Harbinger Consultants
Culture + Complexity + ChangeArchive for advocacy
INQUIRY | Sustainable Development Goals
We’ve observed that the Global Goals for Sustainable Development are not a burning topic in Australia – not in our experience of academia, consulting, community organisations, or cultural contexts. In most of the contexts in which we work or are otherwise engaged there seems to be little intellectual, professional or practical engagement with SDGs unless dealing directly with international development agendas.
Earlier this month, the Federal Government announced a Senate Inquiry into Australian implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The inquiry will be led by the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee. What as a nation do we hope to achieve through this Inquiry? The terms of reference for the inquiry refer in particular to:
- The current level of understanding and awareness of the SDGs in the Australian community
- The potential costs and opportunities for Australia in implementing the SDGs
- Which governance structures and measures are required to drive meaningful and tangible SDG-related outcomes
- Examples of best practice implementation from abroad, which can be adapted and utilised in Australia
- Which of the SDGs can be achieved through Australia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme and which SDGs are currently being addressed by ODA
- How countries in the Indo-Pacific are responding to implementing the SDGs, which of the SDGs have been prioritised in these countries and how can these priorities be incorporated into Australia’s ODA program
As an intergovernmental process, the introduction of the SDGs in 2012 was an incredible moment and achievement. The SDGs followed the Millennium Development Goals whose horizon ended in 2015. The SDGs, together with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development (a global plan for financing the Goals) form the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Even though Australia is committed to the SDGs, we’re still not really addressing these in our Australian context in a public way. Yet, the 17 SDGs form a roadmap for global development efforts to 2030 and beyond. There are 169 targets within the Sustainable Development Goals with a set of indicators for measuring progress on each goal. The SDGs also relate to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, New Urban Agenda and the Paris Agreement.
The terms of reference for the Senate Inquiry indicate how the country is struggling to grasp and act on the SDGs. It might also be useful to consider the costs of not implementing the SDGs and the opportunities we have for developing and innovating for our own impactful practices and policy learning.
Australia will deliver its first Voluntary National Review on the 2030 Agenda at the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) in New York in 2018, prior to the completion of the Senate Inquiry report. This provides an important deadline, and one well worth watching as the Inquiry proceeds – recent reports already indicate that Australia will not make its climate commitments with our emissions increasing yet again. The SDGs are not the only or the best way of thinking about sustainable development or sustainable futuring – there are obvious problems and contradictions with the framing and ideology of sustainable development at a time when only radical transformation can deliver on the goals, the Paris Agreement and the New Urban Agenda. However, these agendas make the stakes explicit and provide timelines for change, innovation and strategy.
Localising the SDGs is an important part of the discussion, one I don’t see happening in Australia to the extent that it perhaps should. In 2016, Australia ranked 20th on progress towards the SDGs with particularly low scores on environmental management including per capita carbon emissions, waste management, land clearing and biodiversity loss. Despite relatively low levels of poverty and generally good health, inequality is increasing. Consequently, good socio-economic and human development rankings cannot be taken for granted especially where policy change comes at the expense of low income earning individuals and communities.
Poor outcomes and governance in this country justify trade-offs as the economy and growth continue to dominate and undermine social, cultural and ecological commitments and needs. One of the enduring lessons from the STEPS Pathways to Sustainable Summer School in 2017 involved acknowledging the normative stance that links sustainability “both to overarching goals of poverty reduction and social justice, and to the specific ways that different groups define and refine these goals in particular settings. As such, Sustainability firmly enters the realm of the political.”
There are many gaps and the discussion in this country barely seems bouyant or timely, especially with the Senate Inquiry underway. Australia generally is still of the view that mitigating climate change and taking action to protect socio-ecological systems will devastate the economy. Brisbane, as I have noted elsewhere, does not participate in many international forums, not even the Creative Cities Network, although other Australian cities do make global cultural, social and environmental commitments. The States do not seem to be purposively engaged in SDGs discussions through federal-state agreements. For example, the language of some Queensland policies can be tempered by qualifications like ‘doing our fair share’ in relation to climate change mitigation and transition. Only two Queensland universities have signed the University Commitment to the SDGs, while the UN Global Compact Network in Australia seems to have a broader reach, although with only a handful of universities signed up.
