Michael Smith

Michael has been a Research Fellow at the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society since 2006. Michael also co-founded and was Research Director of the Natural Edge Project (TNEP) (2002-2009).

Michael is principle researcher and lead-author of numerous co-authored publications (please see book, book chapters or online textbooks below) on green growth, decoupling profits & economic growth from environmental pressures, eco-innovation for sustainability, corporate social responsibility, sustainable resource management, sustainable engineering, climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable cities, water sensitive urban design, and industry sector sustainability strategies.

His Ph.D (submitted 2006, awarded 2009) demonstrated that it was possible to cost effectively achieve significant decoupling of profits and economic growth from a wide range of environmental pressures including greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity loss, freshwater withdrawal, air pollution and waste. His thesis focused in detail on exploring this decoupling framework and showing how to achieve significant levels of decoupling to resolve the long standing "growth" debates which began with the Limits to Growth books in the 1970s. His ANU PhD Dissertation can be freely downloaded from https://digitalcollections.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/49387