Strategies and solutions for housing sustainability : building information files and performance certificates

The overall aim of this research project was to provide a broader range of value propositions (beyond upfront traditional construction costs) that could transform both the demand side and supply side of the housing industry. The project involved gathering information about how building information is created, used and communicated and classifying building information, leading to the formation of an Information Flow Chart and Stakeholder Relationship Map. These were then tested via broad housing industry focus groups and surveys. The project revealed four key relationships that appear to operate in isolation to the whole housing sector and may have significant impact on the sustainability outcomes and life cycle costs of dwellings over their life cycle. It also found that although a lot of information about individual dwellings does already exist, this information is not coordinated or inventoried in any systematic manner and that national building information files of building passports would present value to a wide range of stakeholders.

Pathway to sustainability : the Lady Elliot Island hybrid solar power station

The Lady Elliot Island eco-resort, on the Great Barrier Reef, operates with a strong sustainability ethic, and has broken away from its reliance on diesel generators, an initiative which has ongoing and substantial economic benefit. The first step was an energy audit that led to a 35% reduction in energy usage, to an average of 575 kWh per day. The eco-resort then commissioned a hybrid solar power station, in 2008, with energy storage in battery banks. Solar power is currently (2013) providing about 160 kWh of energy per day, and the eco-resort’s diesel fuel usage has decreased from 550 to 100 litres per day, enabling the power station to pay for itself in 3 years. The eco-resort plans to complete its transition to renewable energy by 2015, by installing additional solar panels, and a 10-15 kW wind turbine. This paper starts by discussing why the eco-resort chose a hybrid solar power station to transition to renewable energy, and the barriers to change. It then describes the power station, upgrades through to 2013, the power control system, the problems that were solved to realise the potential of a facility operating in a harsh and remote environment, and its performance. The paper concludes by outlining other eco-resort sustainability practices, including education and knowledge-sharing initiatives, and monitoring the island’s environmental and ecological condition.

Exploring sustainability in literature for the Australian curriculum : an annotated guide

The Australian Curriculum: English (AC:E) is being implemented in Queensland and asks teachers and curriculum designers to incorporate the cross curriculum priority of Sustainability. This paper examines some texts suitable for inclusion in classroom study and suggests some companion texts that may be studied alongside them, including online resources by the ABC and those developed online for the Australian Curriculum. We also suggest some formative and summative assessment possibilities for responding to the selected works in this guide. We have endeavoured to investigate literature that enable students to explore and produce text types across the three AC:E categories: persuasive, imaginative and informative. The selected texts cover traditional novels, novellas, Sci-fi and speculative fiction, non-fiction, documentary, feature film and animation. Some of the texts reviewed here also cover the other cross curriculum priorities including texts by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and some which also include Asian representations. We have also indicated which of the AC:E the general capabilities are addressed in each text.

Early childhood education for sustainability : Queensland and Australian perspectives

Introduction Early childhood education for sustainability is an emerging field within education – a synthesis of early childhood education and education for sustainability. As a distinct field of educational inquiry and practice, it is less than 20 years old in Australia. My personal story is one that emerged from a background in primary school teaching where I worked in an Indigenous community teaching Aboriginal children. These experiences made me question the marginalization of Indigenous peoples in Australian society, the colonizing impacts of education, gave me deeper understandings of human-environment interactions, and the effects of poverty and powerlessness on options for Indigenous people both in Australia and elsewhere where peoples and their lands have been exploited. These teaching experiences took me back to university to undertake a degree in environmental studies to help me to better understand the nexus between society, environment and economy. Hence my background in education for sustainability comes as much from the social sciences as from the biological/ecological sciences...

Expanding worlds of early childhood education for sustainability : Looking back, looking forward

This chapter draws together the key themes and perspectives from the chapters and offers a critique of the theoretical reframing - underpinned by children's rights and child agency - that has informed the book. Additionally, the documented research is situated within broader international contexts of ECE research, thus offering insights that can inform the field more generally. This is a forward looking discussion of current research that offers clear directions for ECEfS and future research in this field.

