transport options, and creating accompanying mixed-use development patterns, will also be vitally important. Careful consideration of the building envelope is particularly important as façade design can impact directly on the building’s heating and cooling requirements due to ingress of solar radiation and its effect on air temperature, which directly relates to the amount of electricity needed to power the building. The need for artificial light, and hence power, is dependent on the amount of natural light penetration through the façade – the more natural light that penetrates the less need for artificial lighting. Façades of buildings can be designed to automatically adjust to changing outdoor and indoor environmental conditions, providing more natural light, energy efficiencies, better indoor comfort and greater flexibility of the use of spaces within buildings. It has been estimated that energy savings of between 50 and 75 per cent are possible when the building envelope and the heating, cooling and lighting systems are made optimally energy efficient, as can be seen in the example of the Melbourne City Council’s

Council House 2 building. Adaptive building design, with particular attention given to the building envelope, along with improving building operations aimed at reducing energy consumption, are key design considerations that will be needed to create buildings for climateadapted cities of the future. If people using buildings were supplied with accurate assessments, in real-time, of how their behaviour relates to the building’s carbon footprint, they may be more conservative in their energy use. Monitoring energy flows and associated GHG emissions, feeding this information directly into places where people live and work, and displaying this information to the building users, is one way of helping people to be more aware of their energy use. As this technology becomes increasingly available, such systems can also be used to measure and relay to building users information about the amounts of solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative energy being used. In 2004, Melbourne’s City Council constructed a new office building, CH2, which incorporates many innovative sustainable building design features. CH2 was designed to not only conserve energy and water, but to also improve the wellbeing of its occupants. Wind turbines are used to circulate fresh air throughout the building. Water from the roof is piped to the basement for re-cooling and chilled ceiling panels are used to absorb internally produced heat. External ‘shower towers’ are also used for cooling. The facade has been designed to maximise cooling and light penetration through the use of adjustable timber and glass

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CH2 Building in Melbourne.

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shutters. The thermal mass of the concrete slabs between the floors is used to absorb excess heat. Photovoltaic panels and gas-fired co-generation technology are used for both heating water and energy production. Plantings on the walls and the roof provide shading, reduce glare and help to improve internal air quality. Providing increased contact with nature also reduces stress levels for occupants.

Greening the City Cities have been largely divorced from the natural ecological systems upon which they were built, limiting opportunities for people to have contact with nature and making them miss out on the physical and psychological benefits from such contact. Cities of the future, however, can be designed to incorporate high levels of biodiversity and green infrastructures. This results in more aesthetically pleasing and liveable environments, and makes them better equipped to adapt to climate change. Plants can be used to capture and store, or sequester, carbon from the atmosphere, and through their ability to provide shade, they help to ameliorate the heat island effect that many cities experience. Vegetation can also provide other important ecosystem services. Urban wetlands, for example, may collect and filter stormwater runoff and absorb floodwaters, storing water as a precaution against drought, support wildlife, and sequester atmospheric carbon. Urban forests can likewise make significant aesthetic contributions to urban environments, sequester carbon, conserve energy-use in buildings through reducing the need for artificial cooling

and ameliorate the heat island effect. Urban forests can even result in better health for urban dwellers merely through their being able to have greater contact with the natural world in their daily lives. Green roofs, vertical gardens and a range of other evolving green technologies can be integrated into even the most highly urbanised places. Realising this vision will require a crossdisciplinary approach involving design professionals from landscape architecture, architecture, urban planning and engineering, who will base their design decisions on evidence derived from a range of academic disciplines, including the biological sciences (eg, botany, zoology and genetics), social sciences (eg, psychology and sociology) and sciences that deal specifically with relationships between biological and built environments, such as the field of urban ecology. Successfully integrating natural ecosystems into the design of future cities will require recognition that natural biotic communities are constantly changing. The impacts from climate change on ecosystems are complex, and predicting the nature and extent of possible ecological changes that may result is currently a relatively imprecise undertaking. However, we can no longer assume, as we have in the past, that ecosystems will remain stable, which means urban open space networks need to be configured in ways that will allow plant and animal communities to thrive in their current locations but will also be able to migrate to form new ecological associations as they adapt to changing climatic conditions over time.

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The city of Chicago has embarked on an ambitious program to adapt to climate change. One aspect involves changes that have been made to the city’s public schools. The example shown here is the road in front of Chicago’s Benito Juarez High School, which was widened to encourage more pedestrian traffic and provided with landscaping to offer shade and absorb runoff. The sidewalk was made lower than the street surface to better direct rainwater run-off. Drought-resistant plants, used to soak up excess water and filter out pollutants, were put in. The runoff is directed into underground storage tanks, which is used for watering the plants as well as for decorative fountains. Footpaths and car parks were also redesigned using permeable pavers that allow 80 per cent of the rainwater to filter through to the ground. Rainwater harvesting at MIT’s Stata Center is an example of green infrastructure used for storing and treating rainwater for irrigation and flushing toilets. In most urban situations, rainwater is typically directed to storm drains, piped off-site and discarded in a faraway location. In this example, water from roofs and nearby open space areas is piped to an underground cistern, which is located under a constructed wetland. The water is then treated through a specially designed biofilter wetland, where the action of wetland plants and soils remove pollutants from the collected water. For flushing toilets the water is additionally treated using ultraviolet light. A solar pump, which operates only when the sun is out and when the plants need water, is used to transport the stored water for irrigation purposes.

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Constructed wetlands, such as the one pictured on the next page in Melbourne’s Royal Park, are able to collect and filter stormwater runoff; store flood waters when necessary, which can be used to provide water during times of drought; conserve biodiversity and support wildlife; and act as powerful carbon sinks to sequester atmospheric carbon.

Community Engagement The capacity of people to adapt to a climatechanged world, and the design and planning interventions that will be needed in making this transition, will depend on the social acceptability of those interventions. People need to feel a sense of control over planned changes to their everyday surroundings. Greater engagement of people in understanding the vulnerability of individuals, households and neighbourhoods, and why design modifications are required, will make those changes more likely to be accepted. One promising approach for involving people in the design process is through the use of digital environmental simulation and visualisation technology, which can be used for presenting alternative design options to both the public and key stakeholders, allowing them to be involved in assessing alternative scenarios. Such integrated simulation-visualisation systems have the capability of quantifying the carbon use intensity, and other measures of sustainability, of proposed design changes to land-uses, buildings and infrastructures, thereby allowing governing bodies to select proposals based on both measures of sustainability and the degree of community

Adaptive Design

Top: Water sensitive design in Chicago. Bottom: Water sensitive design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

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acceptance for the proposed interventions. The aim would be to implement changes that will result in reduced carbon emissions and other sustainability objectives, such as conserving biodiversity, water and other resources, while creating new urban environments that residents will want to embrace. This simulation-visualisation technology can even be used in the context of community workshops as a means of conveying to participants, through realistically displayed future design scenarios, what alternative design options might look like, how they might change their local surroundings and how this will result

Wetlands in Melbourneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Royal Park.

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in reduced carbon emissions. The potential for participants to manipulate design scenarios in real time also makes this technology a valuable tool for engaging the public in actually helping to shape alternative, future climate-adapted environments in which they would want to live. In 2002, Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Center for Green Technology became the first rehabilitated municipal building in the US to receive the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum rating. The Center is a comprehensive educational resource that has become a national model for sustainable design, technology and learning about green technology.

Adaptive Design

Chicagoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Center for Green Technology.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 One of the most promising and costeffective urban design strategies is to provide greater integration of vegetation with urban environments. Integrating plants and natural ecosystems into the design of urban open spaces and buildings can provide a plethora of important ecosystems services, including protection against severe weather events and sequestering of atmospheric carbon. Promising design solutions for adapting cities to climate change can be realised through mimicking biological organisms and systems,

or what has been referred to as bio-mimicry. A priority for 2020, therefore, is to model future cities on natural ecological systems, which are inherently complex and resilient. This will require that the design of new urban environments, and the retrofitting of existing infrastructure where that is possible, incorporates the types of design principles suggested in this chapter. This may only be achieved through better education of environmental design professionals along with the formulation and enforcement of innovative government regulatory mechanisms.

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25 Handling Disasters Alan March

isasters occur when the systems that people rely upon are overwhelmed and can no longer continue to function normally. Studying disasters – their causes, our responses to them and capabilites to avoid them – is a critical way to gauge the sustainability of society and the environment, not least because it is largely as disasters that unsustainability will manifest. There are many things that can cause human systems to fail. Disasters, in the sense used in this chapter, are sudden events that

affect large numbers of people, many of whom will suffer from severe effects. It’s important that we ask how human societies contribute to the creation of these disasters and how we can better prepare for their occurrence. While the climate is changing and natural hazards are likely to occur more frequently and severely, we should be mindful that cities – where most of the world’s population lives – are increasingly vulnerable. What steps should we take to create a more sustainable society? Should we

Damaged Buildings in the aftermath of the August 2010 mudslide in Drugchu County, Tibet, in which an estimated 1300 died. Excessive vegetation clearing for mining and modification of river systems are blamed. Source: REUTERS/Aly Song.

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focus on building more disaster-resilient cities to lessen the likelihood of our systems being overwhelmed in an uncertain future? What can we learn from our responses to past disasters and should we just accept that some parts of the world are more prone to disaster than others?

Types of Disaster It is typical to characterise disasters according to the hazards with which they are associated. Some of these disasters have their primary source in the physical and ecological systems of the natural world and become disasters only when they intersect with humans – for example earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, bushfires, landslides and cyclones. Other disasters are more directly associated with breakdowns in human-made systems, such as chemical spills, terrorism, economic crises and famine. In examining the nature of these disasters, it becomes evident that distinctions are not always clear between ‘natural’ and ‘human-made’. The natural world affects us, just as we affect it. A problem we must face is that cities will become more prone to disasters, due to their increasing size and economic importance, the increasing variance in weather systems, and the increasingly complex relationships between the factors that support life in cities. Cities are also where most of the world’s population live, and for these reasons, this chapter will largely deal with disasters in cities. In more recent times, the rapid growth of cities has been associated with their ability to develop systems for the efficient production and distribution of goods, services, ideas

and money. Cities are not just large numbers of people living in proximity, but a host of overlapping systems that deliver and distribute food, water, electricity, education, health, transport and a range of other benefits. These overlapping systems consist of networks with a range of different spatial scales. For example, food delivered to a shelf in your local shop might include eggs from a local grower, oranges from Spain, milk from Gippsland, apples from New Zealand, and maple syrup from Canada. These products might have been delivered by cargo ships, aeroplanes, trucks and rail. The people purchasing these products might earn money from a range of activities including international corporations, national government, state welfare providers, local business and street busking.

Disasters Occur in Places When a disaster occurs, it is in a highly particular way, relating to the conditions of a place. In general the disasters affecting cities are those resulting from interactions with the natural world, and those with their origins in human-made systems. The geographic location, design and overall pattern of a city are inherently linked to the likelihood and type of ‘natural’ disasters that it may be subjected to, including earthquakes, cyclones, tsunamis, fires or epidemics. Accordingly, cities that are located near fault lines are at considerably greater risks of damage from seismic activity or tsunami, whereas communities located on river plains are more susceptible to flooding. When we consider a single risk such as bushfire,

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we find that disasters are most likely when a combination of factors coincide: high fuel loads; hot, dry, windy summers; and urban populations interfacing with bushland. Building on this idea of layered factors of risk, cities have particular vulnerabilities: they are more susceptible to climate change impacts due to high densities of people and investments in infrastructure and systems for producing food and other commodities. While poorer nations often suffer unregulated population migrations into high-risk areas, wealthy nations may also be vulnerable due to dependence upon highly specialised systems for food and service distribution. Recognising the connectedness of places in their contexts, a wider definition of Christchurch, New Zealand is constructed in an earthquakeprone area. In February 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake occurred, causing 181 deaths and extensive property damage. Source: US Embassy New Zealand. Built environment and physical features Governance networks: internal and external

Urban resilience

Social dynamics: human capital

Production, supply and consumption chains

Figure 1. Source: adapted from Resilience Alliance 2007.

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city resilience incorporating sustainability acknowledges the need to balance ecosystem and human functions. A resilient urban place has the ability and resources to prepare and organise itself prior to, during, and after disaster situations. The Resilience Alliance (2007) suggests that resilient cities should have appropriate systems integrating the following: governance networks; production, supply and consumption chains; social dynamics; and built environments (Figure 1). To achieve sustainability goals, the nature of cities in their settings, and the disasters that they are likely to face, require examination. For example, while cities generate the greatest per

Handling Disasters

Hoboken, New Jersey 2007. Hoboken is an island and many parts are actually below sea level, enclosed by levees. Flooding often occurs when storms coincide with high tides in the Hudson River. Sea level rise is expected to worsen this problem. Source: rdmathers, Flickr.

capita prosperity, UN-HABITAT analysis shows that intra-city inequalities have risen, leaving the urban poor areas in extreme deprivation, often in more debilitating conditions than the rural poor. Importantly, the likelihood and consequences of disasters can be modified by the particular characteristics of cities. Their design and layout, location and organisation, the characteristics of their population, and the ways that they are connected (or not) with their region and the world, will all influence the type and consequences of impacts. The next section goes on to consider the features of cities that affect resilience to disasters.