Governance is essential for leadership and engagement – and sadly we have significant governance vacuums in this country, particularly in terms of multi-level governance, although some sectors seem to do it better than others. As a country, as cities, as organisations and as communities, there is a pressing need to reconsider what sustainable development means to us and how we can not only make the SDGs and human rights meaningful but also shape them for transformative systemic and structural change and learning.
COMMENT | Any place for a ‘Chief Transitions Officer’?
In an article in Cities Today, John Krauss examines how resilience is placing new demands on planning and other built environment professions addressing urban challenges. Krauss calls for a new breed of professionals to deal with the complexity of issues facing our cities and communities. The article asks the question: How do we build infrastructure that is both resilient in itself and adds to a city’s overall resilience, by adapting to climate change and anticipating new shifts such as driverless transport, changing business models and demographic change?
The Rockefeller Foundation has successfully introduced a global campaign promoting resilience by supporting cities to employ a Chief Resilience Officer. This is important and commendable work, although the mix of new professional skills and knowledges shouldn’t stop there. Where resilience addresses the necessity of adapting to, responding to and recovering from shocks, such as extreme weather events, transitions makes it explicit that more systemic and long term change is needed. Having just endured another extreme weather event in Queensland, it seems somewhat self-defeating to end the discussion at resilience. A whole town is being evacuated in northern NSW because a levy, an infrastructural resilience initiative, isn’t high enough. How’s that cost-benefit analysis and governance process really measuring up?
How are we addressing transition other than a handful of throwaway sustainability and emissions targets? Throughout my research on sustainable transitions and infrastructure, I’ve been underwhelmed by many of the planning responses to transitions in Australia, particularly focused on Queensland. Yet, transitions are being explored, tested and trialed in many places around the world – not just the German energy transition, but experiments in transition management in the Netherlands, various urban labs, and transitions analysis of infrastructure systems elsewhere. Transitions prompt us to look to the very long term to design pathways for change and to engage the whole system in problem-solving, system innovation and path creation. It’s highly charged political and contested territory.
Sustainable transitions are understood in terms of socio-technological systems, such as infrastructure systems, and their impacts on economic and socio-economic activity to address ecological and socio-ecological priorities. Transition theory is an emerging and growing area of research, which envelops systems, evolutionary economics, governance, innovation and complexity theories Transitions occur through both incremental and multi-dimensional momentum towards radical change involving learning and experiment. Sustainable transitions involve system innovations that trigger whole-of-system changes, not just system improvements, as can be the result of urban and regional planning. Several research papers addressing transitions and infrastructure planning call for a rethinking of professional education.
Krauss calls for 10,000 Chief Resilience Officers worldwide, but that’s only part of the sustainability remix of our professions and their skills – and the role they play in urban and regional governance. There is also a case for a new breed of professional focusing on transitions, say a ‘Chief Transitions Officer’, to provide the kind of strategic and reflexive leadership that is much needed for addressing complex challenges like carbon and infrastructure lock-in.
EVENT | Getting Together at Sandgate
The November issue of the Sandgate Guide includes a story about the upcoming Great Get Together to be held in Sandgate as part of the G20 Cultural Celebrations. The Great Get Together at Einbunpin Lagoon Parklands is a celebration of food, community, fun and creativity. It will take place on Saturday 15 November from 4-8pm, offering a packed program of music, performance, comedy, visual art, circus and much more. Harbinger is acting as Cultural Producer for this and other cultural events.
The event will follow Sandgate’s Our20 which is a forum of short talks, group discussion and consideration of G20 themes running from 10am-4pm on 15 November at Sandgate Bowls Club. The event themes are work, money and future. Developed by Sandgate locals, Our20 is described as “a chance … to consider the same topics (as G20) and do it in a positive, productive way that directly relates to the lives we live, in the communities we inhabit”.
Read stories about The Great Get Together and the Our20 online at:
http://www.sandgate.com.au/sandgate-guide.htm
TALKS | Aboriginal art protocols, regional development & rural design
Over the last couple of weeks we have been invited to give guest lectures at Griffith University and QUT.
