Food Waste

This week's panel discussion with Jayantha Sellahewa and Dr Talabal Islam on food waste was certainly thought-provoking. The fact that one-third of food produced is either lost or wasted has enormous ramifications for sustainability. The economic cost - $600 annually for the average Aussie family and $5 billion across Australia - is just the tip of the iceburg (Sellahewa 2016). The two critical perspectives on food waste are the impacts associated with the production of food and those with the waste of it. While Sellahewa focused on food security and the limitations of this world to provide for a growing population as well as the energy and water inputs required in the production of food, Islam explored the economic and environmental costs of the disposal of food waste and how it might be better used (such as biogas & fertiliser).

So how do we mitigate these impacts and prevent food waste? This is a such a significant problem and there are so many levels that need to be addressed, it's by no means a simple solution.

At the production level, we can grow food locally or even domestically to reduce damage (and thus loss) during transportation, the longevity of the food in the supermarket (e.g. imported fruits use up most of their shelf-life during transportation), and restrict leftovers (as home-grown food need only be picked when required and local food can restock on a on demand basis daily).

At the distribution level, which may be one of the most difficult to tackle, we need to transform consumer attitudes and the market. Shopping for less food more often at local fruit shop or corner store over supermarkets. Being less selective on the appearance of fruit and vegetables. Reinterpreting 'best before' dates and educating consumers. And charging more for fresh fruit, vegetables, bread etc. to reflect actual value of the product and discourage consumers from wasting food.

Of course, once food reaches our households, the best solution is behavioural change. To plan meals appropriately but this is a difficult solution to implement.

At the waste level, incentivising consumers to compost their organic waste through incorporation into green bin system, provision of anaerobic digestors or community group that generates fertiliser. Charging consumers for the waste they produce may also provide powerful motivation to discourage waste production. There are, however, equity issues to be considered here for instance families with babies produce a significant amount of waste with nappies.

While there are several opportunities for waste reduction at the domestic level, restaurants, cafes, supermarkets etc are throwing out a significant amount of food every day. It's costly but their businesses are dependent on having a plentiful supply of food for their customers and they operate under strict Australian food safety regulations.

There's some good news on this front in the form of OzHarvest who market themselves as Australia's first perishable food rescue organisation. OzHarvest collects excess food from more than 2,000 commercial outlets to deliver to charities across Australia. The not for profit organisation serves to not only provide quality food for Australian's in need but is a strong advocate for food waste education, tackling the social, economic and environmental impacts of food waste in Australia.


OzHarvest 2016, accessed 29 May 2016 <http://www.ozharvest.org/what-we-do/>.

Sustainable Behaviours

In the Age of Internet, all persons with access to a computer these days has a wealth of information available to them which is highly publicised on social media addressing sustainable behaviours and pointing people in the direction of what is right. Yet still so many of us are partaking in unsustainable practices - do we know it?

All it takes is for Waleed Ally of the Project to do a story on the most controversial new issue for the Australian public to jump on board as evidenced in the latest case with the price cutting of milk and the instant backlash from the public to support Aussie farmers. Unfortunately, when it comes to the sustainable future of our cities, Waleed's stories have focused on the political powers, the governments' role in preventing climate change. Yes these stories have reached a significant audience and had a powerful influence. But Australian citizens can no longer play the blame game and sit back while we demand a more sustainable future for our country, shifting all the responsibility to the fault of our public policy. We need to take responsibility. Do shows like The Project avoid such stories because they're afraid of the response they'll receive from their viewership? Maybe negative response, maybe even decreased ratings. I cannot condemn The Project for relying on evoking passion and outrage in their responders towards the political and big business baddies however behavioural change is paramount to our future and those in the position to inspire it, refuse to step up.

One of our issues then is that all those articles informing the public of the detrimental effects of our unsustainable lifestyles, need to reach the greater population and unfortunately they're only read by those actually interested, those who are unlikely to be major contributors to the problem. How do we catch people? How do we educate? Interestingly, since starting my new job in a big company in March this year, I have been far more exposed to these kind of people, the advocates of sustainable behaviours. It's refreshing to see the articles constantly being posted on our company's social network platform and the growing support sustainable initiatives receive from these members of the building industry, those in positions to make a difference.

In this week already, two articles were shared hoping to deliver information throughout the business and help us choose more sustainable behaviours. The first was on the consumption of bottled water and the extreme levels of CO2 emitted, water used and waste produced compared to tap water. Cleverly, although delivering all the environmental sustainability facts of bottled water production and consumption, the article focused on the outrageous financial costs of bottled water to consumers at 1,000 times over the cost of production. If tonnes of CO2 and barrels of oil are incomprehensible to readers, they can certainly relate to money!

