Towards a sustainable future

A panel of experts were present at Sydney's Alliance Francaise cultural centre last Wednesday to explore the many facets of one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century - designing a sustainable world. The forum was titled 'Towards a sustainable city' and offered a rare opportunity for policy makers and environmental specialists to engage with members of the public.

Kerry Nettle, Greens Senator for NSW, was cautiously optimistic in her outlook.

“We are seeing a really monumental shift in society’s attitudes towards recognising the importance of dealing with environmental issues and changing our lives as individuals, as communities, as countries and internationally, to ensure we address these issues,” she said.

The last two weeks of State Parliament sessions have seen global warming issues raised 70 times, a tenfold increase over last year. Senator Nettle believes the impetus for this massive increase in parliamentary interest has been the wide spread effect of Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth.

The Senator was quick to praise several Government schemes, particularly the Federal Government’s investment of $75 million into a Solar Cities program designed to investigate the feasability of moving towards solar energy. She also lauded the existence of cash rebates for the installation of solar panels on properties.

Within her own sphere of influence, however, Senator Nettle was less enthusiastic. “The State Government in NSW has, I would say, a long way to go in addressing these issues, around climate change in particular,” she said.

“There’s a lot more that needs to be done.”

Senator Nettle went on to propose several solutions, including creating opportunities for investment in the renewable energies sector and raising public awareness.

A recent $10 million donation from Rupert Murdoch’s late nephew, Tom Kantor, to the Climate Institute might be a catalyst for increasing such awareness. The Climate Institute, a slightly left leaning think thank, has commenced a five-year campaign to educate the public about the dangers of global warming. Former NSW Premier the Hon. Bob Carr chairs the Institute’s Advisory Council.

Enthusiasm flowed less freely from Gordon Hocking, President of Sustainable Population Australia. He criticised the limited progress made since the 1992 Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment.

“Cities are at war with nature... we need to recognize that the way we are living is unsustainable," he said.

“Unless our population is stabilised and economic activity is restrained, all the advances made by recycling, public transport, renewable energy, energy efficiency and so on will come to naught. They’ll be overwhelmed by the growth. A sustainable city can only emerge from a sustainable society."

Mr Hocking discussed the latest UN Population Division estimates that predict a total global population of 9 billion by 2050. He contrasted this growth with ASPO figures showing that by 2050 declining oil production will result in levels of availability equivalent to those of 1965. This will have a catastrophic effect on established and burgeoning economies.

A more optimistic view came from John Dahlenburg, an advisor on water sensitive urban design and low-impact development. Working with Councils and other statutory bodies, Mr Dahlenburg has helped institute numerous projects and technologies such as permeable pavers that allow rain to flow into the ground below and green roofs where rain waters gardens planted on roofs then flows out naturally into drainage systems. Municipalities such as Manly and Kogarah have already installed systems to harvest rain and stormwater that would otherwise be wasted.

One Council leading the way in breaking through the usual empty rhetoric is Melbourne City Council. Their new building Council House 2 (CH2) is nearing completion. CH2 will replace the old administration building with a new sustainable building that utilises 72 per cent less water, 85 per cent less gas, 87 per cent less electricity and produces 30 per cent less emissions. Best of all, much of the construction will pay for itself over time.

“The sustainability features they’ve put on this building have a payback period of ten years. All the features will be paid for by saving water or energy and gas and those sorts types of things in ten years, so it’s very realistic,” he said.

Mr Dahlenburg also discussed ways individuals can become more sustainable. Some of the simple options include installing flow restrictors on household taps, applying for Sydney Water rebates to replace top-loading washing machines, installing dual flush mechanisms for toilets, moving to rainwater tanks for water supply and using grey water treatment systems that recycle laundry and shower water.

The corporate sector was also represented at the forum by Richard O’Keefe. Mr O'Keefe is a project manager with Veolia Environmental Services, formerly known as Collex. Several alarming statistics emerged from his discussion, most notably that 28 million tonnes of waste are produced in Australia each year, equating to 1.4 tonnes produced by each person in Australia. Though many food and garden organics are turned into compost and a certain amount of paper, glass and plastics are recycled, the vast majority of waste still ends up as landfill.

Mr O'Keefe discussed the frustrations the waste sector have with the execution of the 2003 NSW Government Waste Strategy. Designed to stem the massive amount of unnecessary waste production, the State Government set a raft of goals for large scale reductions across personal and industrial waste production by 2014. Despite the requirements, a recent progress report showed that per capita Sydney waste generation is actually increasing by 0.4% per annum.

Recent research by the Australian Institute has shown that $5 billion worth of food is discarded each year in Australia, a tragic waste when many of the world's people are struggling to find enough sustenance to survive.

Mr O'Keefe concluded his discussion with a useful question. “In a world where we focus in on gross domestic product and revenue, we need to ask ourselves, do I really need to purchase this product?”, he said.

A date for the next forum has not been set. For more information on sustainable cities visit the Future Cities Project.