​At our first session in August the Sustainability Group revisited Treasury's new take on measuring how Australia is going; called the Wellbeing budget. This approach is the same as addressing sustainability. The wellbeing budget, as with indicators measuring progress across environmental, social and economic sectors. Only when we achieve sustainability in all three sectors is true sustainability/wellbeing achieved. The wellbeing budget is a first attempt at moving budget measures away from purely the economic elements (usually measured by Gross Domestic product per capita) to establishing measures, targets and policies across the three primary elements mentioned above. This approach still has some way to go in its development but starting down the community wellbeing path is an achievement in itself.

At our second session we had free flowing discussions based on a number of recent articles including one debunking extremist comments that the north Atlantic Gulf Stream (which keeps western Europe warm) will collapse in 2025. Another concerned threats to wildlife which occupy niche habitats in alpine Australia and have nowhere to migrate to in a warming climate and another reporting on a local scheme in the Goulburn Valley to establish a community based solar energy farm and battery. 


​John Lane

At the sustainability group sessions in July we covered a wide range of issues. At our first session we focussed on household energy savings tips; mostly common-sense ideas such as using LED lighting, turning down our heating thermostats in winter and turning our cooling thermostats up in summer; don't heat or cool rooms that are not being used; using ceiling fans in summer; shorter showers, and more. Tips can be found here . We also briefly considered Australia's former Chief Scientist's (Ian Finkel) new book setting out what needs to be done to transition to a sustainable energy future - a formidable, but not impossible, task according to him.

Our second session was more of a free-for-all discussion about a range of issues including Australia's waste and recycling problem, particularly for those 'soft' plastics that we used to be able to drop off at supermarkets.  We also discussed a number of videos and articles on a wide range of topics from sustainable flying, to Sweden's new battery mega factory - a first for Europe, to the northern hemisphere's summer of climate-related woes, and others. 

​John Lane

Click on the post - or - go directly to this link!  ​https://haveyoursay.benalla.vic.gov.au/climate-and-environment-strategy

At the first Sustainability Group meeting in May we discussed a wide range of items based on news and other media. Neville had found a great video of an 'accidental' bush rehabilitation project which resulted from the illegal dumping of 12,000 tonnes of orange peels in Costa Rica. Informative and amusing.

At our second session we looked at the Australian Government's ongoing development of its community well-being measures which are intended to provide a better way to determine the overall sustainability of our country rather than just relying on the traditional economic or dollar-based measures such as gross domestic product. We also watched a video on the development of geothermal-based electricity generation that can essentially be installed anywhere based on new 'closed-loop' boring technology. A replacement for base-load electricity generators which, in Australia, are reliant on fossil fuels. 
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John Lane

At our session on Friday 21 April at 10 am we will take a look at one of the proposed new gas fields; Beetaloo in the NT. With the Government's new 'safeguard' measures in place, any high greenhouse gas emitter will need to reduce their emissions. New projects may find this particularly tough. By coincidence CSIRO has assessed how the Beetaloo project might be able to reach net zero GHG emissions from the start; but it will cost!          

This will be our main topic but there's still plenty of other topics to cover. I've attached links to some articles which you may find of interest in an email sent to class members today.   

​John Lane

At our first session in March the Sustainability group looked at the review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The EPBC Act is the federal government's primary legislation for protecting matters of national environmental significance. These range from protected species and vegetation communities and places such as World Heritage Areas (such as Melbourne's Exhibition Building and Kakadu), amongst others. The review, which was completed in 2019, found the legislation was not working. The condition of all the things that are meant to be protected are declining and continue to decline, particularly those matters in the natural environment. The federal government has responded proposing new legislation. This is to be based on a series of principles including, specific standards for matters of National Environmental Significance against which all decisions will be judged, First Nations engagement and participation in decision making, community engagement and consultation, regional planning and environmental offsets. The new legislation will be available for consultation purposes around the middle of 2023.
​
At our second session, group members raised items of interest to them for the group to consider. Len ran a video and went through other material concerning the problem of carp in our waterways - he was keen to recruit us to the 'carp haters' collective! Other issues discussed included the importance of trees in cooling urban areas and a wacky idea of blowing dust of the moon to provide a 'sunshade' for the earth to limit atmospheric heating.