Transformative approaches to sustainability

How to live sustainably is a topic of local, national and international importance. The Australian National Curriculum (ACARA, 2011) identifies sustainability as a cross-disciplinary strand, obligating teachers to build sustainability into their pedagogical practices. In early childhood education, the Early Years Learning Framework (2009) and more recently, the National Quality Framework (2011) provide impetus for early childhood education for sustainably (ECEfS). This article discusses ECEfS, but first, it addresses climate change putting this into a sustainability perspective.

Scepticism and trust: two counterpoint essentials in science education for complex socio-scientific issues

In this response to Tom G. K. Bryce and Stephen P. Day’s (Cult Stud Sci Educ. doi:10.1007/s11422-013-9500-0, 2013) original article, I share with them their interest in the teaching of climate change in school science, but I widen it to include other contemporary complex socio-scientific issues that also need to be discussed. I use an alternative view of the relationship between science, technology and society, supported by evidence from both science and society, to suggest science-informed citizens as a more realistic outcome image of school science than the authors’ one of mini-scientists. The intellectual independence of students Bryce and Day assume, and intend for school science, is countered with an active intellectual dependence. It is only in relation to emerging and uncertain scientific contexts that students should be taught about scepticism, but they also need to learn when, and why to trust science as an antidote to the expressions of doubting it. Some suggestions for pedagogies that could lead to these new learnings are made. The very recent fifth report of the IPCC answers many of their concerns about climate change.

A parcel-scale assessment tool to measure sustainability through urban ecosystem components : the MUSIX model

In recent years a number of urban sustainability assessment frameworks are developed to better inform policy formulation and decision-making processes. This paper introduces one of these attempts in developing a comprehensive assessment tool—i.e., Micro-level Urban-ecosystem Sustainability IndeX (MUSIX). Being an indicator-based indexing model, MUSIX investigates the environmental impacts of land-uses on urban sustainability by measuring urban ecosystem components in local scale. The paper presents the methodology of MUSIX and demonstrates the performance of the model in a pilot test-bed—i.e., in Gold Coast, Australia. The model provides useful insights on the sustainability performance of the test-bed area. The parcel-scale findings of the indicators are used to identify local problems considering six main issues of urban development—i.e., hydrology; ecology; pollution; location; design, and; efficiency. The composite index score is used to propose betterment strategies to guide the development of local area plans in conjunction with the City's Planning Scheme. In overall, this study has shown that parcel-scale environmental data provides an overview of the local sustainability in urban areas as in the example of Gold Coast, which can also be used for setting environmental policy, objectives and targets.

Patterns of social capital associated with transit oriented development

In policy circles, transit oriented development (TOD) is believed to enhance social capital, however empirical evidence of this relationship is lacking. This research compares levels of social capital between TOD vs. non-TOD areas in Brisbane, Australia. Using a Two Step cluster analysis technique, three types of neighbourhood groupings were identified based on net employment density, net residential density, land use diversity, intersection density, and public transport accessibility: TODs, transit adjacent development (TADs) and traditional suburbs. Two dimensions of social capital were measured (trust and reciprocity, connections with neighbours) based on factor analysis of eight items representing elements of social capital. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to identify links between the distributions of the dimensions of social capital on areas defined as TODs, TADs, and traditional suburbs controlling for socio-demographics and environmental factors. Results show that individuals living in TODs had a significantly higher level of trust and reciprocity and connections with neighbours compared with residents of TADs. It appears that TODs may foster the development of social sustainability.

