Sustainability

Analysis and Comment (48)

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The world is definitely a mess, but women aren’t the ones to blame. AAP Image

We are destroying the joint

By Carmen Lawrence, University of Western Australia

Without really knowing what he was saying, Alan Jones was right – we are “destroying the joint”. Any dispassionate assessment of the state of “the joint”, both the corner we occupy and the planet as a…
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It’s not easy being green (though it is easy to talk about it). Anthony Agius

Green hypocrites? Behaviour change in a consumerist society

By Peter Newton, Swinburne University of Technology

Many Australians are happy to declare their interest in sustainability, to reducing their environmental impact. But how many of them are prepared to reduce the amount they actually consume? We recently…
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The Business Council of Australia’s call for long-term thinking is moving in the right direction, but wants both expensive spending programs and lower taxes.

Business lobby yearns for a long-term view, but offers a contradictory wish list

By Flavio Menezes

There is much to consider when thinking about our future as a nation. We are a small, resource-rich, open economy facing a volatile global environment. We are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate…
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China’s fast-track urbanisation doesn’t have to be unsustainable. Flickr/dcmaster

China’s cities get eco-smart, what can Australia learn?

By Steffen Lehmann, University of South Australia

China is urbanising faster than any other country in history. It now has 120 cities with over one million people and 36 cities with over two million. By 2030 there will be one billion people living in…
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We have plenty of resources that could stop us falling off the edge. Chris Philavanh

Can we resolve the ‘peak everything’ problem?

By Jason Alexandra, Charles Darwin University and Andrew Campbell, Charles Darwin University

With world population exceeding seven billion, there is renewed interest in the limits to growth concept first articulated by the Club of Rome in the 1970s. How can a growing population with growing affluence…
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Blackouts remind us what life was like before cheap, readily available electricity – but it’s time to think about the true price of our power. Candle in the dark image from www.shutterstock.com/Ronen

Save now, pay later: the hidden costs of lower electricity bills

By Ian McPhail, University of Southern Queensland

No lights, no power, no internet – and no easy solutions. Fumbling around in a middle of a blackout, hoping to find a torch or some spare batteries, I was struck by just how utterly dependent most of…
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We won’t have sustainable fishing until we stop demanding so much seafood. George Hatcher

Seafood sustainability not a sustainable reality

By James Smith

In 1883, the eminent English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley made his now infamous proclamation on the infinite bounty of the sea: Probably all the great sea fisheries are inexhaustible; that is to say…
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Humans understand complicated ideas better when they’re told as stories. Marie Still

Stories help us think about a sustainable future

By Steven Cork

Many commentators have had a go at forecasting what Australia might be like in the future. Such exercises are valuable inputs to our thinking as individual, organisational or societal decision-makers…
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Festival-goers enjoy Peats Ridge Sustainable Music and Arts Festival: the festival sector has become more proactive about sustainability. island home/Flickr

Festivals and the environmental sustainability challenge

By Rob Harris, University of Technology, Sydney

Festivals are fun activities – we go to meet up with friends and family, escape the hum drum of daily life, and to be exposed to new cultural forms or simply to be entertained. Rarely do we consider the…
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The way disaster relief is offered to small businesses and primary producers following natural disasters is cumbersome and inefficient and needs a national approach.

We need a national approach to small business disaster relief

By Bruce Baer Arnold, University of Canberra and Ryan Roberts, University of Canberra

When the embers have cooled or the floods have passed, who’s looking after the sustainability of small business in regional Australia? This year’s extreme heat and dry weather have again ensured Australia…
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Almost 1.3 million people die each year on the world’s roads, making road accidents the ninth leading cause of death globally. AAP/Joe Castro

Is modern transport making war on the human body?

By Cameron Gordon, University of Canberra

We demand and expect our transport systems to to get us where we want, when we want to be there, and as fast as possible. We are, however, human beings with human bodies. And as with any other built system…
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Should you eat this? The new snapshot of Australian fish stocks is unlikely to help you decide. avlxyz/flickr

Do assessments of fish stock sustainability work for consumers?