John Lane

The Sustainability group kicked off the year on 3 February with a quick review of the issues we covered last year including reminding ourselves of what true sustainability means, being where we achieve sustainability across the three intersecting areas of the economy, society and the environment. We then discussed an article written by Valclav Smil who suggested nine things that would make the world a better place. It was quite a diverse list from a universal vaccine precursor, a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, self cleaning photo-voltaic paint through to a global sunshade.

In our second session on 17 February we had the first of our new look sessions where group members bring along issues or articles and lead discussions about the issues raised.  Among the issues discussed was a recent article demonstrating how far we actually have come in reducing carbon dioxide emissions globally and that the dire predictions of climate change of the early 2010s are no longer feasible. Additionally we discussed the review of the Federal government's carbon offsets scheme and the report on it by a former Chief Scientist, Ian Chubb, who found that not all was rosy in the offsets garden. The government is currently implementing his recommendations.

​John Lane

Over several sessions during the year, we had discussed alternative systems of measuring 'progress' beyond the dollar focussed gross domestic product (GDP).  We looked at examples of measuring 'progress' across all sustainability sectors, environment, society and economics - often referred to as 'community well-being'.  In our first session in November, we briefly returned to the community well-being issue as the federal Treasurer had promised community well-being measures in his budget.  There wasn't much except a budget statement discussing the concept and a promise that government would release a community well-being framework in 2023.

We spent most of this session looking at projected impacts of climate change with regard to coastal hazards and what some councils have been doing to prepare their communities for the possible long-term impacts. In doing so, we looked at what constitute coastal hazards and how warming sea temperatures and sea level rise will increase these hazards.

At our second November session, we took a look at the use of biogas/bioenergy, the processes to produce it (methane) and why, unlike fossil fuel sourced gas (also methane), it is considered a renewable source of energy.  The Federal govt released a 'roadmap' in late 2021 to ramp up this industry.  While biogas is still methane and therefore produces CO2 and water when burnt, its recognition as renewable energy means it is considered a good transition fuel, compared to fossil fuel gas, and possibly has a long-term future in areas where it is difficult to replace gas/liquid fuel, such as in aviation.

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John Lane

No meeting this week, but I see CSIRO's most recent ECOS magazine features 'resilience'. You might like some/all the articles. You can access the magazine at:
https://www.csiro.au/Newsletters/ECOS/2022-10 

​John

We will be meeting again this coming Friday 4 November at 10:00 am. I propose we briefly return to the community well-being issue to see what was in the budget (briefly because there is not much!).

Then I'd like to take you through the projected impacts of climate change with regard to coastal hazards and what some councils have been doing to prepare their communities for the possible long-term impacts.

John

PS:  you might like the attached articles on extreme weather from a recent New Scientist journal.

At the first Sustainability group meeting in October, we heard from Cr Danny Claridge about the upcoming review of Council's environment and climate change adaptation plans. These plans were first prepared around 2013 and Danny suggested they were in need of substantial review. He indicated that staff working on the review would be keen to hear directly from people as the redrafting was proceeding.

At our second meeting we talked about the concept of 'community wellbeing' which has been in the news of late as the Federal Treasurer has mentioned that some principles and measures were to be included in the Australian budget. We noted that Community well-being is essentially the same as the sustainability concept. We looked at the ACT's community well-being framework and how it linked to their budget and noted some other places (NZ, Scotland and Bhutan) had already gone down this path.
​
John Lane

Reading:  ​https://www.act.gov.au/wellbeing/explore-overall-wellbeing

Next Tuesday, the Federal Government will bring down it's first budget since being elected. The Treasurer has announced that the budget will include some community well-being measures in addition to the using gross domestic product as the measure of our country's 'progress'. We don't know yet what community well-being measures will be included or what funding will be directed at programs to achieve these measures.

Now we have talked generally about this before, but at this session I'd like to pose the question, has the concept of community well-being killed of sustainability as a concept? The following link to an article from The Conversation provides a little background.

