What is sustainability and how to learn it

Editor's Notes

• #2: Read First Part. Sustainable Development made it on to the planet’s agenda at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 – based on the Brundtland definition in 1987.
• #3: Why is this agenda emerging? It is no longer the domain of a few marginal greenies. There are many drivers, ecological, technological, economic, social and political, many, diverse, some more surprising than others. We have had 2 earth summits – Rio De Janeiro, mostly an environmental forum, and Johannesburg, where broader groups, business and industry engaged in what has become a Global Sustainable Development agenda. Who is leading, who is lagging in coming to grips with these issues? It’s a mixed bag. Some heroes, NGOs, the UN, multilaterals and some big corporates, Countries like the Netherlands, cities like Curitiba in Brazil and Kerala in India are in the lead. Australia is not a leader so far, not a global sustainability superpower! The pressures of population and consumption in the Europe and North America and the poverty in the South have pressed others to think further into the future, to think about sustainability, longer and deeper. Most of us in Australia have been too lucky, so far!
• #4: So, from Rio till now there is much greater acceptance that society and the economy are subsets of the planet and its systems. And that, natural systems, large and small are in trouble. The big problems of global warming, deforestation, pollution, ecosystem and species extinctions continue to haunt the 21st Century.
• #5: Last year I talked to University High students about global sustainability. What would your school look like if it went green – if it was a model of how all schools should look and learn and operate to do no more damage to the planet and our fellow species 1) Green Science is learned by everyone at each year level 2) Everyone is in a Green Team with specific jobs to do, recycling paper, looking after your ecological park with indigenous planets and trees 3) Everyone wears kool designer uniform – not green in colour but made from environmentally friendly fabrics with no toxic dyes and not made by child labour 4) Everyone has responsibilities for projects in the local community. 5) All your water is recycled a new grey water system has been installed to use on the indigenous garden
• #6: Last month I talked to interior design students and 3rd year aerospace engineers at RMIT about global sustainability. Asking questions about how they learn about their profession and how they may practice it sustainably? There are already Vice Presidents of Sustainable Development in Mining and Resource Companies like BHP Billiton!
• #7: Out of the last 40 years of all kinds of intellectual, political and community activism we have new knowledge, new industry. New language like Natural Capital and designing for Cradle to Cradle New Science like Sustainability Science At GS@RMIT we use a TBL+1 approach, with the 4 dimensions of sustainability – economic, environmental, social & cultural and governance. The Alliance for Global Sustainability – MIT and 3 other Technological Universities, dedicating research investment to big global problems in China, Mexico and North America.
• #8: We have the emergence of new industry, a kind of Sustainability Industry. Jacinta Blanch from the Environmental Jobs Network and others from their team did some very preliminary research for us. They asked questions about what we think the sustainability industry will look like in 2020. 7 interested players were involved. They asked questions like: How would you define the sustainability industry? Is it different from the environment industry? What are the barriers, opportunities, will it stand alone, what will it be in 2020? What sort of skills, capabilities, jobs will there be? How will we know? What do we do need to do to be prepared?
• #9: The conclusions were not unexpected. There is confusion, differences. Perhaps individuals will be the way industries are connected.Or perhaps sustainability will be embraced and absorbed into all aspects of all industries. But this is a tiny beginning to the big question what will the Sustainability Industry look like in 2020 – right now we have a few notions, no real investment in researching and projecting what some of our ideas, approaches, scenarios might mean in practice. We need to work out what we can do to contribute, to ask the questions, working up some methodologies to get a few answers – I thought I’d start with some Sustainability scenarios.
• #10: GS scenarios abound. Many include sustainability as a goal.
• #11: So how can we use scenarios to help understand the sustainability industry and its future. What are the ways we should be thinking, about systems, jobs, skills, structures, people and cultures. Out of scenarios emerge some big what ifs?
• #12: What if Australia is Riding the Wave in 2020 as the Business Council have suggested? Business as usual? In this scenario - Governments and others lack vision and leadership. There is no co-ordination and they fail to take tough decisions. There is not enough understanding and attention to the BIG long term problems and what they mean for policy and implementation beyond the 3 year political cycle.
• #13: There is too much emphasis on solving single issues in response to a culture of both complaint and compliance. There’s lots of legislation and regulation but it doesn’t always help. Infrastructure is languishing as cities continue to sprawl. Governments and corporations, everybody, thinks about the next day, the next quarterly report, not the next generation. Governments are blamed for almost everything, the welfare mentality persists, workforce participation and productivity drop off. The tax base is too low and no one is game to take action. The public is worried about everything, their health, what’s in their Wheetbix, but want better lives rather than greater incomes, downshifting continues. Schooling is narrow, ongoing waves of all sorts of reforms don’t seem to help sort the problems and our children. Cynicism is everywhere! Trust is almost nowhere, especially politicians, corporations, threatening the licence to operate of all kinds of organisations. Here the issues of governance and leadership in Australia threaten our health and prosperity and energy as a nation. This is a languid nation – going nowhere much but where the sustainability industry may still alive and well? Because, by 2020 this languidness/complacence might have brought us to our collective knees. Sound Familiar?
• #14: Now, to a very different vision. What if the Pentagon’s worst weather nightmare comes true?
• #15: In the USA, the Pentagon’s worst weather nightmare has temperatures  60F and rainfall  30%. In the National Academy of Sciences Report, the fear is that what we assume to be gradual changes to global climate may become abrupt changes over10 years. It has happened before, with mini or major ice ages coming on in a decade. The great Atlantic Conveyer Current collapses essentially because of global warming. This current moderates the climates of Europe and North America and indeed affects the entire planet. This science of the theory of abrupt change is accessible and explicable and apparently gathering support. All kinds of economic, social and political impacts follow.