By Colin Hunt

The report, Status of Key Australian Fish Stocks 2012 is the first official report combining assessments of major Commonwealth and state-managed fisheries into one document. The report paints a rosy picture…
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Australia must resolve numerous social, economic and environmental obstacles if it wants to reap the benefits of the Asian Century. Image from www.shutterstock.com

Charting a sustainable future will be fraught with challenges in the Asian Century

By Thomas Clarke, University of Technology, Sydney

Governments are forever immersed in the daily challenge of responding to what the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once knowingly described as “events.” It was he who coined the resounding…
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Are any of these fish sustainable? A seafood guide might help you figure it out, but it might not… Diarmuid Fisherman/Flickr

Conflicting sustainable seafood guides confuse consumers

By Carissa Klein and Renata Ferrari

Whether at the supermarket or the local fisho, most people find it difficult to know what seafood is sustainable. To help consumers make more informed choices, conservation organisations have been busy…
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Our brains haven’t evolved to consider the long-term consequences of behaviour that brings short-term rewards. Patrick van IJzendoorn

Don’t trust your Stone Age brain: it’s unsustainable

By Helen Camakaris, University of Melbourne

Cognitive dissonance is that uncomfortable feeling we have when we know we should invest in solar panels but the 46″ wide screen TV wins out; we know we should catch the bus but we take the car anyway…
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When it comes to accounting for the carbon tax, accountants need to embrace a transdisciplinary approach. Image from www.shutterstock.com

Thinking outside the square: accountants have a role to play in a sustainable future

By Joanne Tingey-Holyoak, University of South Australia and Roger Burritt, University of South Australia

Can business and accountants guide us on the path to sustainability? Will business and accounting leaders of the future have the necessary skills to solve complex sustainability problems? How can new pathways…
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While Australia fears either an environment or economic doomsday, other countries get on with making a cleaner future. Detail of Hieronymus Bosch's The Last Judgment, from Flickr/profzucker

Apocalypse Not: doomsday thinkers of Oz should get out more

By Graham Harris

I sometimes wonder what planet this country of ours is on. The environmental debate we are having seems to be in a parallel universe to the rest of the world. Having spent the last four years running one…
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Australia’s unique manufacturing DNA – comprised of tens of thousands of small-to-medium enterprises – means that we must forge our own path to innovation. DNA Art Online

Finding a unique path for Australia’s manufacturing future

By Swee Mak, CSIRO

As the manufacturing landscape shifts in response to new economic and social pressures, Australia is looking for an answer to the question: What does the future look like for Australian manufacturing…
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No simple matter: logging and conservation are not polar opposites, and controlled harvesting can fund the protection of forests. AAP/Greenpeace/Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

Can forest conservation and logging be reconciled?

By Jerry Vanclay and Douglas Sheil, Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation

Is there a role for logging in ensuring the future of the world’s tropical forests and their rich diversity of plants and animals? For many this idea is absurd, because timber production achieving conservation…
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The jury is still out over the environmental impacts of eReaders versus paper books. Julie Falk

Weighing the environmental costs: buy an eReader, or a shelf of books?

By Tom Rainey, Queensland University of Technology

Bookshelves towering floor to ceiling filled with weighty tomes, or one book-sized device holding hundreds of “books” in electronic form: which one of these options for the voracious reader creates the…
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Double the normal number of overseas visitors will hit Heathrow this year. Department for Culture, Media & Sport

London 2012: locally green, but what about globally?

By Judith Mair, Monash University

The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games are just around the corner, and promise to be a great global spectacle. At the same time, the organising committee are promising the most sustainable Olympics…
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More pressing matters: people can be “concerned' about many things, but what really matters to them are problems close to daily life. AAP/April Fonti

What we really care about, and how to lift sustainability’s real appeal

By Timothy Devinney, University of Technology, Sydney

New polls frequently announce that a significant proportion of the population is concerned about an issue or willing to sacrifice for a cause, from environmental sustainability to Third World debt. These…
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Obesity can be seen as a carbon store on our waistlines originally sourced from coal mines and oil wells. Bobcatnorth/Flickr

Putting health at the heart of sustainability policy

By Anthony Capon, University of Canberra

OBESE NATION: It’s time to admit it – Australia is becoming an obese nation. This series looks at how this has happened and more importantly, what we can do to stop the obesity epidemic. Today Anthony…
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To solve sustainability problems, governments need to know what the people are thinking. Elections aren’t quick enough. John Ager

Sustainability demands public wisdom

By Tim van Gelder, University of Melbourne

Australia is currently unsustainable in many respects. Change is coming. Will that change be wisely managed? Or will it be forced upon us in potentially catastrophic ways? Wise management will require…
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Giant fish made with plastic bottles emerge from the sands of Rio during the sustainability conference. AAP/EPA/Antonio Lacerda

Rio+20: Another step on the journey towards sustainability

By Will Steffen

On the wall along the massive entrance hall to the Rio+20 Sustainable Development conference venue, there was a painting of an African landscape with the simple words “Keep the oil in the soil and the…
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Liquid politics: fights over water will heat up unless its management is democratised. Flickr/Kyle Horner

Challenge 2: Water; a local resource, a global problem

By Stuart White, University of Technology, Sydney

Welcome to the State of the Future series. This series addresses 15 global challenges posed by the Millennium Project, an international non-profit think-tank collecting responses for 40 nodes worldwide…
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Darkness visible: we’re driving animals to extinction, burning through resources, and throwing out natural balances, yet consumption still reigns. Flickr/NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

