Posted in Sustainable Cities

Liveable Communities Through Engagement, Culture & Connection

It is every conservationist’s goal to bring nature back to urban areas. Life begins with nature, yet sometimes it needs a little help to keep thriving.

Our current economic crisis is not deterring organisations in continuing vital conservationist work, and many are teaming up together to push forward with finding the best ways to achieve environmental and cultural sustainability.

Webinar 3 of the Liveable Cities Conference: Webinar Series 2020 will take this focus on Tuesday 23rd of June, with three keynote speakers delivering an incredible line-up.

CLICK HERE for the program details and read below for a glimpse of what to expect.

Bringing Nature Back to Urban Areas

Ms Geraldene Dalby-Ball, Director of Kingfisher Urban Ecology and Wetlands

Director of Kingfisher Urban Ecology and Wetlands, Ms Geraldene Dalby-Ball has been doing remarkable work within this field and will be presenting her case studies in webinar 3 of the Liveable Cities Conference: Webinar Series 2020 on Tuesday.

Ms Dalby-Ball’s presentation will show solutions on how to get multiple outcomes from urban waterways and wetlands, through essential consideration. Kingfisher’s goal is to maintain and design urban waterways through the reflection of dreamtime stories and collaboration of the ancient land, its people, and their natural surroundings.

Geraldene is deeply passionate about butterfly conservation and says that even in built up areas, nature can be preserved and helped to be reinstated by using the past to rebuild from. “Projects as simple as Butterfly Birth Places, where through design and planting and engagement, we can bring specific butterflies back, even around high-risk apartment blocks.”

The organisation’s focus is on connecting dream stories with plants and animals, their seasons and cycles, which helps people gain a sense of greater fulfillment, leading them to make better environmental choices that promote a more sustainable way of life.

This presentation is set to be one of honour – of the ancient land, its people and its flora and fauna.

Ways to Make Your Place in Town or City ‘Family’

University of Western Australia’s ARC Chief Investigator of the School of Indigenous Studies, Professor Len Collard

Professor Len Collard, University of Western Australia’s ARC Chief Investigator of the School of Indigenous Studies, will be our second keynote speaker for the final of our Liveable Cities Conference: Webinar Series 2020.

We are very honoured that Professor Collard will share his imperative insight on the land, culture and its people, through his presentation, “Engaging Indigenous Communities in Change.”

Professor Collard says, “from a Noongar cultural perspective, everything relates to everything else – like a big family”. There is however, an issue with the English language translation of the old language, causing a discourse in understanding the true Noongar language.

The Professor says, “the problem here is that moort, katitjin, Boodjar do not translate to English well at all, because English language explains these and other things as being separate to each other. Noongar language explains moort, katitjin, Boodjar as deeply, intrinsically connected – which is integral to a Noongar worldview.”

The Professor’s extensive cultural research is vital to Australia’s history and culture and his presentation is one to not missed, as he transcends us back 50,000 years.

Transitioning Aotearoa’s Streets To Places For People

Urban Mobility Manager of New Zealand Transport Agency, Ms Kathryn King

Organisations such as New Zealand’s Transport Agency are working just as hard to preserve and maximise community culture and sustainability.

Ms Kathryn King, the Urban Mobility Manager of New Zealand Transport Agency will be the final keynote speaker in the Liveable Cities Conference: Webinar Series 2020 next Tuesday. She will present evidence of where transitional design is building safer and more accessible streets, and as a result, it’s creating more trusting and happier communities.

Read more on Kathryn’s work from our previous BLOG and be sure not to miss our third and final webinar in the Liveable Cities Conference: Webinar Series 2020.

REGISTER FOR WEBINAR 3 HERE

You can also register for the full Liveable Cities Conference: Webinar Series 2020 from our Resource Centre to gain access to the final live webinar next Tuesday 26 June, playback access to the first two webinars in the series, and bonus book of abstracts, with 20 pre-recorded presentations and slides from the originally planned 2020 Liveable Cities Conference.

Architectural Design Making a Positive Impact on Sustainability in your Liveable City

If you are faced with the question; “Are you part of a liveable city”, would you know how to answer?

