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| CSIRO | SOLVE | Issue 10 | FEB 07 | |
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ARTICLE
SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES:
Natural Partners By Penny Fannin
CSIRO has used a decade of research into systems-based approaches and the idea of multiple stakeholders working together to create the Sustainable Communities Initiative.The Herbert River region of north Queensland is as good a place as any for a sustainability revolution. Bordering two World Heritage areas – the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics – the region, based around the town of Ingham, is also a major sugarcane producer. Yet for 10 years this home to canegrowers and conservationists has exemplified the benefits that emerge when governments, business, researchers and the wider community interact with a shared goal to make their home a better place. What started as a diverse group of locals, pitching in to buy data so a surface contour map of the Herbert River catchment could be generated, has become the Herbert Resource Information Centre (HRIC), a joint venture used by its partners and the wider community to ensure the ecologically sustainable development of the Herbert River catchment. The centre provides a facility for the storage, analysis and exchange of natural resource information for the catchment. Crop-dusting companies have used the information to plan flight paths, the Hinchinbrook Shire Council has used it to map infrastructure, drainage lines and other urban assets, and the centre itself has used the data to predict sugarcane yields.
Of particular note is HRIC’s status as a multi-stakeholder partnership that takes in six organisations, ranging from local government (Hinchinbrook Shire Council) and state government (Queensland’s Department of Natural Resources and Water), to research (CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems) and local business interests (canegrowers, CSR and the Herbert Cane Protection and Productivity Board). The HRIC’s success as a model for improved natural resource use, management and planning has largely been ascribed to this collaboration; so much so that CSIRO has taken the idea of multiple stakeholders working toward making communities sustainable, and developed it into the Sustainable Communities Initiative (SCI). Its director, Sean Rooney, says the initiative brings together organisations from the public, private and civil sectors to work with communities in addressing community-specific sustainability challenges. The SCI builds on more than a decade of CSIRO research into ‘systems-based’ approaches, which has included projects such as the HRIC and regional-scale sustainable development. This model takes a holistic approach to community-specific sustainability issues – whether they be salinity, responding to a changing climate, regional development or countless others – and seeks to understand the relationships between local economic, environmental, social and governance systems to develop and deliver systemic responses to the challenges and opportunities. “The sustainability challenges facing us are complex,” Mr Rooney says. “In seeking solutions to the challenges of our age there is acknowledgment that no one sector (public, private or civil) has the responsibility or capability to effect lasting meaningful change. The answers lie in focusing the passion, skills, resources and knowledge from across these sectors on collaborative solution-seeking.” Nationally, 16 organisations from the public, private and civil sectors have committed to working together through the Sustainable Communities Initiative. They are:
The initiative will run for three years (2006 to 2009) and is expected to tackle 12 community sustainability projects. Between three and five of these are expected to start before the end of the financial year. Part of this decision lies with the SCI’s advisory committee, chaired by Liam Forde, the former CEO of Baulderstone Hornibrook and current chairman of Hastings Funds Management. Mr Rooney says SCI projects will deliver local ‘triple bottom line’ outcomes (economic, social and environmental): “They will provide insights and learnings that inform community-scale sustainable development policy, programs and practice.” The proposed projects vary markedly in their scope and take in communities in Victoria, NSW, ACT, Queensland and Western Australia. They include: a municipality that wants to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 and increase the security of its energy supply; a proposal for a ‘brownfield’ redevelopment (brownfield sites are limited in expansion or redevelopment due to actual or perceived environmental contamination) that would assess the impacts of sustainability principles such as water-sensitive urban design and energy supply; and how alternative infrastructure can influence the design of suburbs. Another project, proposed by Delfin Lend Lease, is the ‘Lockerbie’ development – a greenfield development on Melbourne’s outskirts – that Rod Fehring, CEO of Delfin Lend Lease, says will demonstrate a new model for urban development in Australia. “Our hope is Lockerbie will be shaped by the application of sustainable community guidelines and that improved public transport access, more local jobs and a stronger community will be brought to fruition,” Mr Fehring says. “Ultimately the opportunity presents the production of a community that’s the antithesis of urban sprawl.” He says that rather than relying on ‘mega infrastructure’ for the provision of commodities such as water, the Lockerbie development will be self-contained. Further, Mr Fehring expects Delfin Lend Lease’s involvement with CSIRO’s Sustainable Communities Initiative to complement the company’s established sustainability credentials. “There’s no mortgage on learning, knowledge and good ideas at Lend Lease, so we’re interested in working with credible organisations like CSIRO that have a real interest in this field, as it gives us an opportunity to improve on what we do.” Mr Rooney says a recurring theme among the SCI’s partners is a shared commitment to sustainability. “When you’re talking about sustainability and sustainable development, there are organisations out there that have these values embedded in their organisational cultures. “And the program also offers value creation for individual participants as well as for the communities. For the private sector, this is about strategy and getting their people using their competencies and being meaningfully engaged in communities on real issues. A key strength of the SCI is the diversity of participants and we welcome others to join us.” One issue facing most, if not all, communities is crime. In its efforts to reduce crime in the community, SCI partner IAG has, through NRMA Insurance, joined and funded collaborative crime-prevention initiatives in Redfern, Dubbo and Shellharbour with NSW Police and community representatives. Lynette Thorstensen, group head of sustainable business practices at IAG, says such collaboration is vital if communities are to be sustained. “IAG has for some time taken its relationship to the community and the environment as part of its core business thinking,” she says. “We seek to reduce risk in the community and reduce risk to our business, specifically in the area of insurance claims.” As well as pursuing community sustainability projects, a major objective of the SCI is to gather information on the projects’ delivery, outputs and outcomes and share this with partners and stakeholders. This element has also proved attractive to industry. Dr Noel Purcell, group general manager of stakeholder communications at Westpac, says although there are many ad hoc sustainability projects around, the SCI is distinctive in its stated objective of revealing and sharing what is learnt. “While a lot of progress around sustainability is about pragmatic and good execution, there is certainly room for some smarts…and this project was grounded in systems theory and social networks, all of which makes perfect sense to us,” Dr Purcell says. “The sustainability challenges we face as a community require a change in our response. And, it’s fair to say, with two key characteristics. First, no one sector, let alone organisation, can go it alone in this – it has to be collaborative. Second, it’s clear we need more innovative responses.” Mr Rooney says this innovation is being driven by the need for integrated responses to sustainability challenges. “This is being played out on different scales and in different ways: disparate areas of science coordinating across traditional boundaries, governments, businesses and NGOs working collaboratively on global issues, and communities forming new institutions to organise resources internally and externally to address local issues.” Peter Woods, chief information officer with the Department of Environment and Water Resources (DEW), one of several government agencies involved in the SCI, says DEW is responsible for developing and implementing Australian Government policy on sustainability education across the whole community. “We see this project complementing the other education initiatives we already have running. DEW is looking to develop a better understanding of what’s involved in achieving sustainable communities.”
Mr Woods says DEW is attracted to this project because it involves a partnership of government and non-government bodies and, in particular, a number of notable private-sector companies. “Business and industry are key players in addressing the challenges of sustainability. There’s no question that there is an urgent need for a collaborative and innovative response to the sustainability challenges facing Australia and the world. Programs such as SCI play an important role in fostering the new thinking and approaches required in our communities.” For further information contact: |
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