State of the future: challenge one; sustainable development and climate change

By Chris Riedy, University of Technology, Sydney

State of the Future 2012, a quick introduction What is the “state of the future”? How successfully are we tackling global challenges threatening our collective future? These questions are asked annually…
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Serious, interconnected risks are closing in on the globalised community, from climate change to anarchy. Are we heeding the warnings? AAP/EPA/Daniel Deme

Highway to dystopia: time to wise up to the looming risks

By John Crawford

In that world of peripheral vision, essential for business, social and political leaders, it is surprising that the World Economic Forum’s report, Global Risks 2012 has not received greater publicity or…
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Stuck in Botany Bay: Greenpeace activists celebrate the Danish government’s decision to halt Orica’s plans to ship toxic waste to Denmark. AAP

Beyond the bottom line: how to reward executives for sustainable practice

By Alice Klettner, University of Technology, Sydney

Are sustainability-dependent executive bonuses the answer to saving the planet? Research recently conducted by the Centre for Corporate Governance at the University of Technology, Sydney, examined whether…
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Perpetually seduced by the coolest, most “efficient” conveniences, we prefer not to see the heat and waste we leave in our wake. AAP/EPA/STR

Our bloated cult of efficiency: doing the wrong thing right

By Anthony James, Swinburne University of Technology

The idea that improving efficiency makes sustainability problems worse seems counter-intuitive. But what if aiming to do more with less is actually doing the wrong thing right? If sustainability is our…
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Take the offer: sharing cuts waste and builds communities but we have our reasons for not always being comfortable with it. Flickr/Zervas

Sharing: if it’s so good, why don’t we do more of it?

By Millie Rooney, University of Tasmania

Sharing is a good thing right? We are told it is good for the environment by cutting waste and needless consumption; we encourage it in our children for their moral growth; we see it used in advertising…
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A simple step towards saving the environment may lead to more environment action … or not. Department of Energy Solar Decathalon

Simple steps to save the environment may not make much difference

By John Thøgersen, Aarhus University; Jim Curtis, Monash University, and Liam Smith, Monash University

Many environmental organisations, governments and businesses rely on “positive spillover strategies” to drive pro-environmental behaviour change. These strategies rest on the assumption once someone has…
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Questions of planetary power: a mere 0.3% of transnational corporations control 40% of global revenue. Flickr/paul (dex)

Planet under Pressure 2012: here’s the wrap

By Roger Jones, Victoria University

The Planet Under Pressure 2012 Conference was held in London a fortnight back and released the first State of the Planet Declaration. The conference aim was to set out the science (in a broad sense) in…
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Fad fashion has never had it so good… but the fast fashion trend comes at a cost. AAP

Counting the cost of fast fashion

By Alice Payne, Queensland University of Technology

There’s a polyester mullet skirt gracing a derrière near you. It’s short at the front, long at the back, and it’s also known as the hi-lo skirt. Like fads that preceded it, the mullet skirt has a short…
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Will the UN recommendations pull people out of poverty and reduce pressure on the environment? The Advocacy Project

UN sustainability panel says put a price on the environment

By Paul Burke

A recent cartoon (below) extrapolates the use of the word “sustainable”. It predicts that in 50 years each sentence will on average contain the word at least once. The cartoon is clever, and “sustainable…
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Indigenous Australians systematically burnt grasslands to reduce fuel and stop fires raging out of control. Flickr/pietroizzo

The biggest estate on earth: how Aborigines made Australia

By Bill Gammage

Aboriginal people worked hard to make plants and animals abundant, convenient and predictable. By distributing plants and associating them in mosaics, then using these to lure and locate animals, Aborigines…
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Sir Rod Eddington: unless the rail networks are right, Australia’s cities won’t work properly. Supplied

Sir Rod Eddington: ‘The infrastructure challenges are real’

By Peter Newman, Curtin University

Welcome to In Conversation; an ongoing series in which leading academics interview prominent public figures. In today’s instalment, Dr Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University, sits…
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Responses to climate change are becoming a crucial part of business strategy. AAP/Google

Google goes green … and others may follow

By Paul Brown, University of Technology, Sydney and Suzanne Benn, University of Technology, Sydney

In early September, Google publicly disclosed details of its carbon footprint for the first time, launching the Google Green website in the process. The search giant revealed a carbon footprint of 1.5…
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Melbourne and Sydney are set to become mega-cities, but there hasn’t been a coherent discussion about our population. AAP/Torsten Blackwood

A country in search of a policy: the case for an Australian population target

By Jo Coghlan

The national debate about Australia’s population has been hijacked. It has been dominated by fears that we don’t have the infrastructure to cope with an influx of people, and differing views about migrants…

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