Looking forward to seeing you on Friday, 21 October at 10:00 am.

Regards

John

https://theconversation.com/wellbeing-its-why-labors-first-budget-will-have-more-rigour-than-any-before-it-187160

Cr Danny Claridge met with the group at our session on 7 October 2022 to discuss changes to the Climate Change Adaptation Plan and Environment Plan. 
 
Key points he made were:

• Both policies under review at present along with the City Community Plan
• He expects the reviews will result in effectively new plans, rather than just updates
• Staff will be preparing drafts with these going to council before public release for general public review/comment
• Public submissions will be considered by council along with any changes to the draft.
• Finalised draft will then be adopted by council
• Danny is looking for initial ideas on how to make these plans better documents with relevant policies/action
• He suggested we could contact the council staff doing the work (Bronwyn Chapman and Nathan ?) to put ideas forward while the plans are in their formative stages of preparation

 
A number of other issues were raised in a Q&A session. These included;

• Danny was negative to the idea of council sponsoring a community power hub. He thinks there may be technical issues with the network that would mitigate against it. 
• But he indicated that council is part of Municipal Association of Victoria’s bulk power purchase scheme (available only for council’s own power purchases)
• Council can only encourage sustainable subdivision design as there are no state planning controls requiring developers to apply sustainability criteria when designing their subdivisions
• Danny advised that the new local government act requires councils to adopt circular economy principles
• Council considering a tip shop and repair cafe at the new waste transfer station
• Council feels it has limited capacity/expertise fully enforce the state vegetation clearing regulations but will investigate if clearing actions are brought to their notice. He mentioned a number of exemptions in these regulations relating to regrowth and planted vegetation make compliance difficult

 

John Lane

A reminder that we'll have Cr Danny Claridge join us on Friday 7 October to talk about the planned review of Benalla's Climate Change Adaptation and Environment plans.

For your pre-reading, here are the links to the action tables from each plan:

Benalla Climate Change Adaptation Plan - Action Table
​Benalla Environment Plan - Action Table 

I hope you can find your areas of interest and that you have your questions and comments ready.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Friday.

John Lane

At our first meeting in September, the Sustainability group looked to the 'stars'. Did you know that the minimum sustainability/energy saving standards for new houses and some renovations in most of Australia is 6 Stars (out of 10). In Victoria this is soon to rise to 7.  At the session we had a look at the rules and recommendations for achieving housing sustainability across a number of issues from climate, lot size & orientation, house orientation, passive house design, energy and water use and long-term liveability and adaptability. We also looked at some examples of houses that have achieved 8 and even nearly 10 stars.

At our second session in September, we looked at the Federal Government Emissions Reduction Fund, the current primary policy the government uses to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from various sectors/industries.   In particular, we looked at several of the prescribed 'methods' the government allows to achieve GHG abatement (such as increasing soil carbon).

At our next session on Friday 7th of October at 10 am, we will have Cr Danny Claridge talking to us about the council's upcoming review of Benalla's Environment and Climate Change Adaptation plans. 
​
John Lane

At this Friday's session at 10 am we will look at the Federal Government Emissions Reduction Fund, the current primary policy instrument the government uses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from various sectors/industries.

​In particular I thought we could have a look at several of the prescribed 'methods' the government allows to achieve GHG abatement (such as increasing soil carbon). If you want to do some preliminary reading I suggest you check out the relevant website (https://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/ERF/About-the-Emissions-Reduction-Fund)

Also, as this is the last session before we have Cr Danny Claridge join us to discuss the council's revision of their (our) environment and climate change adaptation plans, I thought we could have a look at the primary targets/actions of the current plans. Here again are the links to these:

Climate change adaptation plan: https://www.benalla.vic.gov.au/Your-Council/Council-Documents/Other-Plans-Strategies/Climate-Change-Adaptation-plan#:~:text=How%20does%20the%20adaptation%20action,after%20eight%20years%20(2021).