At Griffith University, John provided an overview on Aboriginal art protocols and practices to students at the Queensland College of Art (QCA) – Griffith University at both Southbank and Gold Coast. John stressed the importance of welcome to country and acknowledgement of traditional custodians as part of all proceedings and gatherings. As someone who has worked in creative fields for several decades, John also explained that creative careers rarely, if ever, are linear. Describing it as a ‘moving feast’, he stressed the need to remain flexible and be adaptive as conditions in creative fields can change quickly and dramatically.
Reflecting on his own experience in higher education, formerly as Head of Visual Art at QUT, he stressed the importance of equal opportunity and social inclusion in education. In his former higher education roles, he participated in the development of programs, policy and other initiatives that supported the engagement of Indigenous students and staff. In particular, he said that intercultural learning and collaboration enriched cultures, organisations and people: “there is not just much to learn and do, there is much to learn from and do with each other”. That, he explained, was part of the ethos of his work with Campfire Group and Fire-Works Gallery, which developed a range of collaborative creative projects involving Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal artists.
Drawing on his experience and knowledge of Indigenous enterprise and economic development, formerly as Manager of Blak Business Smart Business, he also advised students on how to establish their own creative enterprises. His involvement with Indigenous enterprise and economic development continues in his work with QUT’s Australian Centre for Enterprise Research and other initiatives. There is a need for support from all levels of government and education in ensuring that creatives are equipped to establish dynamic and robust enterprises. It’s more than just professional development as enterprise requires a different approach and mindset. Students should be encouraged to think, innovate and create not just in creative practice but also in the development of enterprises.
At QUT, Linda gave a talk on regional development to urban and regional planning students. She discussed the policy and intergovernmental relations in regional development, including the role played by Regional Development Australia Committees. She has recently stepped down from her role as Deputy Chair with RDA Brisbane. She also outlined that the relationship between land use and regional development wasn’t the whole picture of regional development. While both were concerned with the complex relationships and dynamics that shape the fortunes of regions, there was a need for integrated and engaged approaches. Having written RDA Brisbane’s first Regional Roadmap and played a role in the development of subsequent iterations, including the facilitation of a workshop where the planning goals and priorities were elaborated, she also provided insight into the creation of the Roadmap.
She noted a continuing shift from integrated regional planning, development and sustainability to prioritising regional economic development and competitiveness in policy and practice. Drawing on the work of many regional studies specialists, such as John Tomaney, Andrew Beer and Gillian Bristow, she highlighted the dangers of relying too heavily on a ‘competitiveness’ narrative or discourse which presently dominates regional development thinking. Bristow argues that this is misleading and misdirected:
By concentrating on competitiveness, policy makers fail to distinguish between the qualitative aspects of regional development: healthy or unhealthy growth, temporary or sustainable growth. They fail to question what growth is actually needed or what is required actually to improve the quality of life.
That is there is a lack of clarity about what development objectives are actually being sought. There have been significant failures in Australia in charting an adaptive economic agenda and building resilience. This is reflected in the declining number of sustainable skills jobs, floundering business performance, our large per capita carbon emissions, and disincentivised renewable energy.
Bristow stresses that competitiveness is a construct, arguing that it is a limiting discourse and its dominance can result in the belief of no alternatives. There is a need, as she argues, to do policy differently and to respond to the “peculiar conditions and constraints being wrought by the ‘triple crunch’ of global economic crisis, climate change and the end of plentiful oil supplies”. That is, to cultivate a more sophisticated imaginary and other possibilities for regional and rural futures.
Also at QCA – Griffith University, Linda gave a lecture to Design Futures students outlining a case study of Harbinger’s work with the community of Tambo in Central Western Queensland. The intention was to trigger some thinking about the slippages between social, rural and redirective design practice. Our work in Tambo involved undertaking prefeasibility and feasibility studies for a cultural heritage facility which would act as tourism infrastructure for the region. One of our anchors in our thinking about the project was the growing discussion about ‘rural design’ in the USA. Dewey Thorbeck, for example, has explored the need for a new design approach that focuses on rural design:
Rural design and urban design both embrace ‘quality of life’ as a primary goal. Rural design is, however, fundamentally different: It incorporates the unique characteristics of open landscapes and ecosystems. Buildings and towns are components of the larger landscape, rather than shaping community infrastructure and public space.