Source: Cool Australia 2016, Bottled Water, accessed 25 May 2016, <http://www.coolaustralia.org/bottled-water-secondary/>.

The second article addressed food sustainability in an anecdote on the writer's experience of giving up meat for a month. The basis of the study was veganism but, probably knowing that would have a hard time convincing the greater Australian audience, the writer expresses full vegan is not a necessity, but a focus on whole foods, locally produced and a reduction in meat consumption will have the same benefits. Similar to the water article, the writer of this journal reflects the sustainable outcomes of cutting the consumption of meat but, in this increasingly health-conscious environment, focuses on the health benefits of a vegan diet, specifically productivity.

Source: Segran, E 2016, 'How Giving Up Meat For a Month Improved My Productivity', Fast Company, 12 May 2016, accessed 24 May 2016, <http://www.fastcompany.com/3059731/your-most-productive-self/how-giving-up-meat-for-a-month-improved-my-productivity?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fast-company-weekly-newsletter&position=4&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=05202016>.

Global knowledge of sustainable behaviours is growing and not only is this information becoming more available to an increasing number of people, it is becoming more 'in-your-face'. The public won't be able to avoid their responsibilities in the sustainable future of our world for much longer and it is our responsibility, as the informed population, to continue sharing this information, to reach the wider population quicker and ensure the information being published and shared is accurate. 

Sustainability Education

I find myself revisiting the sustainability initiatives of Penrith City Council again this week after coming across their "What's On" section where it's clear that educating their residents on sustainability is a key goal for the local government area. Their May initiative involves "sustainable living workshops" held every weekend from the 15th May to the 4th June, providing free courses for locals to learn some fantastic opportunities for sustainable solutions in the home. Workshops being provided equip with home-owners with all the background knowledge to keep chooks in the backyard, install solar power on their roof, grow their own vegetables, fertilise their garden and control pests naturally, and pickle and preserve their own produce. All these courses present opportunities for reducing expenses and improving health and wellbeing within the home in addition to the greater environmental contributions and even promote socialisation in the community. 

Source: Penrith City Council 2016, Sustainable Living Workshops, accessed 23 May 2016, <https://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/What-s-On/EventCategory/Classes-and-workshops/Sustainable-living-workshops/>.

Penrith City Council's June initiative is a single event, a free festival held for families with live performances and displays and a central focus of promoting diversion of waste from landfill. This event is particularly clever as it integrates the fun, social activity of a festival with sustainability objectives, enabling the message to be delivered to a wider group of people and associating sustainable waste management with positivity. Sustainability education directed at families is a useful mode of delivery. People are most strongly influenced by the environment around them rather than their own will power so it takes the collective force of a family to create change in the household. Children are far more impressionable than adults and are a great source of encouragement and  a reminder for their parents, who can resort to habitual behaviours. 

Source: Penrith City Council 2016, Waste Not Free Family Festival, accessed 23 May 2016, <https://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/What-s-On/EventCategory/Family-events/Waste-Not-Free-Family-Festival/>.

People are the heart of sustainability. They are not only the source of the issue but the whole purpose of sustainable development - to improve the quality of life for now and the future. So bringing the responsibility back to the people has the most obvious potential for a sustainable future. Not by putting the blame on them but by educating them, enabling them, to make the best decisions possible for the future of their society, their economy, their environment. 

Virtual Reality

With smart cities on the mind as a basis for so many of the developments and decisions relating to sustainable development today, it is not surprising that we're seeing more and more virtual reality. Whether it is because virtual cities are the epitome of smart cities or because virtual reality is a tool for realising our utopia, our ideal smart city, there is no shaking the incredible development in this field - a technology which allows us to see ourselves surrounded by technology. 

The video below allows us to imagine a world where we  become the smart phone and connect in with the city, seeing all the systems around us. 

Source: Matsuda, K 2016, Hyper-Reality, 19 May 2016, accessed 19 May 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs>.

This world presents us with something more than virtual reality, a 'hyper-reality' as described to us by the author. Where we not only see an enhanced version of the world around us but can interact with it. Buildings, infrastructure, even people project a code to the system enabling users of the system to identify every element and then an intelligent computer system provides the user with possible responses to the stimulus it receives. What is particularly strange about this hyper reality is that is hasn't actually changed the way the citizens in this imagined world do things, it has simply made them easier to do. The user still has to go to the shop to buy groceries and motor vehicles still litter the busy streets. And when the system is corrupted, the world around the user appears completely unchanged from how we know it today. Digitisation of the city's components and its people hasn't made the city a better place for the people, it has reduced them to a code in the greater system, it has robbed them of their identity. And, touching on the privacy issues related to big data collection, it was so easy for a hacker to steal the created identity of this woman. 