• #16: Short term, the Chinese Government, it seems, knows it will have rebellions if polluting factories are closed and there are no jobs. But it will still have rebellions if there is no potable water, breathable air, productive land. Even so in the mid 1990’s some 20,000+ polluting, declension factories where closed in one full swoop. But it also know, longer term it must deal with the 4 dimensions of sustainability. The scale of almost everything it does makes this inevitable. Floods in 2002 in Datong affected 1 million people. This understanding by an old but still powerful and centralised leadership highlights some hope. Sustainable Development frames their government policy. The CBCSD was established in January. We don’t have one in Australia. Some infrastructure is state of the art. It plans for a green GDP by 2020 - ahead of us! So what will it mean for who we are, what we learn and know if China goes green? Could China’s decisions be the tipping point for our economic and cultural future? How might we be prepared for Pentagon’s worst weather nightmare or China going green?
• #17: Intellectual and practical understanding of Global Sustainability as emerging new knowledge and industry must be on the agenda of our schools and universities. I’m going to touch on some of these developing approaches, frameworks and ideas. National Capitalism, a seminar text using sustainable technologies, post industrial technologies to make systems, economies, jobs – taking people and planet into the equation. Cradle to Cradle – it’s all in the design. GS@RMIT extending Elkington’s TBL to TBL+1 using the 4 dimensions of economic, environmental, social & cultural and governance.
• #18: There are calls for a new science , lots of work is being at done,at Harvard, in the U.N using motions around complex systems theory, resilience and vulnerability. Multidisciplinary, team based, long term thinking, stakeholder engagement – all in the name of science and trust. How might this help us approach very important, highly contested areas like GMO’s, gene technology, geological sequestration and ecology?
• #20: I’m going to skip through some of the new knowledge, systems, measures, new language – Lots of it developed in purpose built institutions in the Northern Hemisphere, or universities or CSIRO’s of the world or in industry itself.
• #21: Eco-Footprint – equivalent use of resources translated to hectares. Australia has a big footprint. Factor 4 is about resource productivity – using everything, bit of the planet’s resource to do more. Some talk of factor 100 even 1,000. European countries, WA has policies and targets
• #22: This is mainstream HR territory? Employer of Choice, ethical leadership, the rise of the creative class, health and safety and child labour.
• #23: Sustainability it driving lots of changes in the way our economics will run. Full cost accounting will eventually include real natural and human capital costs! Imagine what water would cost if we include all the unintended environmental, social and indeed consequences. What will water and electricity really cost when we have internalised all the natural and human impacts, risks and other costs? It will happen1
• #24: There is virtual revolution going on in many areas of governance – how and where and by whom decisions are made – from shareholder democracy to corporate codes of conduct like the Banks Equator Principles. Lots of new ways of taking decisions outside the traditions of the nation state and the original company board.
• #25: There are kinds of interventions going on in education, in schools. Passionate environmentalists often kick start programs – schools – scientific, practical. But there’s a long way to go before we are addressing the sustainability agenda, with all its dimensions systematically – yet kids seem to love it, are engaged by it.
• #26: The UN and others call for education around sustainability or sustainable development. Most universities around the planet are grappling with it. How should they address this emerging field? What dies it mean for disciplines and student capabilities? But the barriers are huge. It doesn’t fit anywhere. Why would engineers entertain it? It has some roots in environmental science, environmental engineering and planning. But some of these mainstream it. Much of the pointing and work is in purpose built institutions outside universities – WBCSD, CERES.
• #27: Professor Dexter Dumphy, UTS, has defined a sustainable university using the TBL+1 dimensions. All kinds of programs exist across universities to embrace such definitions. Many have signed on to the UN Global Compact or the Tallouies Declaration, committing themselves to integrating sustainability into all they do – but it’s hard!!
• #28: Inevitably the questions arise, should it be spendist and separate? Should it be embedded across all existing learning? Should it simply inform all disciplines? How should it affect day to day operations outside teaching and learning?
• #29: After 5 years working on how GS should be positioned in RMIT there is what we think is the most effective approach.
• #30: What capabilities should emerge around sustainability? What will we need to know? What skills do we need to manage people and the planet in the 21st Century? Conversely, what can the sustainability agenda, its new knowledge and industry do to help inform civilised society and its members perse? This is work in progress, some beginning thoughts only.
• #31: This pedal washing machine tells a story… It is a prototype based on some sustainability principles, the last year project of two young mechanical engineers. It doesn’t use electricity. It has recycled parts. It could be made locally and cheaply. It was on our TV News in 2002! We were rushed with orders! Calls from Melbournians who want it in their Eastern Suburb homes or their bush blocks. Somehow it captured people interest and imagination. Its not high tech like lots of other R&D. W have not yet succeeded in getting enough resource to utilise it to build the funky green washing machine in the 21st Century but we could still do so! We have a cross faculty committee to discuss how we should proceed. Engineering, Business, Corporate Affairs, our Design Centre, and R&D. We have decided to use the it to develop a multidisciplinary, highly professional, comprehensive approach to develop and commercialise a sustainable product that is good for people and the planet - the funky green washing machine for the 21st Century.
• #33: CONTACT DETAILS Phone: +61 3 9925 2775 Fax: +61 3 9925 3058 Postal Address: GPO Box 2467V, Melbourne Vic 3001 Street Address: Room 1, Level B, RMIT Building 1 (124 Latrobe Street), Melbourne Vic 3001 Website: www.global.rmit.edu.au   Email: tricia.caswell@rmit.edu.au Assistant: Sandra Drcic Assistant Email: sandra.drcic@rmit.edu.au