Linda posed the question of a ‘redirective rural design practice’; while she didn’t explore that in any detail, she did ask students to consider what that might involve. She presented an outline of our place-based approach which was attentive to reinvigorated localism, community economic development and ideas of living heritage and living museum (based on the ecomuseum concept). Because the facility was to be located on the main street and as part of a heritage precinct, it was important to pursue an integrated approach. We worked with the community in a way that flushed out diverse voices, stories and ideas. The purpose was not to build consensus but rather to reflect the diversity of the community’s engagement with its history while working towards providing a distinctive cultural tourism offer. Working in a way that John describes as bricolage, our process seeks to ensure that the community establishes values, agenda and impact as a way of building a brief for the design.
As we rarely have an opportunity to present and reflect on our work, Linda offered a brief reflection:
- Our positioning in ‘social design’ and problem solving tends to emphasise engagement and strategy
- We purposefully engaged with ideas about rural design in our work with Tambo
- We work with community capabilities and capital, and endeavour to facilitate capacity building
- We take a long term view when working with communities – endeavour to build relationships
- It is important to reflect on and evaluate methods and processes!
This case study was particularly relevant to the redirective design and design futures program, which is attentive to unsettlement and futuring. Nationally, there is a steady commentary about how to address the flagging fortunes of small and shrinking rural towns and some think tanks and policy makers have suggested forced closure, while others have suggested regionalisation. Located on the edge of the desert and channel country, Tambo also faces climate change threats. Even during the limited time we have spent in the region, we have been witness to drought, flood and fires. Mining and tourism is playing a role in keeping small towns ‘ticking over’. There is a clear link between the scenario playing out in small towns and the earlier lecture on regional development – Bristow’s call for alternative possibilities and imaginary are particularly resonant.
Linda also took the opportunity to advocate for rural design and encouraged students to further reflect on what this might mean and look like in Australia. She stressed that there is a gap in addressing and exploring rural design and the role of design methods in charting rural futures in Australia and Queensland. She stressed that there were diverse opportunities to practice design-led change:
- Indigenous communities
- Small and shrinking towns
- Governance and leadership
- Desert cities
- Transition – mining, agriculture, renewable energy, water, mobility, tourism
- Changing landscapes & unsettlement
- Desertification, drought, flood, climate sensitivity, resilience – solastalgia
- Self-sufficiency and innovation
Linda also provided students with a list of resources about initiatives in the USA and Australia in rural design (see below). The rural design work is an area we hope to continue to research and develop and welcome any comments or interest in this field.
We’ve thoroughly enjoyed these opportunities to lecture in our local Universities. Thanks to all the students who listened so attentively, asked questions and showed an interest in the way new forms and methods of planning, design and engagement can enrich communities and regions.
RURAL DESIGN RESOURCES
Rural Design Studio
http://www.ruralstudio.org
Centre for Rural Design
http://ruraldesign.cfans.umn.edu
Citizens Institute for Rural Design
http://www.rural-design.org
Regional Arts Australia
http://regionalarts.com.au
M12 Studio
http://m12studio.org
Rural Futures Lab
http://ruralfutureslab.blogspot.com.au
Rural Communities Design Initiative
http://sdc.wsu.edu/school-of-design-construction/research/rural-communities-design-initiative
International School of Rural Experiences
http://www.ruralexperiences.org
REPORT | Brainy Breakfast BBQ
In March this year, Harbinger Consultants trialled an initiative in health promotion to raise awareness of dementia. The purpose of this initiative was twofold:
- Raise money for dementia research through a sponsored 50km bike ride. We raised $600 dollars simply by setting up a facebook page and asking our facebook network to sponsor the ride by donating $5 (or whatever was affordable) directly to Alzheimer’s Australia.
- Raise awareness of brain health and dementia through a BBQ breakfast event at the Sandgate foreshore
Based on an action research approach, the idea of the Brainy Breakfast BBQ was to bring people together in a convivial environment to exchange information, share stories and generally catch up. We like alliteration so the Brainy Breakfast could also be held as a Brainy Brunch or Brainy BBQ or combinations of brunch, BBQ, breakfast. It was trialled with a view to considering options for rolling out the event as a grassroots social communication and/or social learning initiative that encouraged and strengthened social links and prompted awareness of lifestyle decision making. We envision the development of an online kit that anyone can download and use to implement a hosted event.
The report of the initiative, including thoughts on further development, is available online.
Harbinger Consultants 