It may seem now to be an exaggerated portrayal of the future of smart cities, but the recognisable integration of ideas from social media platforms and smart phone apps along with the excessive advertising makes this portrayal seem all too real. It is not entirely far-fetched and it touches on some of the very real issues with the integration of information and communication technologies in our cities today.

Resilient Cities Recover Faster

This week David Sanderson from UNSW's Faculty of the Built Environment presented a fascinating lecture on the subject of disaster recovery in cities. 'Resilience' is a relatively new new term to the sustainable built environment diction. It comes as a response to climate change in which we are seeing increased frequency of severe weather events such as flooding and heat waves and increased severity of 'natural' disasters. Sanderson actively avoids use of the term 'natural' when referring to these disasters due to the significant influence of man-made contributions to the overall event and outcome. It is resilience, a city or building's ability to cope with and bounce back from disaster, that we see increasingly used in place of sustainability.
Through much of his own work in not-for-profit disaster relief, Sanderson relays a strong relationship between the social and economic sustainability of a city to its resilience, ability to recover from environmental disaster. Of course, a city's wealth is not the only determinant in its resilience to and from disaster but it is probably the best indicator.
Sanderson compares an earthquake in Japan, one of the most disaster prone countries in the world but also one of the most prepared, to the earthquake in Haiti, six years ago. In Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, hundreds of thousands were killed and 400,000 still live in tents following the 2010 earthquake.

Images: Hazelton, L 2010, 'Haiti earthquake in pictures: Shell-shocked survivors roam streets scavenging for scaps', Daily Mail Australia, 16 January 2010, accessed 16 May 2016, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243540/Haiti-earthquake-pictures-Shell-shocked-survivors-roam-streets-scavenging-scraps.html>.

The impact of the disaster and the ability of the city to recover from it are influenced by the scale of the disaster, the preparedness of the city, the city's governance and inherent corruption, poor quality infrastructure and masterplanning and of course poverty, especially concentrated poverty. Poorly planned, poorly built, unprepared and corrupt cities, aching with poverty, cannot recover from disaster of this scale and severity.

But what about cities that can? What does a resilient city look like?  As resilience has become more and more part of sustainability discourse in the built environment, we see the literature unraveling on this. And of course, out come the lists - 'The 10 Most Resilient Cities in the World'. Whilst they tend to be a little North-American-centric, the way the rankings are calculated is really solid and gives a strong idea of the major factors that contribute to a city's overall resilience. This is based on a combination of the city's "Vulnerability" score and their "Adaptive Capacity". Vulnerability is based on the categories of climate, environment, resources (including access to food, energy and water), infrastructure and community. It is not surprising that Canadian cities claim the top three positions on this list, as one of the most adaptable countries on the planet with strong sustainability inclinations, sound governance and economic prosperity, stable climatic conditions and low disaster risk. Pictured below is Toronto, ranked number one resilient city in the world.

Image: Schiller, B 2014, 'The 10 Most Resilient Cities in the World', Co.Exist, 5 May 2014, accessed 16 May 2016, <http://www.fastcoexist.com/3029442/the-10-most-resilient-cities-in-the-world?utm_source=facebook>.

Tackling Climate Change with Land Use Planning

Amidst all the recent discussions around resilience, the proactive role of action on climate change cannot be forgotten. And for Emily Wier and Alisa Zomer, the role played by land use planning in a city's defense against climate change is a critical one.

Above zoning ad behavioural-based policies, Wier and Zomer identify transportation planning at the single most effective tool available to cities to mitigate emissions associated with urban form. In the U.S., transportation contributes to nearly one third of carbon emissions and up to more than 50% of all emissions in some cities. Unfortunately while many cities are reducing their carbon emissions, transport-related emissions continue to increase in many cities. Weir and Zomer identify provision of a rail system, commuting distances, connectivity of transit options and a planned mix of commercial and residential development as contributing factors in a city's total transport emissions. Transport planning needs to be addressed on two fronts. The first is through promotion of alternative modes of transport through the provision of public transport to reduce the reliance on private motor vehicles. Secondly, by reducing the physical distance required for residents to commute through smart land use planning. 

