Footage of Google’s prototype driverless car has got people talking about the potential for self-driving vehicles. While this seems like an exciting new technological advance, in fact the idea is not so…
What goes around: repair cafés aim to embrace the so-called ‘circular economy’ of making stuff last longer.
Jade Herriman
Imagine your smartphone’s screen gets smashed, or your bike wheel gets buckled, or your favourite boots get a hole in them. What do you do? You could buy a replacement. Or you could join the worldwide…
In the industrial era, economic growth has become equated with human progress, with a fundamental assumption that material growth and consumption inevitably leads to improvements in our well-being. Over…
You’re better off catching the bus than the train of you want to reduce your energy footprint.
John Ward/Flickr
How did you get to where you need to be today? Car, bike, public transport, or perhaps walking? Transport is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, globally and in Australia. The latest…
Our cities are growing; we must rise to the challenge.
Erwin Soo
Ten themes shape the dilemmas, challenges and opportunities for the 21st-century city. Each relates to how we live and shape our places. The tradition of urban living, of urbanity, focuses both on the…
Self-interest and greed drive the decision-making of too many of the professional classes who most influential global policies.
www.shutterstock.com
We read a lot these days about corruption, self-interest and personal tragedies. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time explicitly considers climate change…
Six-star green projects like Melbourne’s Pixel Building are largely confined to Australia’s city centres.
Supplied
Australia is allegedly in the midst of a “green building revolution”, powered by the awarding of ratings to developers who build sustainable buildings. But this brave new world is only a reality in the…
A protester makes her feelings clear about the pink batts scheme in 2010.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
The political fallout over the ill-fated Home Insulation Program continues, with former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard now having been summoned to appear before the Abbott government’s royal…
Heatwaves provide a good reminder we need to think more carefully about how we use energy.
Wiz78/Flickr
When it comes to expectations for power price rises in the year ahead, the short answer is on average we can expect them to be less severe in 2014 than in recent years. The long answer, driven by electricity…
New mothers make a lot of decisions to improve their babies’ welfare.
Megan Myers
Stop press! Actress Julia Roberts has been spotted in a Prius and is reportedly into reusable coffee cups and solar panels. According to media reports, it was the birth of her twins, rather than her Oscar-winning…
I’m just a sprayer, the pest manager does the thinking.
ricephotos
To most people pest management brings up images of rats, cockroaches and chemical spraying. Poisoning vermin and insect is only one minor, albeit important, aspect of pest management. Few people know about…
Research shows the environment usually comes off second best when companies are forced to compromise between sustainability and profit.
Mohammad Rhaman/Flickr
A commitment to sustainability has become a typical component of any modern-day corporation’s public face. Visit the homepages of major organisations in any sector, from coal-mining to cola-making, and…
Stop “discounting the future”, work co-operatively, shake up national and international institutions, and fight short-termism were among the calls in a new study released yesterday. With the world’s richest…
Companies are getting better at disclosing possible environmental and social issues that might cause profits to slip, but there is more they could do.
Flickr/Ian Barbour
Investors are increasingly interested in how companies manage non-financial – environmental and social – risks. And there is still substantial room for improvement. The recent Sustainability Reporting…
The future of a sustainable humanity starts and ends with good food and nutrition.
Paula Bailey
The fundamental role of food is to provide nutrition for the body but it is much more than that. Food lies at the heart of our health and the health of our environment. Food affects international relations…
The financial institutions in The City of London eagerly portray themselves as good citizens of the world, positively contributing to the stewardship of our planet and its people’s well-being. In reality…
We’re consuming too much of the earth.
Flickr/marymactavish
What would happen to the world if, with the snap of our fingers, we shifted all our energy supplies to renewable sources overnight? You might be surprised at the answer: not much, at least for biodiversity…
Recent reports reveal that the cost of environmental damage far outweighs the cost of business model restructuring.
Image from www.shutterstock.com
One of the most depressing and puzzling features of the current election campaign is the lack of emphasis on the costs that environmental risks pose to industry and business. Australian politicians appear…
The ‘most liveable city’ accolade should be viewed with scepticism.
Image from shutterstock.com
For the third year in a row, Melbourne has been named as the world’s most liveable city by the The Economist Intelligence Unit Survey. From the Lord Mayor to Molly Meldrum, it seems that almost everybody…
Some cardboard trees made by Hugo Boss and painted by children, because: sustainability!
Geoff Caddick/PA
While the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) that became all the rage some time ago initially had worthwhile aims, it is now more commonly used by corporations to out-worthy their competitors…