Build Resilient Systems and Populations The ability of cities to initially resist disasters (or to avoid them altogether) is a core element of disaster resilience. Prior conditions are important in establishing risk. Other things being equal, resistance to disasters means that resources have been appropriately allocated to establish locations of settlements, physical layouts, systems and processes that can withstand the tests that disasters might apply. Directly associated with this is resilience, simply described as the ability for a system to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;bounce backâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; after a setback, returning to normal operations. A key component of

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Quick facts – examples of inter-related disaster risk and sustainability factors • By 2080 millions more people will experience floods every year due to sea level rise, particularly in the dense low-lying megadeltas of Asia and Africa, and small vulnerable islands. • East Asia’s urban areas produce 92 per cent of wealth, Southeast Asia’s 77 per cent, and South Asia’s 75 per cent: urban resilience to disasters will increasingly be tied to economic fortunes. • The urban poor are the most vulnerable to disasters and have the lowest adaptive capacity. • About 250 million people in Asia’s urban areas live on less than $1 a day. • Asia’s cities are likely to contribute to significant GHG increases in the next 20 years, while becoming more vulnerable to climate change disaster impacts. Source: ADB, 2008.

resilience is the development of appropriate information regarding the vulnerabilities and resistive aspects of a city within its context. The broad areas of such an analysis are set out by the Climate and Disaster Resilience Initiative (CDRI), summarised below. This can be used as the basis for subsequent action to target improvements to areas of high vulnerability. The concept of redundancy in systems is important. If large numbers of people rely upon systems that can fail when single key elements are damaged, disasters can have far greater effects. It is clear that there is a strong correlation between poverty and increased vulnerability to disaster. Empirically, decreased levels of income, consumption and human development result from disasters in poor regions. These effects are significantly concentrated in poor communities, and impact upon these communities’ abilities to develop and improve their productivity, health and education levels. In such places, disasters can send communities

Climate and Disaster Resilience Initiative (CDRI) variables for city resilience analysis (2007) Dimension Physical Social

Electricity, water supply, sanitation, solid waste disposal, internal road network, housing and land-use, community assets, warning system and evacuation Health status, education and awareness, social capital

Economic

Income, employment, household assets, access to financial service, savings and insurance, budget and subsidies

Institutional

Internal institutions and development plan, effectiveness of internal institutions, external institutions and networks, institutional collaboration and coordination

Natural

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Variables

Hazard intensity, hazard frequency

Handling Disasters

Example – disaster effects on centralised infrastructure While Japan is a world leader in disaster preparation, its urban areas remain exposed to earthquakes, tsunamis, typhoons and sea level rise. The 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami led to over 18,000 confirmed deaths, with many injured and missing. The disaster had many cascading effects upon centralised critical infrastructure and distribution systems. Eleven nuclear reactors were automatically shut down when the earthquake struck, including the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which subsequently had a radioactive leak when its backup generators were flooded. The initial loss of electricity complicated immediate communications, evacuation and response procedures. Additionally, over 200,000 people needed to be evacuated from the area surrounding the Fukushima plant to avoid radioactive contamination, consuming resources that could have been focused upon recovery. Overall, rescue operations were hampered by the loss of electricity and some 2.74 million households were without electricity across Japan. One month after the disaster, over 100,000 households were still without electricity in the Miyagi prefecture alone. Large and small companies were forced to suspend businesses, impacting on millions of individuals’ incomes, and many corporations suspended operations in their international plants due to the break in supplies of essential components, particularly in electronics and vehicles.

into a ‘negative feedback loop’ where poor people suffer a disaster, and are then forced into greater levels of risk by using temporary accommodation (often in risky locations), losing their livelihood and suffering multiple health threats (ISDR 2009). Prosperity does not guarantee resilience, however. Seeking growth and efficiency gains that depend on ‘brittle’ systems without sufficient redundancy can place a city at risk. For example, cities that are dependent upon a single supply system for delivery of essential services are particularly vulnerable. Cities are connected at a series of scales socially, by their economies and the physical services that serve them. These systems require multiple redundancy mechanisms to be resilient.

The link between efficiency, cow milk and natural gas Explosions killing two workers occurred at Esso Australia’s gas plant at Longford, Victoria in 1998. Seeking efficiency gains, supervision had been reduced from four persons to one, while all engineers had been relocated to the head office. While gas supply was stopped for over two weeks, a number of major factories ceased operations, leading to 25 million litres of milk being discarded.

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The resultant tsunami from the 11 March 2011 Japanese earthquake reached a maximum height at Miyagi of six metres, inundating a total area of 561km2. Source: Official US Navy Imagery, Flickr.

The need for stability The 12 January 2010 Haitin Earthquake caused between 50,000 and 90,000 deaths and left 1.5 million homeless. In the aftermath, riots in the city of Cap-Haitien undermined efforts to combat a cholera epidemic, increasing the risk of infection and death for tens of thousands of poorer Haitians. Transmission of cholera occurs via contaminated water or food, but can be treated if dealt with early via oral rehydration fluids. If not, victims can die in hours. In Haiti, protesters attacked UN peacekeepers and blocked roads with burning barricades, preventing cholera patients from reaching hospitals, while halting distribution of aid and medicines. Bodies of cholera victims were left in the streets while aid agencies tried to contain the spike in numbers of cases.

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Identify Risks

Monitor & Review

Communicate & Consult Community, Government, Business etc

Establish Context

Analyse Risks

EvaluateRisks

Treat Risks

Source: adapted from EMA 2004

Figure 1. The Disaster Impact Reduction Planning Process. Source: adapted from EMA 2004.

Governance and Processes Preparedness for disasters in cities is a collective activity. A wide range of factors need to be brought into line to reduce risk or to prepare emergency response plans. This includes the need to involve people at all levels of governance. Where communities are fragmented or divided – perhaps due to rapid migration, social unrest or political upheaval – it is difficult for governments to engage with communities or to draw together the actions of communities and multiple agencies. Disasters pose considerable challenges for governments. Inevitably, prior preparedness is put to question, as are response and recovery

processes. It is common for governments to respond to disasters in ways that may seem politically intelligent, to be seen to be ‘doing something’, but that may not be in the interests of long-term resilience. An alternative view is to consider disaster resilience as part of an ongoing institutional cycle, in which government plays a key facilitation role that promotes the interdependent nature of preparing for disasters. In an evolving city, the most important aspect of resilience is adaptation, whereby improvements and change occur as a result of learning from setbacks and improving capacity to deal with disasters in the future,

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EVENT: Fire, flood, earthquake, tsunami etc

PREPAREDNESS: Planning how to respond. Examples: preparedness plans; emergency exercises, training; warning systems.

Disaster Cycle

MITIGATION/ADAPTATION: Minimising the effects of disaster. Examples: building codes and zoning; vulnerability analyses; education

RESPONSE: Efforts to minimise the hazards created by a disaster. Examples: search and rescue; emergency relief.

RECOVERY: Returning of community to normal: temporary housing; grants; medical care.

Figure 2. Typical Phases of Disaster.

as an ongoing process. Figure 1 (on previous page) shows an example of Emergency Management Australiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s procedure for disaster risk reduction.

Emergency Response Plans The very nature of disasters means that, despite prior attempts to prepare, the systems of a place are sometimes unable to cope. In this scenario, emergency management and response approaches are central to treating disaster risk, and these must be directly relevant to

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the characteristics of the place to which they apply. These events require the ability for largescale, coordinated mobilisation of resources. In contrast, communities are often unprepared unless government interventions occur. The ability to respond to disasters is itself a key element of resilience, based primarily on preprepared capabilities. When disasters occur, typical cycles of preparation and response are followed. While these cycles overlap, the main stages are shown graphically in Figure 2 above.

Handling Disasters

Principles of response preparedness Preparation must be based on accurate knowledge of the nature of threats and their spatial distribution, likely consequences and possibilities for response. 1.

2. Emergency managers must be able to make the right decisions in appropriate time. 3. Disasters are dynamic events, so response flexibility is necessary. 4. Inter-organisational coordination is central to dealing with large-scale disasters. 5. Multi-hazard approaches allow for shared resources and training, and offer increased potential to leverage resources. 6. Preparation must have training and information dissemination components to highlight problems in advance and to normalise operations amongst the wider population. 7. Testing and assessment of response operations must be integral at all times. 8. Planning must be continuous due to changes to threats and to incorporate new technologies and equipment. 9. It must be expected that emergency planning is almost always conducted in the face of conflict and resistance, by citizens, public servants and elected officials, often because it consumes resources. 10. Preparation for disaster and management during a disaster are different operations â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the ability to shift attitudes and roles between these is necessary. 11. The only real test is whether an emergency plan can cope. Source: Adapted from Alexander 2002.

ACTIONS FOR 2020 Community learning and knowledge are central to improving citiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; abilities to deal with climate change. Urban systems need collective learning processes allowing them to address climate change as part of city development. The potential for disasters specific to their particular place needs to be acknowledged and accounted for. Learning needs to occur in a participatory and inclusive way, so that the full range of built environment, governance, productive, distribution and consumption

systems are supported by the human systems. Accordingly, a key goal is to collectively build city disaster knowledge and act to reduce risks. One of the primary challenges to this is that people will often not understand and take shared responsibility for the disaster risks that they face and to which they contribute. The specific recommended action of this chapter by 2020 is to provide disaster kits and plans for every household, classroom and workplace. We need to take shared responsibility for determination of the risks

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associated with urban life, and the ways to reduce these as individuals and communities. Preparing disaster plans and disaster kits will firstly highlight our exposure to disasters of various types and build our resilience. Secondly, it will encourage the potential for adaptation, requiring us to seek improvements in the choices we make in terms of where we live, the systems used to distribute essential services, and the impacts of climate change on disaster frequency and severity. Disaster kits are by definition tailored to the particular risks associated with a place. A typical example would be a battery-powered or wind-up radio, sufficient non-perishable food and drinking water for three to four days, blankets, torches and batteries. Other items might relate to the specific nature of the people, the context and the disaster. For example, it is common in earthquake-prone areas for kits in workplaces to also include gloves for dealing with debris or broken glass, stout shoes to replace high heels, a whistle to aid identification, and more recently, booster batteries for mobile phones. This can be tied in to delivery of information and training by schools, the provision of internet sites that convey information based on careful appraisal of the spatial distribution of hazards, and training packages developed for workplaces, as well as through responding agencies and local governments.

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26 Twenty Actions Craig Pearson

e have created a society that is not sustainable. We didn’t design it that way through malice or greed; it was an accident, we were all party to its creation. But now we’re faced with the realisation that we’ve gone down a cul-de-sac, and it is high time we changed course. The word ‘sustainable’ itself has been bandied about so much in recent years that it’s worth revisiting – derived from the Latin sustinere (tenere, to hold and sus, up), it means ‘capable of being maintained or held up’. Unsustainable means something that can’t be maintained or held up. There is consensus in the world of science that our current system of society is unsustainable. So it’s clear: there really is no alternative to changing our course, there is no ‘Plan B’ that supports current consumption and pollution behaviours while delivering sustainability. Although nobody in particular is to blame for creating this unsustainable society, future generations will have every right to hold this one responsible for not responding to the tell-tale signs, for dilly-dallying in the face of irrefutable evidence, and for digging our heels in to protect our own selfish and preposterously short-term interests. Our governments and

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corporations put ever-increasing subsidies, taxes, operating and capital finance, and media campaigns into maintaining the way we do things currently rather than beginning the journey to a necessary alternative. This is ‘the critical decade’. Between now and 2020, we have the opportunity – and the responsibility – to progress down the road to a sustainable society. As emphasised in this book, the journey will engage many issues and activities. Interestingly, and probably contrary to popular opinion, our authors believe that most of the issues and activities relate to people: our ethics, behaviours, financial objectives and rewards. There is no metaphorical silver bullet in these pages; instead there are practical and manageable steps we can take towards a safer, more secure future.

What Is Our Destination? Let us develop further the metaphor of a journey. A journey implies a goal or destination, which in this case is a state of mind and a way of living. There is ample evidence that current consumption and carbon pollution are leading us to a less attractive and more inequitable future. And if current comparisons within and between countries are any guide, these forces

Twenty Actions

will lead to greater instability, crime, poverty and less happiness even among the rich. That’s clearly where we’re heading, unless we choose to change course. What is ‘a sustainable society’? It’s not Utopia or a totalitarian state. It’s not radically different to what we know today. Certainly nowhere near as radical a change to society as that brought about by mobile phones or the advent of the internet. It’s simply about modifying our habits, our lifestyle, our thinking. It is in everyone’s interest to work to create a sustainable Australian society: an affordable, globally competitive economy that

emits zero carbon, is less consumptive, more equitable, and provides personal fulfillment, longevity and reasonable health. Changing sources of power, types of transport and expectations of consumption will get us to sustainability; it doesn’t require the overthrow of society as we know it or the emergence of new forms of government. Nor will it require self-sufficiency in every home garden or for us all to live in tents. In fact, a sustainable society could look remarkably like today’s. The reason many climate scientists bang on about how bad the future might be is only

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A snapshot of a sustainable Melbourne It’s 2020, and we’ve heeded the call to act in the critical decade. Led by some inspirational leaders, we made the switch to creating a sustainable society and realised it didn’t require that big a shift after all – not when we pull together. We dress the same but walk, ride and socialise more. The successors of smartphones help us organise our travel more efficiently, monitor our energy and water-use at home, and calculate our production of landfill, which recycles nutrients back to farms. These smartphones can also tell us how much fat we’re burning with increased exercise, not that we need technology to tell us how good we’re feeling. The most obvious transformation is the amount of greenery in the city: trees and planter boxes line streets, vertical gardens line walls both outside and inside buildings and roof gardens are planted for relaxation and food production. The vast ‘city beautiful’ suburbia built in the 1960–80s is changing visually too, with four-packs of townhouses on many lots and scattered infill of coffee-and-work precincts. Older parts of the city still use the regional energy grid, albeit now based on renewable sources, whereas new suburbs are self-sufficient in water and energy, trapping what they need. Most farms and regional towns have become self-sufficient too: it is smarter and cheaper. Farming is more diverse, with trees for carbon sequestration and small areas of grass set aside for the production of bioplastics, which are tougher than steel and used for vehicle parts and buildings. Freeways still exist for long-distance travel, particularly on weekends. However, using a personal car during the working week – even though they are electric or hybid – is a social no-no, like littering or smoking or stealing someone else’s clean air. Finally too, the tunnelling technology that was wasted on roads in previous decades has made a very positive difference, expanding networks of rail and light rail. Coffee tastes the same, kids still love playgrounds and footy is still king. The fundamentals of life remain unchanged. The community is more closely bound, cooperation becomes second nature, crime hasn’t escalated, the economy is healthy and the future looks rosy. It is a dynamic society and nothing like the Martian landscape sceptics were sketching back in 2012. Collectively, we shake our heads in disbelief at the things we used to do. Depending on cars to get around, burning brown coal to provide electricity, letting the tap run while we brushed our teeth. Honestly, what were we thinking?