The article highlights a number of methods that can be utilised to help achieve better land use planning to reduce carbon emissions. These include:

* Provision of bicycle lanes

* Electric vehicle charging stations

* Bike and car sharing programs

* Zoning to encourage housing and jobs in close proximity

* Setting clear goals and tracking progress toward these

* Linking policies to mitigation measures

* Making data transparent and available to the public

Macquarie Park Station

Source: Ing, D 2010, 'Sydney-Macquarie Park: planes, trains and buses', Blog: Distractions, Reflections, 31 July 2010, accessed 12 May 2016, <http://daviding.com/blog/index.php/archive/yyz-yvr-sydney-macquarie-park-planes-trains-and-buses/>.

Thinking all the way back to Tone Wheeler's lecture in week 2, all of Sydney's smart solutions and climate change action plans will be useless if we don't first tackle the serious problem of poor land use planning inherent in rapid urban sprawl. Very little of the new suburbs being created in Sydney's far west are supporting the principles of sustainable transport plans listed above. They are not providing public transport infrastructure or bicycle lanes nor are they accommodating a variety of uses to allow job opportunities nearby the residential development. No matter how many "zero-carbon" buildings we build, emissions associated with our transport is only growing and the land use planning solutions required to put an end to this need to be implemented fast. 

Source: Wier, E & Zomer, A 2016, 'Land Use Planning: The Critical Part of Climate Action Plans that Most Cities Miss', The Nature of Cities, 13 March 2016, accessed 12 May 2016, <http://www.thenatureofcities.com/2016/03/13/land-use-planning-the-critical-part-of-climate-action-plans-that-most-cities-miss/>.

Living Walls

Green infrastructure is such an essential part of sustainable urbanism, reducing CO2 levels, improving air quality, providing locally-sourced foods and improving physical and psychological wellbeing. But green roofs are not the only possibility for providing green infrastructure in urban environments, more and more we see green appearing on the walls of our buildings. Not only this, but green infrastructure does not need to exist exclusively in our external environments - we spend almost all our time inside so indoor plants present far greater potential for reducing internal carbon dioxide levels, increasing productivity at work, and the close proximity allows us to touch and smell  and feel more connected to nature when indoors, promoting good health and positive feelings. 

That is why this product which appeared on my newsfeed this week was a particularly exciting find.

Source: Verde Vertical 2015, Plug & Plant, accessed 8 May, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmOVa5Mq9Z8>.

This new design by Vertical Green combines living walls with smart technology to deliver an extremely simple indoor planting system that can be used by anyone anywhere. Not only is the system incredibly easy to install at whatever scale is desired by the user, but requires minimal maintenance which is one of the biggest issues for green walls today both limiting successful outcomes and causing significant financial costs. This system monitors moisture, light levels and temperature and using a smart data collection and sharing technology, sends this information to an application on the user's smartphone so they can monitor levels and ensure conditions are appropriate for the plants. This not only enables users with next to no understanding of growing plants to grow their own indoor plants (on walls, saving space no less!) but also reminds the user to take care of the plants as required ensuring successful growth. One of the later images shown in the video of a woman picking a sprig of herbs direct from her vertical green to add straight to her cooking really sums up for me the brilliant possibilities of this system. Imagine people who live in apartments being able to pick ingredients as local as they come without even having to leave the kitchen - this is the future of sustainable urban environments. 

Green Roofs

With green infrastructure the topic of this week's discussion, it's fitting that France has just passed a new law mandating all new rooftops to be topped with plants or solar panels. In an article releasing this news, sustainable food production and consumption advocacy group, Eat Local Grown (2016) relays the many benefits of green roofs. From passive thermal control, reducing heating and cooling energy demands, to stormwater control and habitat provision for native birds, green roofs are a comprehensive sustainable solution for urban environments. French environmental activists were advocating for a green roofing law to be passed however the inclusion of solar panels enables versatility and selectivity for the end user. This law was passed seven years ago in Toronto for all new industrial and residential buildings.

Image: Eat Local Grown 2016, France Declares All New Rooftops Must Be Topped With Plants Or Solar Panels, accessed 5 May 2016, <http://eatlocalgrown.com/article/14358-france-rooftops-plants-or-solar.html>.

Green roofs are a relatively inexpensive solution to the urban heat island effect, provision of open green space, locally grown food and are aesthetically pleasing to the eye in addition to improving air quality and reducing heating and cooling energy demand in buildings. 