Many would consider any city that they live in as a liveable city, but what does that really mean?

The answer revolves around a few simple words that some of us are well versed with, while others are not. – sustainability, conservation, environmentally friendly, eco-friendly and carbon friendly (to name a few).

Creating a more liveable city comes down to several factors, beginning with residential and commercial designs that offer sustainable features.

Modern technology is now proving that there are new ways of building more sustainable homes, commercial offices and even shopping centres. We did some investigating around Australia and found a few architects that deserve to be praised for this kind of work.

BREATHE ARCHITECTURE – MELBOURNE

A Melbourne architectural company leads a great example by designing carbon neutral homes and commercial properties. Several architects met in December 2019 and collaborated on how to achieve carbon neutral home designs. They are now working together to achieve a more sustainable future in Australian cities.

The Design Director Jeremy McLeod, who founded the company in 2001 together with Tamara Veltre, has asked business owners to pledge that they will take their business into a carbon neutral future via an Architects Declare Architects Act movement. It’s a promise where united architects aim to take Australia into the future with new, modernised designs that will be 100% green powered, carbon audited by 30 June 2020 to ensure it’s working, and will be carbon neutral by 30 December 2020.

Visit their website and check out some of their incredible designs already achieving a carbon neutral future.

BENT ARCHITECTURE – MELBOURNE

Another Melbourne-based architectural company that needs to be praised for their outstanding sustainable work is Bent Architecture.

Established in 2003 by Directors Paul and Merran Porjazoski, they have built and designed sustainable buildings that have won a number of national and international awards, including two open design competitions (Growing Up Green Roof and Living Places Public Housing.

They have proven themselves to be leaders in both residential and commercial designs that are environmentally sustainable, and low costing.

LIVEABLE CITIES CONFERENCE: WEBINAR SERIES 2020

The list goes on with several organisations in Australia already making a positive and sustainable impact in our cities that need to be acknowledged and the Association for Sustainability in Business has been lucky enough to be secure some of the experts in the country for our new webinar series.

If you are interested on how others are successfully achieving positive sustainable results within communities, the first webinar of the Liveable Cities Conference: Webinar Series 2020 is all about sustainable design and architecture making a positive impact on the future of sustainable liveable cities.

The first webinar will be held live online on Tuesday 9th of June 2020 between 10:00am – 12:30pm. The schedule includes three successful case studies delivered by keynote speakers, showcasing how sustainability can be implemented into your liveable city through an intellectually sustainable design. Here’s two of the case studies that will be presented online in June as part of the webinar series.

GINNINDERRY PROJECT

Ms Jessica Stewart; the Sustainability Manager of the Ginninderry project will be speaking about how they have effectively advocated homes with smarter energy solutions that have allowed them to uphold their Ginnindery Green Start Communities rating by constructing sustainable dwelling which create the same or more energy than they consume.

EAST VILLAGE AT KNUTSFORD

Ms Naomi Lawrence, the Senior Development Manager at DevelopingWA, will be the second webinar speaker, delivering a presentation on the case study of the East Village at Knutsford, one of the most highly desired villages to live at in Freemantle in Perth.

The three-part webinar series is set to propel you into the future of sustainable design and several steps closer towards achieving the main goal; to improve sustainable lifestyles.

 

 

5 Ways New York City is Becoming a Sustainable City

When a person thinks about New York City, sustainability is not the first thing that comes to mind. Among all the artwork, high-end businesses, fast-paced lifestyle, endless parties, and traffic jams, you’d probably expect that sustainability is the last thing on New Yorkers’ minds. People here seem to only concerned with making money and figuring out the best ways of spending it. On the other hand, you have legislation and efforts that indicate that New York City is becoming a sustainable city at a surprising rate. So, what is the real picture? Well, let’s take a closer look.

Is New York City is becoming a sustainable city?

After reviewing all the different aspects of current NYC lifestyle trends, we can safely say that New York City is becoming a sustainable city. Even though people are working hard and don’t have much time, they don’t shy away from doing their part in order to make NYC more habitable and nicer to live in. Furthermore, both the state’s Department of Health and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection have been working hard to implement various sustainability policies. These policies should help sustain and even better the living conditions in NYC. With any luck, these sustainability measures should also help increase the life quality of the people of NYC in the long run and keep NYC nice and healthy.