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Twenty Actions

GOAL OF SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

MEDIA GOVERNMENT BUSINESS INDIVIDUAL

ETHICS

Figure 1.

because we’re not yet listening and taking action. Unpleasant futures and threats lead, understandably, to public disengagement or denial, exemplified by the Leunig cartoon. In contrast, the MSSI authors of this book, each experts in their respective fields, have a very positive view of what a sustainable society will look like. Our authors portray a positive, cando approach to the future.

How Do We Get There? The journey towards a sustainable future may be encapsulated or visualised within a figure for change: a diamond, no less. At the top is our goal, an expectation of what a sustainable society might look like. It is perhaps aspirational and is certainly subject to change as we develop new technologies and smarter priorities. At the other apex is ethics, as emphasised in chapters 2, 6, and others. Between these are the four participants who need to take individual

initiatives and act collaboratively: individual people (leading alone or working within selforganised communities of common concern), business, government and media (Figure 1). While visionary leadership and persuasion may come from (extra)ordinary people and community groups, there is nonetheless a clear and important role for governments. As Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies said in 1961: ‘The essential quality of good government is that it should have sound and intelligent principles, that it should pursue great national and social objectives with resoluteness.’ Also in 1961, when the world came under a different threat, US President John F Kennedy said: ‘The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.’ And later in the same speech: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.’ Kennedy’s speech gave rise to the Peace Corps, which attracted the best and brightest of a generation to service in developing communities, and also to placing humans on the moon within a decade, but sadly, not to eliminating poverty. In January 2012, a United Nations Report ‘Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing’ summed up the challenge facing us now: ‘It is within the wit and will of our common humanity to choose for the future. All great achievements in human history began as a vision before becoming a reality. The vision for global sustainability, producing both a resilient people and a resilient planet, is no different.’

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As our authors have urged, governments can lead change through required actions (laws and regulations), incentives (such as taxes) and encouragement of voluntary actions (underpinned by media campaigns for example). They also say that our journey will involve increasing interaction and dialogue between leading individuals, community groups and government to create a coalition of ideas: to reach a broadly-agreed definition of what society wants for our future, and to identify enough common elements so that the vast majority of activist groups are prepared to work in concert with political parties to achieve the vision. The third and fourth players within the diamond are the media and corporations. Unfortunately the media cannot be relied upon to persuade society of change because controversy and divisiveness sell copy. The media can, however, provide leadership, as The Sydney Morning Herald did in 2010 when it championed the need to create a strategic plan for Sydney. Corporations may also take public positions against change while individually being quite innovative. News Corporation exemplifies this duality (and the sometimes conflicting motives as an agent for change and as a corporation) of both media and business generally. While promoting divisiveness about climate change in its media, News Corporation proudly advertised that its headquarters achieved zerocarbon status in 2010. Some current media articles and corporate stances â&#x20AC;&#x201C; for example, the mining-industry

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media campaign against a mining tax in Australia in 2010, and the supporting notion that it is easier to get planning approval for an open-cut coal mine than a wind-farm in Victoria in 2012 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; may be best described as horseshit arising from vested interests who make profits purveying horses and carts. Nonetheless, these same media and mining corporations are constantly innovating: selfinterest in new, profitable opportunities and desire for longevity, as discussed in chapter 13, will cause them to eventually participate in leading the creation of a sustainable society.

Twenty Actions Between the participants and the goal lie the actions; multiple steps along paths that will collectively deliver sustainability. The Twenty Actions table (see p. 228) lists 20 recommended actions in the categories of individual, government, corporation and media. They are samples chosen by our authors. Singly they are not essential, but they raise issues that must be addressed, and they exemplify the mix of actions that will need to be taken before 2020. It is noteworthy that our list of actions aligns with those recommended by others. For example, after this book was written, the United Nations Environment Program identified 21 issues that need to be addressed for global environmental sustainability. Their issues also emphasised that shifting to the path(s) to sustainability is primarily about changes in behaviour and governance. Some people will argue that truly effective action requires setting a detailed vision and

Twenty Actions

working backwards to identify the most efficient path, a process called backward chaining. It has some role, but it also encourages either inaction – ‘I can’t make any change until I know what is the best change to make’ – or notions that we need new, powerful forms of governance to lead us. This argument arises, innocently, in many forums. For example, at a November 2011 national conference of geographers, a keynote speaker argued that city sustainability and resilience could only be addressed effectively if we created over-arching single lawmaking bodies to take charge of each of our cities. Brisbane City Council, responsible for the whole of Brisbane, is such a body but it is not self-evident that it addresses sustainability better than the multitude of councils that have responsibilities for other cities. Setting preconditions for action is dangerous. Just as having a precondition for action may be dangerous, so is identifying a key or essential action. This book advises otherwise. The 20 advocated actions will develop momentum for change; none of them is a silver bullet, but each a carefully thought-out example of the types of changes that will lead to sustainability. Actions will be interrelated. Three things arise from this. First, we are on an unpredictable journey, not a linear path. Doubtless we will encounter some unanticipated cul-de-sacs. Transformation to a green economy – for example, the shift to renewable energy and recycling of materials – will leave stranded assets and failed firms, just as ongoing climate change will strand some current assets, to the extent of making some

communities non-viable and turning them to ghost towns. Second, many apparently unrelated actions will have unforeseen consequences. They may reinforce each other, and sometimes they may stimulate unanticipated behaviours that set back the journey to sustainability. These knock-on effects are broadly known as emergent properties, which apply to complex or wicked systems. Unknowable knock-on effects are a further argument for learning-bydoing, because their likelihood is based on an understanding that the system – our society – is so complex that we cannot predict all outcomes from individual actions. So, let us make a start because if we seek full knowledge of the outcomes of our actions, we will never begin. Third, some actions, although desirable, may not provide the long-term solution we seek. They may move us to an intermediate or better state but not have the capacity to deliver true sustainability. For example, moving from coal to natural gas will reduce carbon emissions and assist in meeting short-term targets to reduce the heating of the air. However, natural gas extraction, transport and burning do emit carbon dioxide, and natural gas is a non-renewable resource. So, it represents an intermediate step: worth taking, but in making the transition we should be mindful that further transformation will be necessary. Coupling a transition from coal to natural gas with thoughtful action (such as taxing nonrenewable mining, chapter 3) will encourage a further transition, most effectively to largescale thermal energy (chapter 5).

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Twenty Actions by 2020 for a Sustainable Society

Individuals

INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS

EFFECT

SUSTAINABLE OUTCOME

1. ENGAGE PERSONALLY Engage in community activism and monitor resource use and impact of lobbying (Newman).

Build local capacity to effect change and support a reduction in individual and community carbon footprints.

Decision-making through coalitions of governments and grassroots movements.

2. OWN LESS Choose to reduce ownership of ‘things’ and the size of homes (Kvan).

Housing will become more affordable and energy consumption will decrease.

Denser cities, requiring shorter commutes and providing easier access to greenspace; more sharing and fewer ‘things’.

3. REDUCE WASTE Reduce waste in supply chains, eg, by choosing aesthetically imperfect food and low-impact packaging; reduce personal waste (Ford); and support food rescue for disadvantaged communities (Pearson).

There will be greater food security to feed an increasing population.

Less on-farm wastage; reduce income gap between rural and urban and address ‘nutritional ghettoes’ in cities.

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Businesses

BUSINESS ACTIONS 4. CORE VALUES Integrate sustainability into core business culture and values to reduce risk and enhance brand and reputation (Maimone).

EFFECT Greater business stability and profitability for the long-term.

SUSTAINABLE OUTCOME Corporate leadership; greater employer satisfaction; slower product model redundancy.

5. LABELS Provide product labelling that is More informed consumer choices, digestible, unbiased and trustworthy (Paladino). more effective purchasing.

Preventative health reducing healthcare costs; address health and obesity; accelerated the shift to sustainable products.

6. INNOVATIVE DESIGN Lead globallyinnovative design. Design of technologies to reduce GHG emissions by at least 50 per cent (Karoly) and buildings modelled on ecological principles, integrating vegetation and built environment (Green, Blashki).

More efficient use of sun, water and other natural resources. Incorporation of plants and green spaces for food, cooling, carbon capture and recreation.

Improved physical and mental health; reduced health costs and increased productivity; contribute to climate stabilisation.

7. CREATE ZERO CARBON LANDSCAPES Strategically revegetate targeted areas, creating mixed forests and farmland (Taylor).

Significantly increase the carbon storage capacity of the landscape, improve ecosystem functions and services, diversify rural economies.

Some mitigation of climate change; enhanced wellbeing of rural communities.

8. DESIGN FOR CLIMATE CHANGE Design new infrastructure to account for the impacts of climate change (Duffield).

More robust assets that will serve the community over the long term.

Make cities more efficient and less vulnerable to disaster; market and sell solutions internationally.

9. REDUCE DISASTER RISKS Minimise disaster impacts and inequities, eg, by studying likely impacts of climate change on Indigenousowned land (Sykes) and developing plans and kits for every household, workplace and community (March).

Anticipate and minimise impacts of disasters; make disaster-risk assessment part of planning.

Reduce direct costs and indirect impacts eg, personal trauma and increasing inequity, from increasingly frequent disasters associated with growing population density and climate change.

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Government

GOVERNMENT ACTIONS

EFFECT

SUSTAINABLE OUTCOME

10. TEACH ETHICS Introduce courses in sustainability ethics in schools (Prebble).

Create awareness and subsequently a more ethical basis (rather than financial) for intergenerational decisions.

Promote a moral community based on non-GDP measures of wellness.

11. TAX NON-RENEWABLES Resource tax on all non-renewable resources (Pearson).

Accelerate substitution of nonrenewable resources with green technologies.

Create globally competitive technologies, likely to cause new stimulation of economy.

12. MARKET WATER Introduce water-trading based on markets and property rights for environmental, rural and urban needs (Malano).

Allow inter-sector trading and more transparent water prices, without political interference.

Provide greater imperative for better technological and economic decisions that allow for the provision of infrastructure and water for the environment.

13. GO SOLAR Make a substantial commitment to large solar, wind and energy storage installations (Seligman) with emphasis on large-scale solar (Brumby).

Shift to renewable energy at acceptable cost.

Reduce carbon pollution; create new industries; vitalise some remote rural areas, but recognise and address negative economic impacts on others eg, communities in coal basins.

14. PROVIDE CHILDCARE Provide universal and affordable childcare (Sykes).

Enable low-income families to fully participate in workforce.

Reduce inequity; increase productivity; increase educational aspirations.

15. VALUE CULTURE Develop frameworks for, and measure, impacts of culture programs on sustainability (Yue).

Improved assessment of value of cultural programs.

Stimulate cultural support as a factor in societal change, leading to increased govt commitment to culture programs.

16. PROMOTE TRANSPORT PYRAMID Provide a public awareness campaign on healthy transport based upon the transport pyramid (Conheady).

Changes in attitudes and behaviour to modes of transport.

Greater demand for public transport, separated bikeways, community car ownership, improved health; significant reduction in carbon pollution.

17. RESTORE ECOSYSTEMS Establish an international Ecosystem Restoration Service (Keenan).

Restore natural ecosystem function to 20 per cent of deforested areas.

Help society adapt to climate change by working with the natural environment and reducing our exposure to future risks.

18. PLAN FOR POPULATION Plan for population growth by increasing investment in new public infrastructure like water, transport, energy and communications (Kippen).

Greater efficiency in publicresource usage.

Improved management of demands made by population growth.

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Media

MEDIA ACTIONS

EFFECT

SUSTAINABLE OUTCOME

19. ACT RESPONSIBLY Factor sustainability into media coverage, talk about and explore the issues, lead debates and find ways to engage the community – eg, raise awareness of city growth, its inevitability and consequences (Sanderson).

An informed public can make informed decisions and exert pressure on governments, corporates and indeed the media itself to think sustainably.

Will help get each of the key participants of society working in tandem towards a better outcome for all.

20. INVOLVE PUBLIC Establish a not-for-profit national virtual forum capable of synthesising public wisdom (van Gelder).

Bring deliberative democracy to major sustainability issues.

Enable governments to make wiser, faster decisions on path to sustainability and be less swayed by weekly opinion polls.

*We recognise that some of the initiatives listed under ‘Business’ and others may require legislation or subsidies for an interim period, but the primary point of innovation and action resides with business. For example, adoption of innovative solar technology and household photovoltaics was stimulated by government financial incentives but depends on businesses producing low-cost technology so that energy is created at a competitive cost.

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What do we need? • Narratives: a sustainable future will be attractive. • Actions: specifics to achieve sustainability. Largely, behaviour and policy changes, not technology. • Evidence: research to identify what is needed and its impact when it occurs. Publicise success. • Commitment: join the movement. • Partners: civil society, government, business and media working in concert.