Environment plan: https://www.benalla.vic.gov.au/Your-Council/Council-Documents/Other-Plans-Strategies/Environment-Strategy


John

As some will know, Cr Danny Claridge will be attending our session on 7 October to talk about the upcoming review of Council's environment and climate adaptation plans. Following are links to the current versions of the plan. Don't be put off by the words, I suggest you find the table of actions and focus on these.

Attached is a template that council has asked to be completed so that Cr Claridge has more of an idea of what we will want him to talk about. Could I ask that you have a look at the current plans and add your suggestions to the template. I need to get this away to council so could I please put a deadline on this of next Monday.

Benalla City’s Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan: https://www.benalla.vic.gov.au/Your-Council/Council-Documents/Other-Plans-Strategies/Climate-Change-Adaptation-plan

Benalla City’s environment plan: https://www.benalla.vic.gov.au/Your-Council/Council-Documents/Other-Plans-Strategies/Environment-Strategy 

PS: these links take you to the relevant council web pages where you can download PDF files of the plans.

John

​We've had several questions over time about how heat pumps work; these are used for more efficient heating/cooling (split system air conditioners), hot water systems and refrigerators. I've just come across an article from ABC news online which provides an explanation:   

Alan Pears "Heat pumps can cut your energy costs by up to 90 per cent. It's not magic, just a smart use of the laws of physics"  ABC News, September 8, 2022. The article first appeared on The Conversation.  

​Alan Pears is a senior industry fellow at RMIT University and advises the Australian alliance for Productivity and Energy Efficiency Council and others on heat pumps.  =

Regards

John

Did you know that the minimum sustainability/energy saving standards for new houses and some renovations in most of Australia is 6 Star (out of 10).
 
But what does this mean?
 
At this session we will have a look at the rules and recommendations for achieving housing sustainability across a number of issues from climate, lot size & orientation, house orientation, passive house design, energy and water use and long-term livability and adaptability.
 
I’ve also previously mentioned that Benalla Council has budgeted for an update of its environment and climate change adaptation plans. I’ve contacted council to see if I can get someone to talk to us about these pieces of work at some future date, but in the meantime we can have a look at the existing plans and perhaps identify changes we think might be worthwhile.
 
I’ve also included below a link to a recent ABC online news article about the next Commonwealth budget including some non-economic (wellness) indicators.
 
Links
 
Sustainable house design case studies (Aust Govt): https://www.yourhome.gov.au/case-studies
 
Benalla City’s Climate Change Adaptation Action Plan: file:///C:/Users/lane_/Downloads/INFORMATION-Final-Climate-Chanage-Adaptation-Action-Plan-FINAL-15112012%20(1).pdf
 
Benalla City’s environment plan: file:///C:/Users/lane_/Downloads/document-Environment_Strategy_2016_20.pdf
 
ABC News 29 Aug 22 – GDP v Wellness: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-29/can-you-tax-tears-gdp-on-the-way-out-wellbeing-budgets/101380286
 
 
John Lane
Convenor

At the Sustainability Group's first session in August, we discussed the findings of two recently released Australian government periodic reports which provide updates on issues we have previously discussed.  These are the CSIRO ‘mega-trends’ report, which was first published in 2012, and the Environment department's 2021 edition of its State of the Environment report (generally published every five years).  In the CSIRO's view there are two key new mega-trends that did not feature in its 2012 report; the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change and significant changes to the geo-political environment in the Indo-Pacific region.  With the state of the environment report there was a general trend downwards in almost all categories which include 12 issues such as Antarctica and air quality through to marine and urban environments.

At our second session we took a dive into options to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  This is predicated on the expectation that achieving 'net zero' greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 only deals with emissions being produced today.  But if we want to return atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations to levels to that which existed around the beginning of the industrial revolution, then we need to come up with techniques that remove large volumes of carbon dioxide from the air.  We looked at a variety of nature-based and 'mechanical' means of removing carbon dioxide from the air and either turning the carbon component into long-lived products (such as concrete), burying the gas in stable geological structures or improving the environment (such as increasing soil carbon).
​
John Lane

This Friday we have another Sustainability Group Session.

I thought that this week we could consider in more depth an issue that has briefly been part of previous discussions; carbon capture from the atmosphere.