Now, there are a lot of measures that the city of NYC has taken and that people of NYC utilize in order to keep New York sustainable. So, for this article, we are going to point out 5 which we feel have the biggest contribution. Mind you, these are the measures that have been taken so far. With luck, new, stronger measures and new innovations will be implemented in the future which will make NYC that much more sustainable.

Protecting the water supply

One of the more important policies you should be aware of is the management plan for protecting the state’s largest freshwater sources. The city and the state have come together and implemented sustainability measures that should ensure the quality of NYC water. Among the measures mentioned in the plan are:5 Ways New York City is Becoming a Sustainable City

  • Flood mitigation in watershed communities
  • Stabilisation of eroding stream banks
  • Using the best-management practices in agricultural work on watershed farms

These measures are aimed toward providing long-term freshwater sustainability for the people of New York. So, with luck, we should experience an increase in water quality.

Demand for green housing measures

When it comes to housing trends in NYC, there are two things that are on the rise. Smart homes and green homes. And, if you can combine the two, you should see a considerable increase in property value and demand. So, if you are looking for a way in which the people of NYC are making it more sustainable, you’ve found it. These demands are helping reduce the environmental impact of living and are making NYC an overall greener place. Besides smart energy systems and top-notch insulation, you also have monitored heating and water preservation. More and more apartments are implementing these systems. So much so that you have entire residential spaces committed to sustainability and smart housing solutions.

Lowering carbon footprint

It might be surprising to hear that New York is one of the states with the lowest carbon emissions per year. To put that into perspective, New York has 6% of the US population and only produces 3% of the nation’s greenhouse gases. Now, we can chalk this up to policies or low incentives for car transportation. But, in actuality, multiple factors have come together to help NYC have such a low carbon footprint.

The fact that driving a bike and taking the subway are the preferred ways of transport in NYC does help. But, it is the general trend of having an eco-friendly lifestyle that does most of the work. People of NYC are more than willing to drive low emission cars. They also take extra steps in order to work with businesses that implement eco-friendly measures. Therefore, if you plan on settling down in this amazing city, know that you’ll be expected to implement these measures as well.

Urban gardening

Another trend that has major contributions to New York City’s sustainability is urban gardening. More and more New Yorkers are finding ways to introduce nature and gardening in places where you didn’t think it possible. From small gardens built on terraces and balconies to natural elements implemented in apartments and buildings. Not to mention the rooftop gardens, which have become almost a staple of NYC. These green measures not only promote a healthier lifestyle, but they also bring a sense of nature to this concrete jungle of a city. Even restaurants are opting for having a more natural setting.

Pushing sustainability efforts

All of the lifestyle and housing trends that we’ve mentioned are a big part of why New York City is becoming a sustainable city. But, none of them would be enough if it weren’t for sustainability efforts from the people who run it. One of the most important people for setting NYC on the sustainability path is its former mayor Mike Bloomberg. His sustainability plan was later continued by Mayor de Blasio with the OneNYC development plan. This plan also tackled post-Hurricane Sandy resiliency, which is why it didn’t have such numerous measures.

But, those two set the incentive for the later policies that were expanded by the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Now, NYC is easily one of the most sustainable big cities in the world. And, with a developed bike riding infrastructure, a decent public transport service, and an ever-increasing number of trees and parks, it is only going to continue to be so.

This article was kindly written and contributed by Sally Norton

The Road Ahead to Building a More Sustainable World

“The Garden of Eden is no more”, Sir David Attenborough told Davos 2019 as he delivered his verdict on the destruction that humanity has inflicted on the natural world. Sir David also offered hope, noting that we humans are a “problem-solving species”, but he reiterated that we have just a decade to solve climate change.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres mirrored these sentiments in his “State of the World” address. Megatrends such as climate change are more and more interlinked, he said, but responses are fragmented. He warned that not tackling this was “a recipe for disaster”.