What Can You and I Do? Throughout this book we have drawn attention to inspiring examples where individuals have acted, or got together with others and acted, to create a more sustainable society. To conclude, let’s enumerate some of the actions that we can take as individuals. Before we do, bring to mind what one Australian, Eddie Mabo, said in relation to the land claims that established Aboriginal land rights throughout Australia in the 1990s. Change, he said, ‘starts with one person taking a stand’. So while we wait for and encourage the emergence of inspiring leadership and vision, there’s nothing to stop us from just getting going with it and being leaders in our spheres. Here are some actions described in a little more detail than was possible in the Twenty Actions table:

Ethics Think and act ethically. Act now or give escalating problems to our grandchildren. Don’t be swayed by media and others’ selfinterest; expect leadership from governments and corporations, and support those who give it. This year, Leonie Pearson and others analysed how we trade-off among many things

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when we make choices, but hold some things as non-negotiable ‘protected values’. We will need to make sustainability a protected value and question whether or not our choices, lifestyle, actions and purchases are sustainable.

Actions Measure personal consumption and waste, and participate in community groups. Own fewer things, because they don’t necessarily bring happiness, and explore the socially-rich flipside of sharing and renting. Reduce waste; buy on the basis of labels that inform you about the energy it took to make each product; recycle. Act to maximise happiness, health and equity rather than be persuaded by consumer-driven advertising.

Essentials Water, food and energy are essential for living, and changes in the way we generate and use them are critical if we are to become sustainable. Shift to renewable energy quickly, emphasising large-scale solar plants to support grids, and precinct- or suburb-scale selfsufficiency. Support more realistic costing and trading of water and food; reduce use, reduce waste and recycle.

Twenty Actions

Transport Adopt your own â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;transport triangleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. Maybe by 2020 using a personal car for short-distance transport during the working week will be as socially unacceptable as littering became in the 1970s (do you remember the roadsides littered with papers and cans before that?). Technology such as electric cars will make a large impact, but behaviour and social norms will make a greater one. There are many consequences arising from literally walking the talk, such as selecting schools that you and your children can walk to.

Support With your voice and your pocket (and your back if need be) support sustainable innovation. Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s your neighbour, a small start-up company, a multinational or a government,

when you see it, celebrate their preparedness to change towards a sustainable society. To finish with a specific example drawn from chapters here, support political leadership that sets goals such as more greenspace in cities and taxes on extractive industries, even if the actions are not as comprehensive as we think are necessary. We can take many simple actions to address the urgent need to transform to a sustainable society. If the vast majority of scientists are right, these actions need to be taken so they make a difference by 2020. The authors of this book think the science is correct and the need for action is urgent. Even if we and most of science have overestimated the problems of, say, food security, resource depletion and climate change, then we can congratulate ourselves we will still have taken action to create a better, fairer, more sustainable society by 2020.

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Further Reading Drivers 1. Population Australian Government (2010). Australia to 2050: Future Challenges. Intergenerational Report 2010, The Treasury, Canberra. Australian Government (2011). Sustainable Australia— Sustainable Communities: A Sustainable Population Strategy for Australia, Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Canberra. Bongaarts, J., Bulatao, R.A. (1999). ‘Completing the Demographic Transition’, Population and Development Review 25, 515–529. Laxenburg Declaration on Population and Sustainable Development (2011). http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/ POP/Laxenburg%20Declaration%20on%20 Population%20and%20Development.html McDonald, P. (2001). Too many and too few: population dilemmas of the 21st century. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition 19, 155–157. McDonald, P., Kippen, R. (1999). Population futures for Australia: the policy alternatives. Research Paper No. 5, Department of the Parliamentary Library, Canberra. McGuirk, P., Argent, N. (2011). Population growth and change: implications for Australia’s cities and regions, Geographical Research 49, 317–335.

2. Equity Australian Council of Social Services (2011). ‘Indicators of Inequality Factsheet’. http://acoss.org.au/images/ uploads/ACOSS_Indicators_of_Inequality_Factsheet_ April_2011.pdf Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2011). Young Australians: their health and wellbeing 2011. Cat. no. PHE 140. Canberra. http://www.aihw.gov.au/ publication-detail/?id=10737419261 Chesters, J., Western, J. (2010). ‘Evidence and Perception of Inequality in Australia’, ANU, CEPR Discussion Paper No 635. http://cepr.anu.edu.au/pdf/DP635.pdf Neal, D., Norton, M., Ariely, D. (2011). ‘Australian Attitudes Towards Wealth Inequality and the Minimum Wage’, Empirica Research, Melbourne. http://www.actu. org.au/Images/Dynamic/attachments/7282/ACTUReport-Inequality-and-Minimum-%20Wage.pdf Productivity Commission (2011). ‘Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indications 2011’,

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Steering Committee or the Review of Government Service Provision. Canberra. http://www.pc.gov.au/gsp/ reports/indigenous/key-indicators-2011 Steffen, W. (2011). ‘The Critical Decade’, Climate Commission, Canberra. http://climatecommission.gov. au/topics/the-critical-decade/ Sykes, H. eds. (2011). Health, Future Leaders, Melbourne. http://www.futureleaders.com.au/ebooks/health_ebook.php Wild, R., Anderson, P. (2007). Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle ‘Little Children are Sacred’, Report of the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse. http://www. inquirysaac.nt.gov.au/pdf/bipacsa_final_report.pdf Wilkinson, R., Pickett, K. (2010). The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone. Penguin, London. http:// www.equalitytrust.org.uk/resources/publications/thespirit-level

3. Consumption Commoner, B. (1971). The Closing Circle. Knopf, New York. Pearson, C. (2012). A fresh look at the roots of food insecurity. In: Rayfuse, R., Weisfelt, N. eds. The Challenge of Food Security. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. Prior, T., et al. (2011). Resource depletion, peak minerals and the implications for sustainable resource management. Journal of Global Environmental Change. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S0959378011001361 Rees, W. E. (2006). Ecological Footprints and Biocapacity: Essential Elements in Sustainability Assessment. In: Dewulf, J., Van Langenhove, H. eds. Renewables-Based Technology: Sustainability Assessment. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester, UK. State of the Planet declaration (2012). From: Planet Under Pressure conference, London. http://www. planetunderpressure2012.net/pdf/state_of_planet_ declaration.pdf

4. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change Allison, I., et al. (2010). The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers. Australian Academy of Science. http://www.science.org.au/policy/climatechange.html Garnaut, R. (2011). The Garnaut Review 2011: Australia in the Global Response to Climate Change. CUP. NOAA Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, USA. http:// www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/ Steffen, W. (2011). The Critical Decade: Climate Science, Risks and Responses. Climate Commission, DCCEE, Australia. http://climatecommission.gov.au/ topics/the-critical-decade/

WBGU (2009). Solving the climate dilemma: the budget approach. German Advisory Council on Climate Change, Germany. http://www.wbgu.de/en/specialreports/sr-2009-budget-approach/

5. Energy Beyond Zero Emissions (2011). Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, Melbourne Energy Institute. http://www.energy.unimelb.edu.au/uploads/ZCA2020_ Stationary_Energy_MacKay, D. (2009). Sustainable Energy – without the hot air, UIT Cambridge Ltd. http://www.withouthotair.com/ McNeil, B. (2009). The Clean Industrial Revolution, Allen and Unwin. Seligman, P. (2010). Australian Sustainable Energy – by the numbers, Melbourne Energy Research Institute.

People 6. Ethics Aristotle (2011). Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, transl. Bartlett, R.C., Collins, S.D., University of Chicago Press. Gardiner, S. (2011). A perfect moral storm: the ethical tragedy of climate change, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hiskes, R. (2009). The human right to a green future: environmental rights and intergenerational justice, Cambridge University Press. McKibben, W. (1989). The End of Nature, Random House. Partridge, E. (2012). The Online Gadfly offers papers and links on topics of environmental ethics. http:// gadfly.igc.org/index.htm Sandler, R. (2007). Character and environment: a virtueoriented approach to environmental ethics, Columbia University Press. Singer, P. (2002). One world: the ethics of globalisation, Text Publishing. Van Wensveen, L. (2000). Dirty virtues: the emergence of ecological virtue ethics, Humanity Books.

7. Culture Blandy, D. (2011). Sustainability, Participatory Culture, and the Performance of Democracy: Ascendant Sites of Theory and Practice in Art Education. Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research in Art Education, 52, 243–255. Duxbury, N. (2008). Cultural Citizenship and Community Indicator Projects: Approaches and Challenges in the Local / Municipal Context. Creative

Local Communities: Cultural Vitality and Human Rights, 1, 48–66. Filor, L. (2000). Sacred Kingfisher. Artwork Magazine 47. Adelaide: Community Arts Network SA Inc. Hawkes, J. (2001). The fourth pillar of sustainability, Melbourne: Cultural Development Network. Jackson, M. R., Kabwasa-Green, F., Herranz, J. (2006). Cultural Vitality in Communities: Interpretation and Indicators. Washington DC: Culture, Creativity, and Communities Program, The Urban Institute, 2006. Madden, C. (2005). Indicators for Arts and Cultural Policy: A Global Perspective. Cultural Trends 14, 217–247. Mercer, C. (2005). From indicators to governance to the mainstream: Tools for cultural policy and citizenship. Andrew, C., Gattinger, M., Jeannotte, M., Straw, W. eds. Accounting for culture: Thinking through cultural citizenship, University of Ottawa Press. Sunrise 21 (1999). Sunrise 21 Artists in Industry Information Package. Mildura: Mildura Arts Centre. United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (UNESCO) (2009). Investing in Cultural Diversity and Intercultural Dialogue. Paris, UNESCO. Vivian, H. (2000). Interceptions: Art, Science and Land in Sunraysia. Mildura, Mildura Arts Centre and Artmoves Inc. World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford University Press. Yue, A., Khan, R., and Brook, S. (2011). Developing a local cultural indicator framework in Australia: a case study of the City of Whittlesea. Journal of Culture and Local Governance, 13, 133–149.

8. Awareness and Behaviour Montgomery, C., Stone, G. (2009). Revisiting consumer environmental responsibility: A five nation cross-cultural analysis and comparison of consumer ecological opinions and behaviors. International Journal of Management & Marketing Research 2, 35–58. Packham, B. (2011). Food Manufacturers win as government rejects traffic light labelling plan. The Australian, 30 November 2011. http://www. theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/foodmanufacturers-win-as-government-rejects-traffic-lightlabelling-plan/story-e6frg8y6-1226210280213 Paladino, A. (2005). Understanding the Green Consumer: An Empirical Analysis. Journal of Customer Behaviour 4, 69–102. Paladino, A. (2010). Green Consumers: Is the Prospect Blue? Insights 10: 60-65. http://insights.unimelb.edu.au/ vol8/10_Paladino.html

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Paladino, A., Baggiere, J. (2008). ‘Are We “Green”? An Empirical Investigation Of Renewable Electricity Consumption.’ In: Borghini, McGrath and Otnes, eds. European Advances in Consumer Research 8, Milan, Italy, 340. Rundle-Thiele, S., Paladino, A., Apostol, S. Jr. (2008). Lessons Learned from Renewable Electricity Marketing Attempts: A Case Study, Business Horizons, 51, 181–190. Sacks, G (2011). States should stand up to the food industry on traffic light labelling. The Conversation. www.theconversation.edu.au/states-should-stand-up-tothe-food-industry-on-traffic-light-labelling-4504 Smith, S., Paladino, A. (2010). ‘Eating Clean & Green? Investigating Consumer Motivations towards the Purchase of Organic Food’, Australasian Journal of Marketing 18, 93–104. Yeoh, M., Paladino, A. (forthcoming) ‘Prestige and Environmental Behaviors: Does Branding Matter?’ Journal of Brand Management.

9. Local Matters Matter Bianchi, P. et al. (2010). Canning Stock Route Royal Commission, Perth, Hesperian Press. Carter, P. (2010). Ground truthing. Explorations in a creative region. University of Western Australia Press. Clifford, J., (1986). ‘Introduction: Partial Truths’ in Clifford, J, and George E. Marcus, G.E., eds. Writing Culture. The poetics and politics of ethnography, Berkeley, University of California Press. Davenport, S., Johnson, P., Yuwali, (2005). Cleared Out. First Contact in the Western Desert, Canberra, Aboriginal Studies Press. Hendriks, C. M., (2010). ‘Inclusive governance for sustainability’ in Brown, Valerie, Harris and Russell, 2010, eds. Tackling wicked problems. Through the transdisciplinary imagination, London, Earthscan. Mosse, D. ed. (2010). Adventures in Aidland. The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development. In: Groves, L., Hinton, R., eds. Inclusive aid. Changing power and relationships in international development, London, Earthscan. Reynolds, H. (1990). With the White People, Penguin, Ringwood.

10. Public Wisdom Carson, L. (2011). Deliberative democracy. ABC Radio National, Ockham’s Razor, 5 June. http://www. activedemocracy.net/ Diamond, L. (2010). ‘Liberation Technology’. Journal of Democracy, 21, 69–83. Duval, J. (2010). Next Generation Democracy: What the

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Open-Source Revolution Means for Power, Politics, and Change. Bloomsbury. Fishkin, J. (2009). When the People Speak. Oxford University Press. Reser, J., et al. (2011). Public risk perceptions, understandings, and responses to climate change in Australia and Great Britain: Interim Report. Gold Coast, Queensland: Griffith University, National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. Sunstein, C. (2008). Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge. Oxford University Press. Surowiecki, J. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds. Anchor. van Gelder, T. (2012). Cultivating Deliberation for Democracy. Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 8: No. 1, Article 12. http://services.bepress.com/jpd/vol8/iss1/art12

11. Mental Health Austin, D., et al. (2005). ‘Managing panic disorder in general practice.’ Australian Family Physician 34(7), 563–571. Batt-Rawden, K. B., Tellnes., G (2005). ‘Natureculture-health activities as a method of rehabilitation: an evaluation of participants’ health, quality of life and function.’ International journal of rehabilitation research. Internationale Zeitschrift fur Rehabilitationsforschung. Revue internationale de recherches de readaptation 28(2), 175–180. Burns, L., Teesson, M. (2002). ‘Alcohol use disorders comorbid with anxiety, depression and drug use disorders. Findings from the Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Well Being.’ Drug and alcohol dependence 68, 299–307. Harris, A., et al. (2006). ‘Physical activity, exercise coping, and depression in a 10-year cohort study of depressed patients.’ Journal of affective disorders 93, 79–85. Kessler, R. C. et al. (2009). ‘The global burden of mental disorders: an update from the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) surveys.’ Epidemiologia e psichiatria sociale 18, 23-33. Leifheit-Limson, E., et al. (2010). ‘The role of social support in health status and depressive symptoms after acute myocardial infarction: evidence for a stronger relationship among women.’ Circulation. Cardiovascular quality and outcomes 3, 143–150. Maller, C., et al. (2006). ‘Healthy nature healthy people: ‘contact with nature’ as an upstream health promotion intervention for populations.’ Health promotion international 21, 45–54. Nielson, T., Hansen, K. (2007). ‘Do Green Areas Affect Health? Results from a Danish survey on the use of green areas and health indicators’ Health and Place, 839-850.