We know that while the transition to renewable electrical power generation, together with the 'electrification of everything', is the main game, particularly in the short to medium term, there will be still some types of carbon emissions that won't be able to be 'electrified'. In addition, with the slower than needed reduction in emissions globally, removing carbon from the atmosphere is likely to be required in the medium to long term to eventually bring atmospheric carbon levels back to near pre-industrial times or some other satisfactory level. The need for carbon removal as part of the package of actions has been acknowledged in the recent IPCC working group 3 report.

Here's an information sheet on carbon capture generally for pre class reading, but at our session I'd like to discuss the pros and cons of the variety of carbon capture methods. These include:

• Agroforestry
• Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage
• Biochar
• Blue carbon
• Direct air capture
• Enhanced mineralisation
• Forestation
• Mass timber
• Ocean alkalinisation
• Soil carbon sequestration

Look forward to seeing you all on Friday.


John

Web reference:  https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/fact-sheets.cfm

We have another sustainability session this Friday commencing at 10: am.

Two Australian government periodic reports have been released since we last met which update issues we have previously discussed. For this session I thought it might be of interest to look at changes since these reports were previously published. 

• CSIRO has updated its ‘mega-trends’ report last published in 2012 
• The Environment department has released the 2021 edition of its State of the Environment report (generally published every five years) 

 
These reports can be found at the following links:

• CSIRO Megatrends Report 2022: https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/data/Our-Future-World 
• Aust Govt SoE Report 2021: https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/ 

Also recommended -  recent articles which relate to topics we've covered:
ACF article - Matilda Bowra 'Nature is Everyone's Business'
Country News article - 'Quantifying Natural Capital' on farms  https://www.countrynews.com.au/livestock/quantifying-natural-capital/


John Lane

In our first July session, the Sustainability group began the preparation of an integrated sustainability index that attempts to integrate the social, environmental and economic elements of sustainability; a replacement for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that is currently used in Australia which focuses only on economic indicators. The New Zealand government is preparing a draft Wellbeing Index. Our index is based on the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as the primary organising system. We had a go at drafting 'targets, measures, indexes and scores for these goals. We discovered it's not an easy task.

In our second session we looked at what was needed to achieve a net zero carbon energy system for Australia. We compared two approaches from advocates to 'electrify everything' on the understanding we will eventually achieve carbon-neutral electricity production. The first was a bottom up (household up) approach proposed by Rewiring Australia and the second was a top-down approach proposed by the Clean Energy Council. We then considered these pathways with the Federal government's policy it took to the last election. We found that the new government's policy generally matched the primary the steps each of the advocates propose.

​
John Lane

It’s timely with the sudden rise in energy costs overall, including electricity, to have a closer look at how we move to an energy system based on renewable electricity.
 
The transition has already begun with all levels; government, industry and household. But it doesn’t seem to be well coordinated.
 
We will focus on how two independent research/advocacy organisations propose the transition can occur; ‘Rewiring Australia’ considers the transformation from the bottom (household level) up, while the Clean Energy Council outlines steps needed from the top down.
 
We will then have a look at the new federal government’s policy (from its pre-election manifesto) called ‘Rewiring the nation’ to see how this lines up with the proposals by the two advocacy groups.
 
We will also spend a little more time working through the Sustainability Index that we worked on last session. Incidentally, there was some news recently that the federal government is to introduce a number of community well being indicators alongside the gross domestic (GDP) indicators.
 
I’ve also included links to two recent CSIRO/ECOS articles of relevance
 
Links
 
Rewiring Australia Organisation: https://www.rewiringaustralia.org/
Clean Energy Council – Energy Transformation: https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/advocacy-initiatives/energy-transformation/
 
ALP’s Energy transition policy: https://keystone-alp.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/prod/61a9693a3f3c53001f975017-PoweringAustralia.pdf/
 
CSIRO ECOS magazine

• Hydrogen: https://ecos.csiro.au/hydrogen-industry-australia/
• Food supply during extreme weather events: https://ecos.csiro.au/keeping-food-on-plates-during-extreme-weather-events/

 
 
John Lane
15 July 2022