About the project

An Australian Research Council funded project

This is a three year project, funding began in 2007.

Towards Carbon Neutral Communities - Making the Transition is aimed at making Australia a world leader in applying innovative methods to overcome non-technical barriers to achieving carbon neutrality at community level. The project partners include Manningham City Council (VIC), City of Playford (SA), Northern Alliance for Greenhouse Action (NAGA), ICLEI, Moreland Energy Foundation (MEFL), Community Power and Consumer Affairs Victoria. The project team includes researchers from the University of South Australia and RMIT Centre for Design. The Centre for Design is the lead manager of the project.

The project focuses on the role behaviour change initiatives and other non-technical interventions in transitioning towards carbon neutrality. By evaluating selected initiatives and undertaking action based research at the local government and household level the project will identify the necessary transition mechanisms required to assist the transition to carbon neutral communities.

Key phases of the project will include:

• work on resolving the baseline methodology – how do you measure the baseline energy use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
• exploring the options for energy efficiency and renewable energy in a geographically defined area
• developing a database of projects focusing on resolving non-technical barriers to carbon neutrality
• developing an evaluation method for programs
• action research phase
• communication of research results

Completed work can be viewed on the Research reports page.

The Context of the Carbon Neutral Communities project

Climate Change and households

Human-induced climate change is now accepted by most scientists and governments, with recent extreme weather events, sea level rise and climate trends causing severe damage to human life and supporting ecosystems (IPCC: IPCC, 2001; G8 Presidency, 2005; Lowe, 2005; Flannery, 2005). Reducing the carbon/greenhouse-induced bases of climate change is a major challenge in a coal- and oil-powered economy such as Australia. Such a strategy has long lead times, which makes the realisation of immediate policy impacts challenging (see OECD 1999). Nevertheless, governments around the world are already responding to the need to act now, and numerous longer term goals have been set both within Australia and overseas (e.g. The National Greenhouse Strategy (NGS) - Advancing Australia's Greenhouse Response; Kyoto Protocols, etc). A range of barriers – some technical but most non-technical – need to be overcome for such targets to be achieved.

Cities were chosen as the focus of this research because most energy is consumed in cities, particularly in buildings and transport (Fien, 2004; Gleeson et al, 2000). Research has been conducted on the technologies and design of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction options for cities and buildings (e.g. Hamnett, 2005a/b;Goldie et al, 2005; Jenks and Dempsey, 2005; Roaf et al, 2004a/b). However, three fundamental problems remain in the drive to urban carbon neutrality: (i) speed of change; (ii) community engagement with the process; and (iii) lack of capacity for change at the organisational and community level (Lowe, 2005). Strategies for overcoming these non-technical barriers will be addressed in this research. Many viable strategies are already available, including demand-side reductions via energy efficiency and sustainable design strategies and technologies, as well as supply-side reduction, through fuel switching or reconfiguring energy services. GHG emission offsetting, an increasingly popular strategy used by institutions and individuals, is also an option, along with other sequestration possibilities. However, a community can only voluntarily become carbon neutral when businesses, institutions, households and individuals choose to act in concert to reduce the overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their activities and have the knowledge and skills to do so.

References

Fien, J. (2004) Beyond the city edge, in Charlesworth, E., ed., CityEdge: Case Studies in Contemporary Urbanism, Architectural Press, Oxford.

Flannery, T. (2005) The Weather Makers: The history & future impact of climate change, Text Publishing, Melbourne

Gleeson, B. and Low, N. (2000) Cities as consumers of the world's environment, in N. Low, B. Gleeson, I. Elander and R. Lidskog, eds, Consuming Cities: The urban environment in the global economy after the Rio Declaration, Routledge, New York.

G8 Presidency (2005) Gleneagles Plan of Action: Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development [http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page7882.asp Last accessed 19/10/05]

Gleeson, B., Low, N., Elander, I. & Lidskog, R. (2000) Consuming Cities: The urban environment in the global economy after the Rio Declaration, Routledge, New York.

Goldie, J., Douglas, B. and Furnass, B. (2005) In Search of Sustainability, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne.

Hamnett, C. & Perkins, A. (2005a) The influence of urban form on a city’s total transport and built environment on greenhouse gas emissions, Paper to the American Collegiate Schools of Planning, Kansas City, October.

Hamnett, C. & Perkins, A. (2005b)The full impact of transport and the built environment on greenhouse gas emissions, and the influence of urban form, Paper to the Australasian Transport Research Forum, Sydney, 28-30 September.

IPCC (2001) Third Assessment Report: Climate Change 2001. IPCC, UNEP.

Jenks, M. & Dempsey, N. (2005) Future Forms and Design for Sustainable Cities, Architectural Press, Oxford.

Lowe, I. (2005) The Big Fix, Black Inc, Melbourne.

OECD (1999) Energy – The Next Fifty Years, OECD Publication, Paris.

Roaf, S., Crichton, D. & Nichol, F. (2004a) Adapting Buildings and Cities to a Changing Climate, Architectural Press, Oxford.

Roaf, S., Horsley, A. & Gupta, R. (2004b) Closing the Loop; Benchmarks for Sustainable Buildings, RIBA Publications, London.