TNEP Newspaper Articles

The Courier-Mail Brisbane (01 August 2007)

Karlson Hargroves, Michael Smith and Cheryl Desha argue sustainable growth also paves the path to economic growth.

WE OFTEN hear discussions about how ‘‘growth’’ is not good for the environment. Southeast Queensland is Australia’s fastest-growing region, attracting an average 5,000 new residents each year over the past two decades. We are also a region experiencing significant ‘‘growing pains’’ including urban sprawl, traffic congestion, smog and water pollution.

However, there is good news about how ‘‘growth’’ can be used to improve our predicament. Growth can mean different things to different people, which often causes confusion in debates across government, business and the community. It is important to know just what we mean so we can have useful discussions. While economic growth refers to increasing economic activity, often described using terms like gross domestic product, physical growth is about increasing things like population and our use of resources. So, can we keep growing our economy (economic growth) while managing our population growth and reducing our use of resources (physical growth)?

Growth can be good if it is properly planned, and there are a number of examples from around the planet that show this can be done. Thirty-five years ago, international
best-seller Limits to Growth documented how we could live within the carrying capacity of our planet. Twenty years ago, a publication by the World Commission on Environment
and Development, Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland Report), gave us more than just a definition of sustainable development — it discussed how it is possible to separate, or ‘‘decouple’’, economic growth from negative environmental and social impacts. Decoupling can be achieved for all sorts of things in creative and profitable ways that can also grow the economy — from green subdivisions that cool our neighbourhoods, improve biodiversity and create clean air, to replacing toxic ingredients
in products that we use through green chemistry and design.

One such decoupling opportunity for southeast Queensland involves investing in proven sustainable transport approaches. A 1999 report to the World Bank showed those cities
investing in sustainable urban design and transport (ie reducing the use of private car use) have higher economic growth. Leading Australian author Peter Newman states: ‘‘Our study found that those cities which emphasise walking, cycling and public transport
are healthier financially and spend less of their wealth on transport costs. Our data would really question that freeway building has any economic rationale; unless you’re building up the rail system (as in Perth) you are not going to help it economically. As
soon as you put in big roads then you create a market for city sprawl and this is very expensive.’’

Perhaps we are far from being ‘‘decoupled’’ with regard to the way we choose to travel within our region, in particular our metropolitan areas. Queensland Transport figures show the total kilometres travelled by cars in southeast Queensland is growing much
faster than the region’s population. This is clearly unsustainable and our car-oriented urban development does not appear to work — for the community, business or the environment. As the region continues to grow, and as we consider what future
population can be accommodated, there are many other ways we can decouple economic growth from physical growth, for example in water supply, energy use, food production and housing and construction. The upcoming public forum on What price
growth? will certainly provide opportunity to consider this topic.

The authors’ publication, The Natural Advantage of Nations: Business Opportunities, Innovation and Governance in the 21st Century, (Earthscan) and website provide many examples of successful decoupling across government and business. The team is working on a publication, Cents and  Sustainability (to be published in 2008) outlining success stories from around the world and in Australia where business, organisations, cities and nations have achieved significant decoupling as a 20-year response to Our Common Future.

Karlson ‘‘Charlie’’ Hargroves, Michael Smith and Cheryl Desha are authors of The Natural Edge Project, hosted by Griffith University.

Courier Mail - Brisbane (14 December 2005)
Griffith University School of Environmental Engineering Lecturer Cheryl Paten has been named Engineers Australia 2005 Young Professional Engineer of the Year. The Award was for introducing sustainability concepts into the Griffith engineering curriculum and her involvement in The Natural Edge Project. This project sees young engineers and scientists supported by Engineers Australia and other environment industry sponsors to undertake environmental sustainability initiatives. Cheryl said engineers had a responsibility to adopt sustainability principles because they provided the infrastructure society needed on a daily basis - from turning on the tap in the morning to driving home on the highway in the evening.