People Productivity Planet. (2010). http://www. beatonglobal.com/documents/PeopleProductivity PlanetBusiness_Sustainability_Report_190410.pdf Salguero, A., et al. (2011). ‘Physical activity, quality of life and symptoms of depression in communitydwelling and institutionalized older adults.’ Archives of gerontology and geriatrics 53, 152–157. Sugiyama, T., Leslie, E., et al. (2008). ‘Associations of neighbourhood greenness with physical and mental health: do walking, social coherence and local social interaction explain the relationships?’ Journal of epidemiology and community health 62, e9. Tucci, J., et al. (2007). Children’s Fears, Hopes and Heroes: Modern childhood in Australia. Melbourne, Australian Childhood Foundation.

12. Disease Falvey, L. (2010). Small farmers secure food. Survival food security, the world’s kitchen and the critical role of small farmers. TSE Press, Thailand. Hall, A., Horton, S., de Silva, N. (2009). Plos Neglected Tropical Disease. 3 (3) e402. Paarlberg, R. (2010). Food politics: what everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press, New York. Tuchman, B. (1978). A distant mirror: the calamitous 14th century. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

13. Corporate Sustainability PwC Thought Leadership (2010). Integrated reporting: what does your reporting say about you? www.pwc.com/ gx/en/corporate-reporting/integrated-reporting PwC Thought Leadership (2011). How sustainable is your reporting? A survey of sustainability reporting across the ASX30. www.pwc.com/consulting/ publications/how-sustainable-is-your-reporting

14. Governance COAG Murray Darling outcome. http://www.coag. gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/2008-10-02/index. cfm#climate Foodbowl Modernisation Project. http://www.nvirp. com.au/default.aspx Victoria’s climate change website. http://www. climatechange.vic.gov.au/ Victorian Government Department of Premier and Cabinet (2010). Taking Action for Victoria’s Future – Climate Change White Paper – the Implementation Plan. http://www.climatechange.vic.gov.au/__data/ assets/pdf_file/0019/125416/Victorian-Climate-ChangeWhite-Paper-Implementation-Plan-October-2010.pdf Victorian Government Department of Transport.

The Victorian Electric Vehicle Trial. http://www. transport.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/31707/ ElectricVehicleTrial-InfoPaper.pdf

Natural Resources 15. Ecosystem-Based Adaptation Colls, A., Ash, N., Ikkala, N. (2009). Ecosystem-based Adaptation: a natural response to climate change. Gland, Switzerland, IUCN. Dudley, N., Stolton, S., eds. (2003). Running pure: the importance of forest protected areas to drinking water. Gland, Switzerand, WWF/World Bank Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use. Easterling, W., et al. (2007). Food, fibre and forest products. Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Parry, M., et al. eds. Cambridge University Press, 273–313. IUCN (2008). Ecosystem-based adaptation: An approach for building resilience and reducing risk for local communities and ecosystems. Submission to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Quartel S., et al. (2007). Wave attenuation in coastal mangroves in the Red River delta, Vietnam, J. Asian Earth Sci., 29, 576–584 Verchot, L., et al. (2007). Climate Change: Linking Adaptation and Mitigation through Agroforestry Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. 12: 901–918. Vignola, R., Locatelli, B., Martinez, C., Imbach, P. (2009). Ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change: what role for policy-makers, society and scientists? Mitig. Adapt. Strateg. Glob. Change 14, 691–696.

16. Water Johnson L. (1968). Transmitting an assessment of the Nation’s water resources. A letter to the president of the Senate and to the Speaker of the House. Washington DC. 18 November 1968. Khan, S., et al. (2007). Optimal Irrigation Productivity and River Health Through Pick and Mix Strategies: Catchment water cycle management, alternative cropping systems, real water savings and aquifer storage and recovery. CRC Irrigation Futures Technical Report 3/07, CRCIF. Loucks D., Gladwell, J., eds. (1999). Sustainability Criteria for Water Resources Systems. International Hydrology Series. UNESCO. Cambridge University Press.

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Malano, H., Davidson, B. (2009). A Framework for Assessing the Trade Offs Between Economic and Environmental Uses of Water in a River Basin. Journal of Irrigation and Drainage 58: S133–S147. Malano, H. (2010). Modelling and Decision Making in Water Resource Management. In: IAHS Publication 338. Hydrocomplexity: New tools for Solving Wicked Water Problems. Khan, Savenije, Demuth & Hubert, eds. 111126. Paris, UNESCO. Molden, D. (1997). Accounting for Water Use and Productivity. SWIM Paper No. 1. International Irrigation Management Institute (now IWMI), Colombo. Murray-Darling Basin Authority (2010). Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan. MDBA, Canberra. http://www. mdba.gov.au/bpkid/guide/ Singh, R., et al. (2009). ‘Understanding the Water Cycle of the South Creek Catchment in Western Sydney. Part I: Catchment Description and Preliminary Water Balance Analysis’. CRC for Irrigation Futures. Technical Report 05/09.

17. Food Baker, D., Fear, J. Denniss, R. (2009). What a Waste: An Analysis of Household Expenditure on Food, The Australia Institute, Policy Brief 6 Nov 2009. Bruinsma, J (2009). ‘The resource outlook to 2050. By how do land, water and crop yields need to increase by 2050?’. Expert meeting on How to Feed the World in 2050 Canning, P., et al. (2010). Energy use in the US food system. United States Department of Agriculture. Economic report 94. Cline, W. (2007). Global warming and agriculture: Impact estimates by country. Center for Global Development and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Cueller, A., Webber, M. (2010). Wasted food, wasted energy: The embedded energy in food waste in the United States. Environmental Science & Technology, 44, 6464–6489. DAFF (2011). Issues Paper to Inform Development of a National Food Plan, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Canberra. EPHC (2010). National Waste Report 2010, Environment Protection and Heritage Council, Canberra. FAO ‘World Agriculture towards 2015/2030. An FAO perspective.’ Garnaut, R. (2011). ‘Garnaut Climate Change Review – Update 2011. Update Paper Four: Transforming rural land use.’ Gunasekera, D., Kim, Y., Tulloh, C., and Ford, M. (2007).

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‘Climate Change, impacts on Australian Agriculture.’ Australian commodities vol 14 no 4 December quarter 2007. Gustavsson, J. et al. (2011). Global Food Losses and Food Waste, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome. Parfitt, J. et al. (2011). ‘Food waste within food supply chains: quantification and potential for change’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365, 3065–3081. Parfitt, J., Barthel, M., Macnaughton, S. (2010). Food waste within food supply chains: quantification and potential for change to 2050. Philisophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365, 1554. Ringler et al (eds), Global Change: Impacts on Water and Food Security. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010. Rosegrant, M.W., Cai, X., Cline, S.A. (2002) World Water and Food to 2025: Dealing with Scarcity. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC. Smith, P et al (2008). ‘Greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture.’ Phil. Trans. R. Soc B2008 363, 789–813. White, A. et al. (2011). ‘The impact of fresh food specifications on the Australian food and nutrition system: a case study of the north Queensland banana industry’, Public Health Nutrition, 14, 1489–1495. WRAP (2009). Household food and drink waste in the UK. Banbury, UK.

18. Zero Carbon Land-Use Berry, S., et al. (2010), Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage – Part 2: Biomass carbon stocks in the Great Western Woodlands, Australian National University Press, Canberra. Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (2004). Maximum Potential Biomass (MaxBio), (dataset), Commonwealth of Australia. Griffiths, T. (2002). How many trees make a forest? Cultural debates about vegetation change in Australia, Australian Journal of Botany 50, 375–389. Kanowski J., Catterall C. (2010). Carbon stocks in above ground biomass of monoculture plantations, mixed species plantations and environmental restoration plantings in north east Australia, Ecological Management and Restoration, 11, 119–126. Mackey B., Keith H., Berry S., Lindenmayer D. (2008). Green Carbon: The role of natural forests in carbon storage – Part 1: A green carbon account of Australia’s southeastern eucalypt forests, and policy implications, Australian National University Press, Canberra.

Mackey B., Watson J., Worboys G. (2010). Connectivity conservation and the Great Eastern Ranges Corridor, an independent report to the interstate Agency Working Group, Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council. Murphy, S. (2009). Recreating Country - a blue print for the design of sustainable landscapes, published by Australia Forest Growers. National Inventory Report (2009). Volume 1, Australian Government Submission to the, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change April 2011, Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. Roxburgh S., et al. (2006). Assessing the Carbon Sequestration Potential of managed forests: a case study from temperate Australia, Journal of Applied Ecology 49, 1149–1159. South Gippsland Development League (1966). The Land of the Lyrebird: A story of Early Settlement in the Great Forest of South Gippsland, The Shire of Korumburra and South Gippsland Development League.

Cities 19. Changing Cities Ashton-Graham (2008). TravelSmart and Living Smart Case Study in Garnaut Climate Change Review. www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/ WebObj/Casestudy-TravelSmartandLivingSmartWesternAustralia/%24File/Case%20study%20-%20 TravelSmart%20and%20LivingSmart%20-%20 Western%20Australia.pdf Climate Action Summit 2012. http://www. climatesummit.org.au Lighter Footprint. http://www.lighterfootprints.org Newman, P., Beatley, T., Boyer, H. (2009). Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change, Washington DC, Island Press. Newman, P., and Jennings, I. (2008). Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems, Washington DC, Island Press.

20. Affordable Living Berry, M. (2003). Why is it Important to Boost the Supply of Affordable Housing in Australia – and How Can We Do it? Urban Policy & Research, 21, 413–435. Bray, J. (2001). Hardship in Australia: An Analysis of Financial Stress Indicators in the 1998-99 Australian Bureau of Statistics Household Expenditure Survey, FaHCSIA Occasional Paper No. 4. Bretherton, J., Pleace, N. (2008). Residents’ views of new forms of high density affordable living, in Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, 71.

Brown, M., Southworth, F., Sarzynski, A. (2008). Shrinking the carbon footprint of metropolitan America, Brookings, Washington DC. Brugmann, J. (2009). Welcome to the urban revolution: how cities are changing the world, Bloomsbury Press, New York. Crompton, D., Johnston, P. and Kunsthalle Wien. (1994). A Guide to Archigram, 1961–74, Academy Editions London. Downs, A. (2004). Growth management and affordable housing: do they conflict?, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Fuller, R., Crawford, R. (2011). Impact of past and future residential housing development patterns on energy demand and related emissions, Journal of housing and the built environment, 26, 165–183. Sunshine Coast Regional Council (2010). Affordable Living Strategy 2010–2020, in Sunshine Coast Council. VicUrban: 2011, Affordable Living. http://www. vicurban.com/cs/Satellite?c=VPage&cid=11688444884 04&pagename=VicUrban%2FLayout

21. Built Environment Hammarby, Stockholm. http://www.hammarbysjostad. se/inenglish/pdf/HS_miljo_bok_eng_ny.pdf Malmo, Sweden. http://www.malmo.se/English/ Sustainable-City-Development/Bo01---WesternHarbour.html\ Committee for Melbourne. http://www.melbourne.org. au/cms-policy/melbourne-beyond-5-million Department of Planning and Community Development. http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/planning/plansandpolicies/ planningformelbourne/a-new-melbourne-metropolitanplanning-strategy COAG Reform Council. http://www.coagreformcouncil. gov.au/agenda/cities.cfm Economist Intelligence Unit. http://www.eiu.com/site_ info.asp?info_name=The_Global_Liveability_Report

22. Infrastructure American Society of Civil Engineers (2009). 2009 Report card for America’s infrastructure, ASCE. http:// www.infrastructurereportcard.org/report-cards Calderon, C., Moral-Benito, E., Serven, L. (2011). Is Infrastructure Capital Productive? A Dynamic Heterogeneous Approach, Policy Research Working Paper 5682, The World Bank. http://econ.worldbank. org/external/default/main?pagePK=64165259&theSiteP K=469372&piPK=64165421&menuPK=64166093&ent ityID=000158349_20110615103058

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Engineers Australia (2010). Australia’s 2010 Infrastructure Report, Engineers Australia. http://www. engineersaustralia.org.au/infrastructure-report-card Jackson, T. (2009). Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet, Earthscan, London. Urban Land Institute and Ernst & Young (2011). Infrastructure 2011: A strategic priority, Washington, D.C.: Urban Land Institute. http://www.ey.com/GL/ en/Industries/Real-Estate/2011-infrastructure-report-setting-strategic-priorities

23. Transport Australian Government (2007). ‘Estimating urban traffic and congestion cost trends for Australian cities, Working paper 71’, Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics. Australian Government (2009). ‘Road crash costs in Australia 2006, Report 118’, Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics. Bassett, D., et al. (2008). ‘Walking, Cycling, and Obesity Rates in Europe, North America and Australia’, Journal of Physical Activity and Health. Climate Works Australia (2010). ‘Low Carbon Growth Plan for Australia’, Climate Works Australia. Frumkin, H., Frank, L., Jackson, R. (2004). ‘Urban sprawl and public health: designing, planning, and building for healthy communities’, Island Press. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). ‘IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Mitigation of Climate Change, chapter 5, Transport and its Infrastructure’, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. World Energy Council (2007), ‘Transport Technologies and Policy Scenarios’, World Energy Council.

