Greetings to the teams and supports of TNEP

Welcome to the 14th update from the secretariat of The Natural Edge Project. It has been some time since our last update and we hope that you enjoy this summary of the exciting projects and initiatives we’ve been working on over the last 12 months. As you can see we are using a new format for the updates, please let us know if we still have teething problems to sort out. The Natural Edge Project web site is now visited by an average of 20,000 individuals a month. Hence in this latest update we provide a succinct overview of the history of the project, especially for those who are new to the our work, before summarizing TNEP’s latest news.

One of the defining moments in the creation of The Natural Edge Project took place on a beautiful Spring afternoon on the balcony at the refectory at ANU back in mid 2002. Mike and I were first getting to know each other (after recently being introduced by mutual friend James Moody), and we were talking about our professional interests and the types of things we might be able to work on together. It became clear very quickly that we agreed on many issues and the ones we didn’t we managed to help each other understand our positions and enhance our own understanding. Throughout the conversation an idea emerged, an idea that would unify our commitment, passion and motivation for sustainable development. The idea was to build a core team supported by a network to create and bring together information to help society to become more sustainable, and thus TNEP was born. With Nick and Cheryl joining us shortly after, our team was ready. We now look back after four years and see that we have been truly blessed by the enormous support our team has received from our many partners and mentors. We have achieved far more than we had dared dream sitting out on that balcony in the sun drinking strawberry milk, and the most exciting part is that we have barely scratched the surface of ours and our partners potential contribution to society.

Within two months of this conversation we began the development of the book, The Natural Advantage of Nations, taking a three year collaborative effort with over 70 partners and a greater number of mentors, contributors and co-authors. As the flagship of our project it helped us to understand the range of activities and initiatives that our team could focus on to best suit our talents and contribute to society. Building on our strength, being three engineers and a scientist, the second major initiative of the project was the Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program (ESSP). The ESSP was initiated in 2004 through the development of the first of the two portfolios of the program, the ESSP Critical Literacies Portfolio, a project that would prove to again be a three year commitment involving a range of partners and mentors to develop 12 semester long courses.

The development of the ESSP Critical Literacies Portfolio started with an introductory module in early 2004 that was supported by a grant from the Institution of Engineers Australia. After 12 months of development and two semesters of trials with 17 universities and 3 TAFE’s, the introductory module morphed into two semester equivalent courses, ‘Engineering Sustainable Solutions 1’ and ‘Designing Sustainable Cities 1’, both courses later being accredited as subjects in the RMIT Master of Sustainable Practice. 2006 saw a focus first on delivery of the course material (with partners such as Engineers Australia, Townsville City Council, Qld EPA, Sustainable Living Tasmania, Young Engineers Australia, Hatch Engineering, Engineering Education Australia, RMIT and Griffith University), and also the incorporation of the material in to courses and guest lectures (with partners QUT, Griffith University, UniSA, Adelaide University, Flinders University and RMIT). Based on our experiences teaching the material, the final review of the two courses was recently completed. Both courses are now complete and will shortly find their home on our website as an open-source resource for universities, companies and individuals seeking to gain some of the emerging critical literacies required to practice sustainable engineering and urban design in the coming decades.

While developing the introductory courses we were again thinking ahead and by the end of 2004 we had secured additional grants to develop the ten remaining semester equivalent courses to complete the ESSP Critical Literacies Portfolio. Grants were received from Engineers Australia, through the College of Environmental Engineers and the Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering (formerly the Environmental Engineering Society) and the Natural Science Sector of UNESCO in Paris. After 12 months of development, six months of review by expert advisors and a six month detailed internal review and revamp, the courses are in their final stages of development. The full package will provide curriculum material to assist in an acceleration of sustainability related curriculum being incorporated into engineering education and training.

By mid 2005 the ESSP Critical Literacies Portfolio was well on its way and it was time to focus on the second of the two portfolios, the ESSP Design Principles Portfolio, to focus on providing worked calculations of design principles applied across a range of sectors in four themes. The second portfolio again has twelve courses with three each on the themes of Whole System Design, Eco- Efficiency and Resource Productivity, Green Engineering and Chemistry, and Design Inspired by Nature (Biomimicry). In mid 2005 and again in 2006 we secured grants from the Australian Federal Department of Environment and Heritage (DEH) under the Environmental Education Grants Program to develop the three Whole Systems Design courses that will be open source. We currently seek to have the remaining 9 courses funded for development in 2007.

The 2005/06 financial year started on a high for our team after winning the Banksia Award for the book and the first of the courses outlined above and I had returned from a 12 month secondment to the University of Colorado, Boulder while working with Hunter Lovins. July and August were very quiet and we took the opportunity to rebuild our internal processes and re-establish relations with our partners. Our first major engagement came through collaboration with the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering at QUT with Martin Betts, Susan Savage and Glenn Thomas to assist them to conceive, scope and deliver a first year course for all students in the faculty that is currently being delivered to over 800 students. In order to enhance our research and education material our team partnered with a range of consulting associates. While working with Philip Toyne from EcoFutures we assisted in the development of the Australian Plantation Products and Paper Council’s A3P Sustainability Action Plan which was launched at the 2006 National Business Leaders Forum for Sustainable Development. With newcomer Sustainable Business Practices, led by Dan Atkins, our team worked on projects with Santos, SA Water and the SA Government. Other consulting work included the development of indicator sets for industry parks for VicUrban; advising engineering firms such as Pitt and Sherry and KBR; writing articles for CSIRO ECOS; and building curriculum for RMIT and UniSA.

Our team would like to thank you all for your ongoing support for our work and we look forward to continuing to aspire to making a real contribution to our society over the coming years.