While few of us should need reminding on how pressing the issue of fighting climate change is, what surprised me was how this concern permeated all aspects of the conversation on sustainable development at Davos. And much was up for discussion, from inequality, biodiversity loss and the challenges of reskilling in the face of automation, to global governance, cyber security, food systems and the future of the financial system, to name but a few.

New ways to realise the Sustainable Development Goals

Technology and finance – the main enablers of the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the coming years – were centre-stage. Even the most technologically challenged of us would be awed by the discussions outlining the potential of artificial intelligence, big data and blockchain to make the world a better place. The variety of game-changing ideas in this area opened eyes – and mouths. They ranged from a project to protect airports and critical infrastructure from cyberattacks to encouraging businesses to play their part in realizing the SDGs by incorporating the goals into their business model.

The Road Ahead to Building a More Sustainable World

Image courtesy of the World Economic Forum

Of course, disruptive technology is not a silver bullet for achieving the SDGs, and its associated risks, as well as its benefits, were prominently featured. But the Fourth Industrial Revolution can help accelerate progress towards the SDGs. At the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), we are working to ensure that economies in developing countries can harness innovation to eliminate extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity.

In concrete terms, we have just launched Accelerator Labs in 60 developing countries to identify and connect problem-solvers across the world, using both local networks and data from novel sources, ranging from social media to satellite imagery. We want to support innovators such as Dana Lewis, who created open-source tools to manage Type 1 diabetes, or people like the entrepreneurs who built floating farms in flood-prone Bangladesh.

The Accelerator Labs will become integral to UNDP’s existing country-based teams and infrastructure. They will enable UNDP to connect its global network and development expertise that spans 170 countries with a more agile innovation capacity, to support countries in their national development priorities, ultimately working towards a wide range of SDGs.

Innovative finance

The topic of finance was rarely absent from my exchanges with government representatives and corporate leaders. “Innovative finance” in particular dominated conversations, from its ability to support migrants and refugees to the potential of so-called “initial coin offerings” to fund the next generation of high-growth companies.

We explored ways to attract finance to the SDGs, as well as the need to set up robust impact management processes and tools to identify companies that make economic, social and governance practices part of their DNA. Those sorts of changes could influence companies’ investment flows so they, in turn, are more likely to align with the SDGs.

Connecting the dots between technology and finance, the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Financing for the SDGs had its first face-to-face meeting. The role of the Task Force, which I co-chair with Maria Ramos, the CEO of Absa Group in South Africa, is to recommend strategies to harness the potential of financial technology to advance the SDGs.

This article was originally published by the World Economic Forum. Click here to continue reading entire article.

SECURE YOUR PLACE AT THE 2019 NATIONAL SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE THIS APRIL!

Hear from experts in all facets of sustainability as they discuss the challenges, opportunities, advancements and progress for sustainability in Australia.
View the 2019 program here. 

What Australian Cities Can Learn About Sustainability from Asia

What makes a city sustainable? Is it a focus on traditional, “green” sustainability, economic strength or how liveable the city is for people?

Global sustainability heavyweight Arcadis believes it is a mix of all three.

Arcadis’ latest Sustainable Cities Index, which ranks 100 of the world’s leading cities on three pillars of sustainability: people, planet and profit, found that there are some significant variances across the Asia Pacific region.

Australian cities all scored middle of the road on the index, with Melbourne not making the top 50.

While not a cause for alarm, these rankings reinforce that Australian cities must improve to compete on the global stage.

In comparison, Asia’s two leading financial centres Hong Kong and Singapore made it into the top 10, with Singapore ranked number 1 globally in the profit sub-index.

While vastly different in terms of culture, economies and politics, a key take away across the region was the importance of integrated, efficient and smart infrastructure.

Hong Kong has long been famous for its world-class infrastructure, but as one of the planet’s most densely populated cities, it faces unique challenges in providing an efficient transportation system to meet the needs of its 7.4 million citizens.

 

This article was originally published by The Urban Developer. Click here to read entire article.

Find out more about the sustainability projects revolutionising Australia

The 2019 National Sustainability Conference invites you join the discussion on the current challenges, successes and what the future holds in regard to sustainability practices within business.

View the program here.