24. Adaptive Design Hansen, J. (2007). Climate Catastrophe, New Scientist, Vol. 195, Issue 2614, 30-34. Holling, C. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 4, 1–23. IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007). Climate Change 2007, Impacts, Adaptations and Vulnerability: Summary for Policymakers, IPCC, Geneva. Low, L., Gleeson, B., Green, R. and Radovic, D. (2005). The Green City: Sustainable Homes, Sustainable Suburbs. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney and Routledge, London. UN-Habitat (2011). Global report on human settlements 2011: Cities and Climate Change. United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Earthscan Ltd., London.

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25. Handling Disaster Alexander, D.E. (1994). Natural Disasters. Chapman and Hall, New York. Commonwealth of Australia (2004). Emergency Management in Australia Concepts and Principles. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2007). Summary for policymakers. Solomon, S., et al. eds. Climate Change 2007: The physical science basis. Cambridge University Press. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) (2008). Migration and climate change. IOM migration research series No. 31. http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/pbnEU/ cache/offonce?entryId¼16584 ISDR (2009) Risk and Poverty in a Changing Climate: Invest Today for a Safer Tomorrow, Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction, Geneva, United Nations. http://www.preventionweb.net/gar09 Perry, R. W., Lindell, M. K. (2003). Preparedness for Emergency Response: Guidelines for the Emergency Planning Process. Disasters, 23, 336–350. Research Alliance (2007). A Research Prospectus for Urban Resilience: A Resilience Alliance Initiative for Transitioning Urban Systems towards Sustainable Futures, February 2007 CSIRO, Australia – Arizona State University, USA – Stockholm University, Sweden. Satterthwaite, D. (2008). Climate change and urbanization: Effects and implications for urban governance. Paper prepared for the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Population Distribution, Urbanization, Internal Migration and Development, January 2008, New York, UNDESA.

Outcomes 26. Twenty Actions Brunner, R.D., & Lynch, A.H. (2010). Adaptive governance and climate change. American Meteorological Society, Boston, Mass. Chapin III, F.S. et al. (2009). Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 25, 241–9. Jackson, T. (2009) Prosperity without growth: Economics for a finite planet, Earthscan, London Pearson, L.J., Kashima, Y., Pearson, C.J. (2012). Clarifying protected and utilitarian values of critical capital. Ecological Economics 73, 206–210. UNEP, (2012). 21 Issues for the 21st Century: Result of the UNEP Foresight Process on Emerging Environmental Issues. Alcamo, J., Leonard, S.A. eds. United Nations Environment Program, Nairobi, Kenya.

Index Symbols 8 Millenium Development Goals 99

A ABARES. See Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences Aboriginal 61, 70, 71, 72, 76, 93 land rights 232 Abu Dhabi 162 ACOSS. See Australian Council of Social Service ACSI. See Australian Council of Superannuation Investors ACT. See Australian Capital Territory actions for 2020 9, 26, 36, 46, 55, 63, 69, 78, 85, 93, 103, 113, 121–122, 131, 140, 149, 160, 169, 176, 191, 199, 209, 219–220, 222–233 active transport 88–89 ACTU. See Australian Council of Trade Unions ADHD. See Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder A Distant Mirror 94 adoption 13 advocacy 59, 60 aeroplanes 19, 41, 211 affordability 170–176 Africa v, 3, 85, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 149, 214 ageing xii, 7, 179 Agricultural Greenhouse Emissions Project 74 agriculture xii, 23, 24, 25, 28, 31, 36, 39, 41, 73, 97–99, 102–03, 126–129, 132, 133, 135, 141, 143–144, 145, 149, 150, 152, 160, 162, 180 agroforestry ecosystems 127 aid agencies 216 air 23, 50, 98, 189, 192, 193, 205 air conditioners 42 air pollution 17

airship 193 air travel 198–199 alchemy 23 alcohol 15, 86, 97 algae 41, 199 A Light History of Hot Air x aluminium 19 Amazon 19, 84 Amcor 111 American war 125 animals 50, 58, 76, 144, 146, 160, 192 An Inconvenient Truth 166 Annual Greenhouse Gas Index 33 Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 201 Antarctica 30, 200 ANU Enterprise 160 anxiety disorders 86, 93 apocalypse 87 appliances 166, 174, 200 aquaculture 125 aquifers 23, 98, 135 Archigram 175 architecture 176, 191, 198, 205 Arctic 29 Aristotle 51, 55 arsenic 98 Artists in Industry 58 arts xi, 57, 58, 59–60, 62, 198 Arts Victoria 58 Asia 3, 5, 95, 99, 149, 189, 214 Asia Pacific region 149 astroturfing 85 ASX. See Australian Stock Exchange ASX 100 112 asylum seekers 14 Atherton Tablelands 160 atmosphere 27, 29, 31, 41, 88, 154, 158 atomic bombs 48 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder 90 AuSSI. See Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative Austhink Consulting xii Australia Council of the Arts 58

Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences 37 Australian Capital Territory 7 Australian Collaboration, The xii Australian Conservation Foundation x, 58 Australian Council of Social Service 10 Australian Council of Superannuation Investors 112 Australian Council of Trade Unions 11 Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute xii Australian National Infrastructure Award x Australian National Mental Health survey 86 Australian National University xii, 153, 156, 158 Australian Stock Exchange 111 Australian Sustainable Energy – by the numbers xii Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative 56 autism 93 automobile industry 171 Auty, Kate x, 70–8 avalanches 124

B baby boom 3, 5, 7 bacteria 95, 98 bagasse 41 Bali 114 bamboo shoots 130 Bangladesh 98 Barth, Karl 49 Barwon Heads 184 Basslink cable 118, 122 Bass Strait 118 batteries 19, 41, 45, 101, 220 Baw Baw frog xii beaches 39, 125, 174 BedZED 162–3 beef 143, 152

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beehives 5, 7 behaviour 64–69 Bendigo 121 beryllium 45 Beyondblue x, 90 Beyond Blue to Green 90 Beyond Zero Emissions xii Bhutan 23 bicycles 162, 193, 196–9, 202 bike paths 196 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation 98 biocapacity 21, 22, 23 biodiversity 71, 73, 75–6, 120–1, 124, 152, 153, 200, 205–6, 208 biofuels 41, 46, 146, 199 biolink zones 75–6 biomass 46, 156, 158 power stations 40–1 bioplastics 224 bioterrorist 96 birds 25, 56, 58, 100, 77 birth rate 2–5 Blackberry Taskforce 74 Black Death 94 Blashki, Grant x, 86–93 Block, The 181 blogs 167–8 Blue Angel, The 68 Bo01 183 boats 192 Bogong hydro power station 118 BOM 73 Boroondara 166, 168 Bracks, Steve 114 brands 64, 89, 113, 178 Brassica 148 Brazil vi, 17, 19, 189 breeder reactors 45 BRIC countries 17 bridges 25, 131, 184 Brisbane City Council 227 Briton 46 broadband 184 brown coal 118, 122, 135, 190, 224 power stations 116 Brumby, John x, 114–122 Brunswick 58, 183 Bryant family 71 bubonic plague 94 Bulloak 75

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buses 88–9, 197, 199 bushfires xi, 73, 124, 211 BushTender program 120 business vii, 48, 58, 103, 104, 104–113, 114, 116, 134, 150, 184, 211, 225, 226, 229

C cafe 58 Cain, John 114 California vii, 24, 40, 41, 162 Camrys 116–17 Canada xii, 59, 60, 187, 201, 211 Canberra 100 cancers 90 Canning, Alfred 70 Canning Stock Route 70 Cap-Haitien 216 carbon 150 capacity 152–3 capture vii emissions 42, 67, 118, 134 footprints 167 price vi, 144 sequestration 118, 144, 154, 156, 158–60, 205–6, 209, 224 sinks 94, 102 stocks 154, 158 tax 102, 116, 167–8, 188 trading schemes 102 Carbon Farming Initiative 159 CarbonKids 55 cardiovascular disease 193 cars 17–19, 25, 37, 41, 88, 116–17, 162, 164–6, 171, 174, 192–4, 197–9, 202, 215, 224, 232 car parks 197 corn for car parts 26 Carter, Paul 71 Castle, The 181 Catchment Hydrology x Catterall, Carla P. 159 cattle 99, 152 CDRI. See Climate and Disaster Resilience Initiative Center for Green Technology 208 Central Highlands 160 Centre for Adolescent Health 14 Centre for Health and Society xi Centre for Sustainability Leadership x

cereals 141, 148 CERES 58 certifications 68–9 CH2. See Council House 2 Chao Phraya River 130 chemicals 147–148, 149, 211 Chicago 206, 208 children 2, 5, 10, 13–15, 19, 86–87, 90, 93, 95, 97, 99–101, 125, 162, 176, 224, 232 childcare 16 mortality 99–100 protection system 14 China vi, x, xii, 17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 35, 94, 117, 189, 190 cholera 95, 98, 216 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease 98 Cistercian monks 95 cities 7, 41, 71, 87, 125–6, 141, 162–9, 177–83, 193, 200, 202–03, 205–06, 210–20, 227, 233 Citizen’s Assembly 81, 83 Clean Energy Council 118 Clean Energy Future 36 Clear Lake 72 cliffs 45 climate 143–144 change 15–16, 27–36, 38, 48, 50, 74, 76, 78, 81–2, 94, 97, 104, 108–9, 111, 114–16, 121, 124–5, 129–31, 134, 160, 165, 168, 183, 188–91, 200, 205–6, 209–10, 212, 214, 219–20, 226-7, 229, 230, 233 change movement 167 system 30, 31 Climate Action Network 169 Climate and Disaster Resilience Initiative 214 Climate Change Act 115, 118 Climate Communities program 120 Climate Institute x Climate Works Australia 192 Closing Circle, The 23 COAG. See Council of Australian Governments coal vii, 17, 23, 27, 31, 37, 40–1, 116, 118, 122, 135, 190, 224, 226, 231 coast 43

co-gen 23, 205 cognitive science xii cold fusion 45 collectives 182 colonialist expansion 95 Columbus, Christopher 94 Commoner, Barry 23 Commonwealth Government 115, 118, 159 communications 73–8, 110, 184, 188, 190, 215 communities x, 57–60, 62, 71–2, 73–8, 81, 99, 101, 104, 114, 120, 125, 130–1, 162–9, 170, 174–6, 180, 183–4, 191, 196, 198, 202, 206, 208, 211, 214, 217, 220, 225, 232 companies 25, 67, 233 composites 17–18 computers 88, 92 Conference of Parties to the UN FCCC 27 congestion 17, 79, 193 Conheady, Monique x, 89, 192–9 conscience 52–3 conservation 20, 118, 120, 124 construction 182, 203 consumption xii, 17–26, 64–9, 94, 141, 144, 146, 162–3, 176, 189, 219, 222–3, 232 Contagion 96 Cook, Peter 176 cooling 23, 200, 203 Cooperative Centre of Greenhouse Accounting 153 Copenhagen 27 corn 17–18, 26 Corporate Sustainability – an Investor Perspective (The Mays Report) 113 corporations 80, 83, 89, 104–13, 211, 215, 222, 226, 232 sustainability 104–113 corrosion 43 Corryong 74 cosmic rays 31 Costa Rica 19 Council House 2 183, 203 Council of Australian Governments 115–16 counselling 13 cow-dung 98

crime 16, 223–4 Critical Mass 84 crops 40–1, 75, 126–9, 143, 146, 148, 152, 156, 158, 160 CSIRO 55, 58, 73 culture xi, xii, 10, 57–63 currents 43 cycling 162, 184, 196–9, 202, 224 cyclones 188, 211

D dairy 141, 143, 152 dams 38, 43, 45, 81, 133 data collection 134 Davidson, Brian x, 132–40 Daylesford 46 DDP. See deliberative democratic process DDT 100 death rates 2, 5, 14 deliberative democratic process 83 dengue fever 16, 100 deontological theories 50 Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency 156 Department of Immigration and Citizenship 3 Department of Primary Industries and Energy 58 depression 14–15, 92–3, 193 desalination plants 137 deserts 40–1, 70 design xi, 200–9 detention 14 Detroit 171 deuterium 45 diabetes 26, 88, 97, 193 diesel 165 diets 97 dikes 125 Dimboola Weir 76 diphtheria 95 disabilities 13 disasters xi, 210–20, 229 kits 219–20 plans 220 discrimination 11–16 diseases 94–103, 126, 145–147 Doherty, Peter x, 94 domestic violence 13 Downs, Anthony 173

drilling 42 drought 16, 24, 64, 98, 119, 126, 129, 131, 143, 148, 188, 205–6 drugs 15, 86 Duffield, Colin x, 184–91 Durban 116 Duxbury, Nancy 59, 60

E earth 28, 48, 53, 162, 200 earthquakes 95, 188, 211, 215, 216, 220 East Asia 3, 5, 214 Eastern Europe 186 East Timor 26 Ebola 96 eBooks 19 Echuca 121 ECO-Buy xi eco-city 162 eco-labels 68 ecological footprints 21–3, 48, 162–3 ecological systems 205 ecology 48, 52, 133, 211 economic crises 3, 211 Economist Intelligence Unit 178 Ecosystem Restoration Service 130 ecosystems 48, 49, 50, 108, 124–131, 150, 152–4, 156, 158–60, 205, 209, 212 ecstasy 86 education v, 10, 11, 13, 16, 59, 87, 101, 110, 129, 163, 190, 198, 209, 214 eel traps 78 eggs 211 Egypt 98 Ehrlich, Paul 95 EIU. See Economist Intelligence Unit elderly 125 electricity vi, vii, 23, 37–9, 40–1, 45, 66–7, 118, 121, 135, 165, 184, 197, 215, 224 cars 41, 193, 232 generators 38 light rail 162 vehicles 117 electronics 19, 215 El Niño-Southern Oscillation xi