Supermarkets and agro-industrial foods : the strategic manufacturing of consumer trust

There is increasing evidence of a weakened platform of consumer trust in mass produced food products. The resistance shown by consumers to the agro-industrial paradigm is evident in an emergent phase of reflexive consumerism, public reactions to an overly-concentrated retail sector and the rise of alternative food networks such as farmers' markets and organic box schemes. Supermarkets are responding strategically by aiming to manufacture new trust relations with consumers. This paper identifies three key strategies of trust manufacturing: (i) reputational enhancement though the institution of “behind the scenes,” business-to-business private standards; (ii) direct quality claims via private standard certification badges on food products, and ; (iii) discursive claimsmaking through symbolic representations of “authenticity” and “tradition.” Drawing upon the food governance literature and a “visual sociology” of supermarkets and supermarket produce, we highlight how trust is both commoditized and increasingly embedded into the marketing of mass-produced foods.

Levels of social trust among men from refugee backgrounds after the 2011 Queensland floods

Purpose This paper examines the relationship between flood exposure and levels of social trust among a cohort of adult men from refugee backgrounds who were affected by the 2011 Queensland floods in Australia. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative questionnaire was administered to 141 men from refugee backgrounds almost two years after the 2011 Queensland floods. The survey was administered in person by trained peer in-terviewers, and included a number of standardised instruments assessing respondents’ so-cio-demographic characteristics, levels of social trust towards and from neighbours, the police, the wider Australian community, and the media, and exposure to and impact of the floods. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used to assess the relationship between flood exposure and social trust adjusting for pre-disaster levels of trust and other potentially confounding variables. Findings Participants with higher levels of flood exposure were significantly more likely to report greater levels of trust both towards and from their neighbours, the wider Australian community, and the media, and they were also more likely to believe that most people can be trusted. Research limitations/implications Although the study reports on data collected two years after the floods, the analysis has adjusted for pre-disaster measures of social trust and other socio-demographic variables. Originality/value Our paper has highlighted the important place of social trust and social capital for refugee communities in a post-disaster setting. Disaster responses that support social capital among marginalised populations are critical to increasing community resilience and supporting recovery.

Educating for sustainability in virtual worlds : does the virtual have value?

Two key elements of education for sustainability (EfS) are action-competence, and the importance of place and experiencing the natural world. These elements emphasise and depend on the relationship between learners and their real world contexts, and have been incorporated to some extent into the sustainability cross-curricular perspective of the new Australian curriculum. Given the importance of real-world experiential learning in EfS, what is to be made of the use of multi-user virtual worlds in EfS? We went with our preservice secondary science teachers to the very appealing virtual world Quest Atlantis, which we are using in this paper as an example to explore the value of virtual worlds in EfS. In assessing the virtual world of Quest Atlantis against Australia’s Sustainability Curriculum Framework, many areas of coherence are evident relating to world viewing, systems thinking and futures thinking, knowledge of ecological and human systems, and implementing and reflecting on the consequences of actions. The power and appeal of these virtual experiences in developing these knowledges is undeniable. However there is some incoherence between the elements of EfS as expressed in the Sustainability Curriculum Framework and the experience of QA where learners are not acting in their real world, or developing connection with real place. This analysis highlights both the value and some limitations of virtual worlds as a venue for EfS.

Literature review : A culture of trust enhances performance

In this environmental scan of research and policy literature, the authors consider various definitions of trust as they seek to address and inform the hypothesis that ‘a culture of trust enhances performance’ in schools. The discussion draws on the work of the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership in school leadership and research by Caldwell and Harris (2008) to consider ways in which trust is linked to performance in schools and organisations. It explores the concept of trust as a form of capital available to schools, and highlights how successful school leaders work to align trust, strategy and passion in implementing effective change. At the heart of the review is the relationship between trust and school improvement. An adapted model of the elements of a culture of trust developed by Bryk and Schneider in their influential study of trust in school reform in Chicago is used to frame this aspect of the review. The authors identify four essential categories of relationships that enable schools to be described as having a culture of trust. The review concludes with a discussion of the relationship between trust and school governance.