With other countries catching onto the many benefits of green roofs, now is the time for Australia to enhance its own green infrastructure and realise the economic, social and environmental benefits that come with it. The study of Biophilia, human beings innate connection with nature, is now strongly embraced in the discourse of the sustainable built environment and there is abundant evidence that a visual connection with plants improves physical and mental wellbeing. So, in addition to all of the above, not only does greenery make people generally feel good, it actually contributes to increased recovery times and improves health. There is no longer an excuse to be wasting perfectly good roof space and more and more as we find better alternatives for vertical planting, there will be no excuse for wasting facades. Can we transform our buildings and eventually our cities and grow back the greenery destroyed in their construction? It's time we bring new meaning to the term 'urban jungle'.

ADDIT:

But maybe a greener future in our cities isn't as far away for Sydney as we think. This week, while working on a project in Penrith City Council area, I was scrolling through their DCP and was excited to come across a two-page section after their landscaping requirements promoting installment of green roofs and roof gardens. This section provided basic technical information to assist developers in the installation of green roofs as well as a comprehensive list and explanation on the many benefits offered by green roofs. The inclusion of this section in the DCP will surely encourage developers to consider green roofs or roof gardens as a landscaping option. Here's hoping that many other local councils are also advocating green roofs in their DCP's!

Source: Penrith City Council 2014, Development Control Plan

Urban Heat Island

Tonight, in a lecture on Urban Microclimate, Jonathan Fox expressed the concept of Urban Heat Island to us as an equation. In his explanation, Jonathan put forth the very interesting suggestion of a relationship between Urban Heat Island and the ageing population. Whilst my mind immediately made the link that significant climatic differentiation in urban areas was particularly dangerous for the elderly who are particularly susceptible to the heat, Jonathan went on to explain that the elderly, being more highly affected by the heat, are more reliant on mechanical heating and cooling and thus likely contributing to the heat island effect even more.

The contribution of mechanical heating and cooling to the urban heat island was illustrated in a graph which highlighted HVAC use as the perpetrator of 40% of our total energy usage.

The close but not identical nature of my first thought as compared to Jonathan’s explanation got me thinking further. Urban Heat Island is not an equation. It is a cycle. This means that the tools we use to mitigate the symptoms** of Urban Heat Island in fact contribute to and worsen the problem. This is not good. As our surroundings get hotter, more stuffy and more polluted, we rely on air conditioning more and more to improve the temperature, flow and quality of the air inside our buildings. Unfortunately, air-conditioning units emit CO2 and heat to the air immediately outside our buildings, increasing our reliance upon them. Hot and dirty city air not only makes us uncomfortable, it makes us sick. Obviously the best defence against urban heat island is the incorporation of green surfaces in our cities.

Chua, G & Hadley, E 2014, 'Sydney tower named world's 'Best Tall Building' by CTBUH', Architecture & Design, November 2014, accessed 2 May 2016, <http://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/news/one-central-park-sydney-named-the-world-s-best-tal>.

Hopefully this is just the beginning and we see our buildings start to move from the now very overused and rarely accurate term ‘green’ to a more literal interpretation, physically covered in greenery. Unfortunately, introducing greenery can only come slowly and it has limitations. More immediately, we need to stop the everyday air-conditioner. There are so many alternatives out there now. Evaporative cooling, trigeneration, chilled beams. Many examples of passive thermal design in which no active cooling system is required at all sans for maybe a simple fan.

Unfortunately HVAC is not our only heat source in the city. And a big one is producing even more heat and pollution and odorous fumes. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of jumping out of plane in a foreign city to be overwhelmed (and sickened) by the city smell. Despite travelling to some pretty dense parts of Asia, I remember this most vividly upon arrival in Los Angeles - one of the most car-dependent cities in the world. The fumes and heat generated by all that traffic was unbearable.

Groves, M 2013 'Elon Musk hates 405 Freeway traffic, offers money to speed widening', Los Angeles Times, 25 April 2013, accessed 2 May 2016, <http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/25/local/la-me-ln-elon-musk-405-freeway-20130425>.

Interestingly enough, the 2013 article written by Martha Groves from which this image was grabbed discusses the need for further road-widening due to major traffic problems in LA. Unfortunately it seems LA is stuck in its own cycle - it has been developed so entirely around cars that residents rely totally on cars and thus, road infrastructure needs to further developed, further cutting out the place for public transport within their system.

Phasing out cars from our cities would be hugely beneficial to mitigating the urban heat island due to its triple-fold outcome. Firstly, in that the impact of a significant generator of heat, air pollutants and greenhouse gases would be lessened. Secondly, moving people outside reduces their dependence on a controlled, air-conditioned environment and we would undoubtedly see behavioural change within our buildings as an outcome. And finally, that there would be less need for roads and thus smaller surface area of a particularly high-heat emitting surface.