Swinburne University of Technology - Melbourne Australia

Innovation pipeline the lifeblood of sustainable cities

Story by Tony Kaye

Australia's population is growing rapidly and is being directed almost entirely into big, seaboard cities, straining infrastructure, housing availability and services such as transport, health and education. It is a circumstance that seems to have caught policy-makers off-guard and which now presents some very formidable challenges for governments, corporations and professionals whose job it is to bolster and sustain urban development.

It is a challenge and process that has professionally occupied Peter Newton for many years, as a CSIRO chief research scientist specialising in the built environment and now as Research Professor at Swinburne University of Technology's Institute for Social Research.

There are three pathways for moving to sustainable urban development (see right) and in relation to the first, Professor Newton has just edited a book, Transitions: Pathways Towards Sustainable Urban Development in Australia (CSIRO Publishing). It seeks solutions to 21st century challenges that flow from living in a resource and carbon-constrained world.

Focusing primarily on supply-side solutions, the book argues that for cities to be sustainable they need to be able to draw from a pipeline of innovative technologies, products and processes that can be substituted as existing applications show signs of failure. The book explores three 'horizons of innovation' for progressing towards a sustainable built environment.

Professor Newton says Horizon One innovations are those where the technology is commercially available and has a demonstrated level of performance that is superior to products currently in the marketplace and which should be substituted: "The compact fluorescent tube or the incandescent globe are classic examples."

Horizon Two innovations are those where there are examples in operation but not widespread, such as hybrid cars or 'water-wise' urban design. "These are innovations where there is an opportunity for these better-performing processes or products to be applied more broadly, but it may require some examination of how they would perform in particular locations or regions."

Professor Newton says Horizon Three innovations are those which for the most part reside in research laboratories as prototypes, but whose sustainability impact can be truly transformational. "There, the challenge is to try to get a real-world application so their performance can be assessed, and if their field performance matches the promise of the laboratory then they become a Horizon Two innovation and should be able to be adapted more widely. Hydrogen energy is a good example of a Horizon Three innovation, as are integrated urban water systems and eco-industrial complexes."

The first steps towards the Horizon Two and Three futures need to be put in place now, "or else you get caught short and have to pursue suboptimal solutions because of the lack of time available. The window of opportunity for making a successful sustainability transition in the 21st century is beginning to close rapidly," he warns.

On the demand side of the sustainability equation, his research on consumption for the report Australia State of the Environment 2006 showed that Australia's use of resources is unsustainable by any measure. Ecological footprints of 7.5 hectares per person have been calculated for Australia - more than three times the global average. Ecological footprints are representations of the land area required to supply all of the needs consumed by individuals in a particular region. India and China have ecological footprints of about two hectares per person.

"Our cities and way of life are not sustainable from a global perspective," Professor Newton says. "The challenge is how to transition from an unsustainable trajectory to a more sustainable trajectory of future urban development. The battle for 21st century sustainability will be won or lost in the cities."

And the key to the outcome of this battle is how much Australians can modify their attitudes and behaviour in relation to consumption. It is a crucial question and Professor Newton is leading a new research program designed to understand factors contributing to escalating urban resource use.Funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant, it started in January.

The research has particular relevance for the City of Melbourne, which emerged recently as the state capital with the fastest population growth and infrastructure already showing signs of stress.

Lord Mayor John So recently signalled the city administration's intentions by setting a target of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2020: "We have implemented a number of policies and strategies to achieve that, understanding that ... even though urban centres are the driving engine of our economy they are also the cause of greenhouse gas emissions," Lord Mayor So says.

An early initiative has been the building of Council House 2, a six-star-rated green building, recognised with a United Nations award. Another is the installation of solar panels at Queen Victoria Market, which generate about 250,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

Professor Newton contrasts these early initiatives with a noticeable lack of progress in terms of long-term thinking on built environment sustainability at the federal level. Compared with the attention given in other countries to the role of cities in sustainable development, Australia has lacked the necessary national leadership, he says.

Chief executive of the Planning Institute of Australia Di Jay agrees that the lack of long-term vision and strategy on sustainable urban development in Australia must be changed.

Generating more than 80 per cent of GDP, our cities are the nation's portals to the international economy and, importantly, being economically vibrant requires being increasingly more sustainable. "Our view is that we need to have a sustainability charter so that we can identify where it is we are trying to go as a nation," Ms Jay says.

To this end, the research that goes into determining a cohesive national policy for sustainable urban development will be just as important as the new tools and technologies - the 'horizons of innovation' - that help communities maintain their economic vigour while shrinking their ecological footprint.