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Emergency Management Australia 218 emergency response plans 218 emigration 95 emissions 32, 35, 121 reductions 28 trading scheme vi, vi–vii employment 9–13, 16, 73, 117–18, 174, 177, 180, 198 endangered species xii End of Nature, The 48 energy xi, 23, 27, 29, 30, 36–46, 74, 98, 105–6, 116, 120, 125, 134–6, 141, 145, 159–60, 162–3, 166, 169, 184, 188–9, 200, 202–3, 205, 224, 231–2 companies 42–3 efficiency targets x supply 9 engineering 58, 191, 194, 198, 215 England 17, 94, 175, 193 entertainment 170 environment activists 38 groups 114 memory 71 philosophy 48 rights 53 Environment and Biodiversity Conservation Act. 75 EOWA. See Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency epidemics 211, 216 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency 12 equity 10–16, 101, 232 eReaders 19, 25 Ernst & Young 186 erosion 17 Esso Australia 215 ETH 98 ethanol 41 ethics 48–56, 106, 108, 111, 222, 225, 232 eucalyptus 150, 152, 156 Europe 3, 5, 12, 17–18, 37, 68, 93–4, 99, 124, 150, 171, 187, 189, 190 evacuations 215 eWater x explosions 215

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F Fair Work Australia 12–13 families 2, 12, 64, 69, 87, 92, 99, 180, 182 famine 211 FAO. See Food and Agricultural Organisation farming 26, 46, 53, 55, 58, 74–6, 119, 126–9, 135, 140, 146, 150, 158, 160, 224 fault lines 211 favelas 171–3 Federation Square xii ferries 197, 199 fertilisers 25, 145, 160 fertility rates xii, 3–6, 9 Festival of the Sacred Kingfishers 58 Festivals Australia 58 fire 152, 211 fire sculpture 62 First Impressions Youth Theatre 62 Fishkin, James 80 Fleming, Alexander 95 floodplain 130 floods 16, 24, 64, 76–7, 124, 130–1, 188, 205, 211, 215 Florey, Howard 95 food 13, 23, 26, 73, 94, 97–8, 130, 141–9, 150, 166, 200, 202, 211–12, 216, 220, 232–3 chain 24–5 cycles 24 prices 16 security 143, 146, 149 Food and Agriculture Organisation 141, 149 Ford, Rebecca x, 141 Forest Productivity Index 156 forests xii, 41, 51, 89, 102, 118, 124, 124–125, 126, 130, 150, 152–4, 156, 158–60 fossil fuels vi, 31, 35–7, 88, 145, 162, 169, 190, 202 FPI. See Forest Productivity Index freeways 179, 224 Freiburg 162 Fremantle 164–6 fridges 42 Friends of the Earth 58 Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant 215

funding 9, 118, 120, 166, 190 fungal species 148 fusion power 45

G Gaia 48 Gallup 80 gaming 85 gardens 90, 162, 166, 181, 202, 223–4 Garnaut, Ross v–vii, 35, 144 gas xi, 27–37, 40–1, 122, 145, 184, 215, 231 GDP. See Gross Domestic Product genetic modifications 97, 145 genetics 87, 205 Geneva 186 Geodynamics 43 geologists 194 geothermal power 42–3, 46 German Advisory Council on Climate Change 35 Germany 19, 68, 162, 193 germ theory 95 Gillard, Julia 81 Gini coefficient 12 Gippsland 211 glaciers 29 global community 49–50 Global Financial Crisis 148, 186, 187 Global Planning Education Network xi Global Polio Eradication Initiative 99 global village 49, 55 global warming 27–9, 32–36, 189–91 Goddard Institute for Space Studies 200 Google 85 Gordon-below-Franklin dam 38 Gore, Al 166 governments 7, 25–7, 64, 66, 79, 83, 85, 89, 114–22, 138–9, 163, 165–7, 183, 190–1, 202, 209, 211, 217–18, 222–7, 230, 232–3 federal 6, 9, 14–15, 36, 113, 116–17, 146–7, 167–8 local 24, 61, 72, 74, 115, 121, 168–9, 174, 220

state 9, 89, 115, 147, 160, 164, 168, 174 Grameen Bank 101 grassroots 166, 169 grazing 127, 150, 152, 158 Great Artesian Basin 24 Great Eastern Ranges Corridor 160 Greece 51 green economy 26 Greener Government Buildings program 121 greenhouse gas emissions vi, x, 27–36, 50, 53, 55, 102, 115–16, 118, 129, 135, 143–4, 146, 149, 150, 152–154, 192, 200, 203, 214 greenhouse targets 116 green jobs 117–18 Greenland 30, 200 GreenPower 121 Green, Ray x, 200–9 Green Revolution 145 green roofs 126 green walls 125 greenwashing 66 grey water 166 Griffiths, Tom 150, 152 Gross Domestic Product 23, 149, 185, 187–8 Gross National Happiness 23 Growth Management and Affordable Housing: do they conflict? 173 Guidelines from the Group of 100 about the Review of Operations 111 Guide to the Proposed Basin Plan 132 Gunai Kurnai people 71 Gunditjmara 78

H H1N1 influenza 97 habitat xii, 58, 160 haemorrhagic fevers 96 Haiti earthquake 216 half-caste law 71 Halls Creek 70 Hammarby Sjöstad 183 Hanover 162 Hansen, Jim 200 happiness 23, 87, 232 Harare 178 Harvard Business Review xii Hawaii 30

Hawkes, Jon 57 Hazelwood 118, 122 health v, 7, 13–16, 39, 60, 79, 86–93, 104, 115, 196, 198–9, 214–15, 188, 223, 228, 232 healthy eating pyramid 196 heat 23, 29, 37, 39, 40, 42, 125 heating 200, 203 heat islands 125, 205 heatwaves 124 Henderson Poverty Line 12 Hendra 96 hepatitis 14 Hepburn Wind Park Co-operative 46 Heyfield 72 Himalayas 23 Hiskes, Richard 50 history 94–7, 141, 150, 153, 192, 196, 225 Hitler, Adolf 95 HIV/AIDS 95 holidays 19, 202 Holling, C.S. 201 Hollywood 96 home audits 166 homeless 13, 216 horses 193 Horsham 121 hospitals 121, 185, 216 households vii, x, 12, 24, 26, 39, 40, 143, 146, 149, 162–6, 169, 182, 184, 200, 206, 215, 219 housing 9, 10, 17–19, 37, 170–1, 173–4, 180, 182–3 Howard, John 115 Hulbert Street Choir 166 Hulbert Street Sustainability Fiesta 166 human resources 109, 110, 178 human rights 14, 15, 16, 94, 104 hunger 25, 141, 148 hurricanes 188 hybrid cars 116–17 reactor 45 technology 197 hydrocarbon 145 hydrogen bomb 45 hydrology 152, 153

hydro power 37–9, 43–46, 118, 122, 135 hygiene 16

I Ibo 95 ice 29 ages 28 cores 30 sheets 20, 200 illegal immigrants 14 immigration 3–7, 9, 14–15, 95, 171, 179, 212, 217 immunisation 99–100 incentives 19, 114, 159, 163 India x, 17, 21, 26, 45, 98, 135, 189 Indigenous Australians 13–14, 16, 61, 70–2, 76–8, 93, 95 Indonesia 19, 21–2 industrial revolution 17 industry 24, 27, 31, 58, 104–113, 106, 116–17, 121, 134, 143–5, 147, 162–3, 171, 173, 180, 182, 184, 202, 233 industry standards 66 inequality 11, 12, 94 influenza pandemic 95 information 69, 109, 120, 139, 203 infrastructure x, 7–9, 19, 25, 114–15, 119, 125, 134, 136–7, 163, 174, 184–91, 196, 200, 206, 209, 212, 215 Infrastructure Australia xii Ingvarson, Carolyn x, 162–9 innovation xii, 26, 59, 106, 117, 180, 192, 196, 199, 233 intergenerational 49–50 Intergenerational Report 6–7 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 53, 81, 192, 200 International Forest Ecosystem Restoration Service 131 International Union for the Conservation of Nature 124 International Union for the Scientific Study of Population xii Internet 83, 85, 184, 197, 220, 223 investments 106, 108, 110–12, 115, 137, 174, 178, 181, 182, 185–8, 212 investors 106, 134 iPads 18–19, 25

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IPCC. See Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change iron 17, 97, 98 iron ore 17, 19, 21, 25 irrigation 23, 58, 76, 119, 132, 139, 140, 143, 145, 158, 184, 206 Irrigation Futures x Issues Paper to Inform the Development of a National Food Plan 146 IUCN. See International Union for the Conservation of Nature

J Jackman family 72 Jackson, Maria 60 Jackson, Tim 187 Jackson, Wes 252 James Ethics Centre 55 Japan 45, 124, 189, 190, 215 jobs 10, 116, 117–18, 122, 150 Johnson, L.B. 133 Joughin, Emma 19 jungles 102

K Kanowski, John 159 Karakiewicz, Justyna xi, 170–6 Karoly, David xi, 27–36 Keenan, Rodney xi, 124–31 Kennedy, President J.F. 225 Kenya 129 key performance indicators 107, 110, 111 Khan, Rimi xi, 57–63 Kindle 19, 25 King of Bhutan 23 Kippen, Rebecca xi, 2–9 Kirner, Joan 76 KLM 193 knowledge 70, 71, 78, 219 Koch, Robert 95 Koo Wee Rup 74 KPIs. See key performance indicators Kramer Junction 41 Kvan, Thomas xi, 170–6

L labour xii, 12 Lagos 17 Lake Condah eel traps 78

246

Lake Pedder 38 Lake Tyers 71 Landcare 75–6 land 150–160 clearing 27, 31, 41, 94, 150, 152–4 landfill 120, 146, 224 land rights 231 landscape installations 58 landslides 124, 211 language 57 laptops 92 laser fusion 45 Latrobe Valley 118, 122 Laxenburg Declaration on Population and Sustainable Development 2 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design 208 legislation 10, 111, 115–16, 118, 226 Leunig, Michael 223, 225 Liberty Ship 46 life expectancy 2, 4–5 lifestyles 66, 165–6, 178, 193, 198, 201–2, 223, 232 Lighter Footprints x, 166, 168–9 lighting 38, 41, 203 liquid fuels 41, 46, 190 liquid hydrogen 199 Lister, Joseph 95 lithium 19 littering 224, 232 Little Stringybark Creek 126 Liveability Ranking 178 livestock 143, 150, 152, 160 Living Smart 164–6 Local Government Climate Change Summit 121 Lockyer Valley 16 logging 153, 158 logistics 109–10 London x, xi, 17, 95, 162–3, 175 London Underground 193 Longford 215 Lovelock, James 48 low frequency noise 39 Loy Yang A Power Station 121 LPG 197

M Mabo, Eddie 231 Macedon 78

Macro Foods 64 Madden, Chris 59 Maimone, Liza xi, 104 Malano, Hector xi, 132–40 malaria 16, 97, 100 Mallee 71, 122, 156 Maller 90 Malmö 183 mangroves 124–5 Mansfield 74 maple syrup 211 March, Alan xi, 210–20 marijuana 86 marine resources 131 marketing 66, 104, 109, 110 market intelligence 108 markets 58, 108, 126, 133, 137–40, 144–5, 162, 171, 180, 182–3, 190–1 Martu people 70 Masdar 162 Massachusetts 60 mass murder 94–5 Maximum Biomass Potential 156 McDonald, Peter xii, 2 McKay, Sunday xi, 141–9 McKibben, Bill 48 McMansions 18, 168 measles 95, 99, 100 meat 141, 143 media 80, 168, 222, 225–6, 231, 232 medicinal plants 130 medicines 216 meditation 86 Melbourne x, 24, 41, 44, 58, 61, 90, 116, 163, 165–6, 177–83, 188, 206, 224 Melbourne @ 5 million 179 Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works 177 Melbourne City Council 183, 203 Melbourne Convention Centre xii Melbourne International Comedy Festival 62 Melbourne Museum xii Melbourne Olympics 179 Melbourne School of Land and Environment x Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute x, x–xii, 19, 225

Melbourne Water 135 Melrose Abbey 94–5, 98 meningococcus 95 mental health 14–16, 86–93 Menzies, Robert 225 Mercer, Colin 60 methane 27, 29–31, 33, 41, 98, 144, 160 microchips 19 micronutrient deficiencies 97 Middle East 99 Mildura 78, 118, 121 Mildura Arts Centre 58 milk 211, 215 minimum wage 11, 13 mining 20, 25, 42, 184, 226, 231 MIT 206 Miyagi prefecture 215 MMBW. See Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works Moana Loa Observatory 30 mobile phones 198, 220, 223 modelling 139 Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand xi Model T Ford 193 Mojave Desert 40–1 molten salts 40, 45–6 Monash University x, 125–6 monocultures 159, 180 moon 225 moral agents 50 circle 48 community 49 rules 50 Morocco 20, 25 mortgages 171, 173–4, 176 Morwell 118 mountains 124 MSSANZ. See Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand MSSI. See Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute multiculturalism 59, 61 multimedia 58, 62 Murray-Darling Basin 98, 115–116, 132–3 Murray-Darling Basin Freshwater Research Centre 58

