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If Your Business Is Not Sustainable Pretty Soon It Won’t Exist

During the American President’s recent visit to Nigeria, he spoke of “taking down the trade barriers” between the two countries and of becoming the economic partner of choice for nations across the African continent. This is not what African countries need. Trade is no longer the key to economic growth. The world needs to focus on mutually beneficial partnerships, fostering sustainable development across the continent, targeting the continent’s inhabitants as its primary consumers – in Nigeria, this requires much higher levels of private-sector investment and economic participation. Reports such as one published recently by the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, show …

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If We Can’t Recycle It, Why Not Turn Our Waste Plastic Into Fuel?

Australia’s recycling crisis needs us to look into waste management options beyond just recycling and landfilling. Some of our waste, like paper or organic matter, can be composted. Some, like glass, metal and rigid plastics, can be recycled. But we have no immediate solution for non-recyclable plastic waste except landfill. At a meeting last month, federal and state environment ministers endorsed an ambitious target to make all Australian packaging recyclable, compostable or reusable by 2025. But the ministers also showed support for processes to turn our waste into energy, although they did not specifically discuss plastic waste as an energy source. The 100% goal …

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Urban Runoff and Water Sustainability in Urban Design

The issue of conserving our environment is a complex one. While reducing our material usage, reusing what already exists and recycling other products are all valuable steps towards reducing the impacts of climate change, they cannot be the only strategies adopted in an integrated approach. Sustainability is not just a matter of products. A holistic approach must also encompass how the built environment responds to its context and to its inherent natural processes. This is more important than ever, as extreme weather events become more frequent, placing extra stress on – and accelerating the degradation of – both our natural …

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‘Limitless Applications’: The ‘Magic Powder’ That Could Prevent Future Crises

It sounds like a distant dystopian crisis: a world where global food and water supply chains buckle under the strain of overpopulation and climate change, before being contaminated by weapons of mass destruction unleashed in a desperate fight for access to what little is left. While the crisis may not be as unrealistic or far away as it seems, scientists are already coming up with potential solutions. One is the curiously named metal organic frameworks (MOFs), a powder of nano-engineered crystals with an apparently endless variety of uses. One teaspoon of these crystals contain the surface area of an entire football field, and scientists …

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Australia to use almost 40% renewable power by 2030

Nearly 40% of all Australian electricity generation will be from renewables by 2030, a report from consulting firm McKinsey has claimed. The report, released at the APPEA conference in Brisbane on Tuesday, said by 2030 up to 37% of Australian electricity could come from renewable sources. This compares to 14% in 2014. But across all fuel sources, including transport fuel, renewables are still only expected to make up about 5% by 2030. Using a “business-as-usual” approach the McKinsey report said despite an increase in renewables Australia was likely to miss Paris Climate Change Accords emission reductions. “In the power sector, …

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