N NASA 200 National Association of Women in Construction x national parks 38, 73 National Renewable Energy Target 116 National Vegetation Inventory System 156 national virtual forum 83–5 native species 50 native title 71 native vegetation 120 natural gas 27, 31, 145 Nauru 20–1 Nepal 98 Newman, Peter xii, 162–9 News Corporation 226 New South Wales 7, 55, 122, 156, 160 New South Wales Parks and Wildlife Service 153 New York xi, 193, 202 New Zealand 42, 59, 211 Nicomachean Ethics 51 Nigeria 17, 95 Nile 98 nitrous oxide 27, 29–31, 33 non-renewable resources 20, 21, 23, 25–6, 42, 94, 231 Northern Food Bowl project 119 Northern Territory 7 North-South pipeline 137 nuclear Fukushima Dai-ichi 215 power 44–5 power stations 188, 215 reactors 215 war 87, 97 weapons 45 nutrition 196

O Obama, President Barack vi–vii obesity 26, 88, 97, 193 observatories 30 obstetric 95 oceans 29, 31, 39, 43, 89, 131 OECD. See Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Ogilalla aquifer 24 oil xi, 20, 27, 31, 37, 118, 145, 163, 194 Okinawa 45 olympics 179, 162 Olympic village 162 open spaces 200, 206–6, 209 opinions 64–5, 222 Orbost 74 orchards 75 Oregon 19 organic food 64–5, 68 organic polymers 25 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 12 Origin Energy 64, 111 Otway Ranges 127 ozone layer 189

P Paid Parental Leave scheme 13 Pakistan 98 Paladino, Angela xii, 64–9 pandemic 95–7, 99 parks 89, 125–6, 162, 168 Parks Victoria 58 Parkville 188 Pasteur, Louis 95 patterns 31, 66, 118, 144, 171–4, 203 Peace Corps 225 peak oil 20, 194 People, Planet, Productivity 89 Pearson, Craig v, xii, 17–26, 222–33 Pearson, Leonie 232 pensions 7, 111 Percival Lakes 70 Permaculture Melbourne 58 Perth xii, 163–6 pesticides 145 pests 50, 96, 126, 129, 145–7 Peters, Tom 180 petrol 37, 41, 193–4 Philadephia 126 philanthropy 104 philosophers 50–1, 55 pholtovoltaic systems 45 phosphorus 17, 20, 23, 25–6 pilot plants 118 pioneers 150 piracy 97

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Pixel building 183 plagues 96 planning x, xi, 108, 129, 133, 174, 178–9, 189–90, 201, 206, 219, 226 plantations 152, 153, 158, 159 plants 25, 41, 144, 156, 160, 205, 206, 209 plasma-screens 18, 45 playgrounds 224 policies vi, 10, 20, 60, 71, 93, 98, 114, 120, 129–32, 134, 139, 149, 163, 165, 168–9, 190, 232 political 190 asylum 14 change 167 parties 79, 115, 121, 226 upheaval 217 polls 80–3, 85 pollution 17, 104, 125–6, 189, 192–3, 198, 222 Pol Pot 95 ponds 41, 44 population 2–9, 17, 28, 37, 93–4, 96, 109, 115, 125, 134, 141–4, 149, 179, 183, 197, 210, 212–16 momentum 2, 3 targets 5 Portland 117 Port Phillip Bay 44 Potrykus, Ingo 98 poverty v, 10, 12, 94, 104, 149, 213–14, 223, 225 power plants 163 power stations 40–42, 188 Prebble, Craig xii, 48–56 preservation 120 Preventive Taskforce 89 prices vi, 26, 67, 114, 138–9, 144, 148, 190, 194 prison 14 property 12, 171, 201 Prosperity Without Growth 187 public bikes 197 forums 168 opinion 79, 80–1 policy 16 relations 104 service 9, 11, 180 transport 9, 17, 90, 168, 175, 179, 197–9, 202–3

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wisdom 79–85, 130 Punjab 98

Q Qantas 193 Queensland 7, 16, 24, 160

R racism 95 radiators 37, 42 radioactive contamination 215 radios 18, 220 railways xii, 25, 39, 165, 193, 211, 224 rainfall 23, 118, 126 rainforests 94, 150, 156, 160 Rapid Mass Transit 197 recycling 17, 20, 25, 64, 104, 105, 134, 149, 166, 224, 231–2 refugees 14–15 religion 57 remote communities 16 renewable energy x, 36, 64–5, 67, 117–18, 121, 146, 162, 231–2 rescue operations 215 Reser, Joseph 82 resilience 200–201, 213–216, 227 Resilience Alliance 212 Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems 201 Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing 225 resources xi, 17, 19, 19–23, 25 management 114 renewable 17–18, 25, 37, 46, 116, 121, 224 tax 26 RET. See National Renewable Energy Target retirement 7, 115, 171 Rio+20 vi riots 216 risk 89, 111, 113, 116, 134, 212, 214, 218–19, 229 rivers 76–7, 89, 95, 98, 126, 130, 133–5, 211 roads 79, 125, 178, 192–3, 224 roof gardens 209, 224 Ross River fever 16 Rotary 99 roundworm 97

Royal Children’s Hospital xii, 14 Royal Park 206 Roy, Bunker 101 rural communities 9, 16, 61, 72–3, 98, 117, 122, 150, 202, 213 Russia 17, 148, 189 Rwanda 95

S Sabin, Albert 95 safety 104, 110, 146, 170 Sahara 20 Sahel 95, 98 Salk, Jonas 95 salt 40, 45–6, 98 Sanderson, Pru xii, 177–183 Sandler, Ronald 52 sanitation 95 Save Our Suburbs 178 Sawyer, Professor 14 schools 72–3, 87, 90, 100–1, 115, 121, 170, 174, 176, 185, 206, 219, 220 scientists 27, 31, 48, 72–3, 81, 95, 97, 117, 139, 194, 198, 200, 223, 233 Scotland 94, 175 sea 43, 45 ice 29 level 98, 124, 125, 201, 215 seafood 125 seasons 93 SECCCA. See South East Councils Climate Change Alliance security 134, 143, 146, 149, 233 seismic activity 211 Seligman, Peter xii, 37 Semmelweis, Ignaz 95 sequestration 118, 144, 154, 156, 158–60, 205–6, 209, 224 settlers 150, 152 sewage 25, 26, 95, 134 Shaping Melbourne 180 shared cars 197, 199 ships 45–6, 94, 193, 211 Shire of Toowong 74 Silex plan 118 Singer, Peter 50 skate park 62, 73 slaves 51 smallpox 95, 99

smartcard 197, 199 Smith, Peter 144 Snowy Hydro 118 Snowy Mountains 38, 45 social isolation 16–17, 90 social justice 10 social networking 165, 184, 198 soils 17, 23, 25, 50, 75, 118, 124, 126–127, 144–5, 148, 150, 206 solar 45, 146 collectors 40 energy 39, 121 industry 121, 122 panels 39–40, 66, 74, 101, 118, 121 power 39–40, 42, 44, 46, 117, 166, 197 pump 206 radiation 203 thermal 121 Solar Flagships 118 Solar Granny 101 South America 100, 171 South Asia 3, 214 South Australia 7, 122 South Creek catchment 139 South East Councils Climate Change Alliance 74 Southern Suburbs Railway 165 South Gippsland 150, 152 South Korea 187 space 29, 199 Spain 39, 40, 46, 211 speed 86 Spirit Level, The 10, 23 Stack Overflow 83 stakeholders 111, 112, 113, 138–9, 206 Stalin, Joseph 95 St Arnaud 76 State of the Climate Report 73 State of the Environment Report 71, 78 steam 40, 42 steel 17, 18, 25, 26, 224 Steffen, Will 35 Stephenson’s Stockton and Darlington Railway 193 Stewart, Andrew 127 Stewart, Hugh 127 Stockholm 183

storage 45, 46, 118, 184, 205, 206 storms 43, 64, 124–6 stormwater 126, 184, 205 strategy xii, 60, 106, 108–9, 112, 121, 129, 131–2, 146, 147, 160, 174, 179, 188, 190, 226 stress 39, 86 suburbs 164, 175, 182, 198, 202, 224, 232 suicide 14–15 sun 28, 31, 40, 44, 45 sunlight 31, 32 Sunraysia 58 SunRise 21 58 Sunshine Coast Regional Council 175 SunTech 117 supermarkets 26 supply chains 106, 108, 110, 135, 146 sustainability 6–7, 52–3, 89, 104–13, 119, 133, 140, 162–3, 165, 167, 170, 183, 190, 192, 196–9, 203, 206, 210, 212, 214, 222–7, 231–3 Sustainability Victoria 114 Sustainable Development Commission 187 Sweden 19, 26 Sydney 41, 139, 226 Sydney Morning Herald 226 Sykes, Helen xii, 10–16

T Tacaribe 96 Target 155 116, 119 targets 27, 32–35, 116–118, 121, 131 Tasmania 7, 38, 118, 122, 156 taxes 19, 26, 80, 102, 116, 163, 167–8, 188, 190, 222, 226, 233 taxis 197–9 Taylor, Chris xii, 150 –160 technology 20, 25–6, 57, 114, 117–18, 121, 136, 163, 190, 196, 198, 199, 205, 206, 208, 219, 224, 232 telecommunications 106, 184, 189 televisions 18, 89 temperature 27–8, 29, 35, 40, 98, 125, 131, 143, 200, 203

terrorism 211 Thailand 130 Theiler, Max 95 tidal power 43–44 timber 18, 72, 125, 127, 129, 130, 152, 184, 203 timber laminates 26 tourism 202 towns 8, 72–3, 164, 166, 224 Toyota 64, 116–17 trade routes 192 trading 138, 140 trains 88, 190, 197, 199 trams 88–9, 197, 199 Transition Towns 169 transport 9, 46, 87–9, 145, 163, 165, 168, 177, 180, 184, 188–9, 192–9, 200, 202–3, 223, 232–3 transportation 146, 162, 171, 174 TravelSmart 164–5 Treasure Island 162 tree planting 75 trees 126–9 tsunamis 95, 188, 211, 215 Tuchman, Barbara 94 turbines 38, 39, 43, 45, 121 Tutsi 95 Tweed 95 Twitter 85 typhoons 124, 215

U UK 12, 59, 146 ultraviolet light 206 unemployment 10, 14, 94 UNESCO 57 UN-HABITAT 213 United Nations 2–3, 14, 116, 124–5 Climate Change Conference 114, 131 Economic Commission for Europe 186 Environment Program 226 Framework Convention on Climate Change 27 peacekeepers 216 Principles for Responsible Investment 111 United States vi–vii , 17, 21, 27, 24, 39, 126, 154, 171, 187, 189, 190, 200, 208

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University of Melbourne vii, x, x– xii, 125–6 University of NSW 117 uranium 44 Urban Institute 60 Urban Land Institute 186 US Department of Energy 17 US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 33

V vaccines 96, 99–100 van Gelder, Tim xii, 79–85, 130 van Wensveen, Louke 52 Vauban 162 vegetation 150, 152, 205, 209 vertical gardens 224 VicHealth 58 Victoria x, 7, 46, 57–8, 61, 71, 73–4, 76, 78, 114, 116–17, 127, 135, 137, 150, 156, 160, 169, 174, 188, 215, 226 Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research xi, 125 Victorian Local Sustainability Accord 121 VicUrban xii, 174 Vietnam x, 124–5 villages 124, 130, 178 violence 14–15 virtue theories 50, 51 volcanoes 31 volunteering 78, 226

W walkabout 93 walking 88, 90, 162, 176, 183, 192, 196, 198, 202, 224 wars 94, 99 Washington 60 waste 46, 94–5, 104–5, 114, 120, 134, 146, 149, 162–3, 227, 232 waste management 73, 75 wastewater 135, 184 water 9, 16, 17, 23–6, 38–9, 42, 45–6, 50, 58, 70–1, 76, 77, 81, 94–5, 98, 104, 106, 116, 119, 120, 124, 126, 132–140, 162–3, 166, 169, 184, 189, 200, 202–3, 205–6, 208, 216, 220, 224, 229, 232

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gardens 126 management 133, 136, 138, 140 restrictions 24, 119 security 134, 137, 140 tanks 126 trading 138, 140 wastewater 135, 184 waterways 17, 72, 77 wave power 43 WBGU. See German Advisory Council on Climate Change wealth distribution 10–11 welfare 211 wells 70, 95, 98 Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists xi West Australia 7, 44, 70 Western Desert 70 Western Sahara 20 Westwyk housing community 183 wetlands 72, 75, 77, 78, 130, 205, 206 wheat 141, 143, 145, 148 When The People Speak 80 Whitehead, Adrian xii, 150-160 Whittlesea 57, 61–2 WHO. See World Health Organisation Wikipedia 83 Wilderness Society 58 wildlife 205, 206 wildlife corridors 127 Wiluna 70 Wimmera 74, 76, 122 Wimmera-Mallee Pipeline 119 Wimmera River Improvement Committee 72 wind 45, 122 energy 118 farms 39–40, 226 power 38–9, 42, 44, 46, 117, 122, 146, 197 power industry 46 turbines 38–9 windmills 43 winter 29 wireless connections 197 wisdom 79–85, 130 women 5, 6, 11–13, 16, 58, 95, 101 woodlands 150, 152–4, 156, 158, 160

wool 127 Woolworths 64 Woomera rocket tests 70 work 92, 170, 174 workforce 115, 171–2 workplaces 88–90, 219, 220 World Bank 188 World Future Council 234 World Health Organisation 14, 86, 99 World Heritage status 78 World War I 95 World War II 18, 95, 153, 177, 187 Wotjaboluk cultural enclave 78

Y Yarra River 180 Yersin, Alexandre 95 Yorta Yorta people 78 Yue, Audrey xii, 57–63

Z zero carbon 150–160, 223, 226, 229 zero emissions 35 zero-waste systems 162 Zhengrong, Shi 117 zinc 98 Zoological Parks and Gardens xii Zurich 98

Wes Jackson, a member of the World Future Council, wrote:

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;If it is not necessary but possible, it is grandiose; if it is necessary but not possible, it is grandiose. But if it is both necessary and possible, it is not grandiose â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it just means there is work to do.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; We have work to do.