This paper examines the early phases of a 21st century energy transition that involves distributed generation technologies employing low or zero carbon emission power sources and their take-up within Australia, with particular reference to the major cities and solar photovoltaics (PV). This transition is occurring in a nation with significant path dependency to overcome in...

Consumption is a transcending challenge for the 21st century that is stimulating research on multiple pathways required to deliver a more environmentally sustainable future. This paper is nested in what is a much larger field of research on sustainable consumption and reports on part of a major Australian Research Council study into the determinants of...

The research involved examining indicators of sustainability from four case study subdivisions that were marketed as ‘green’, ‘eco’ or ‘sustainable’ or similar. It found a clear gap between the way the subdivision has been designed and the energy efficiency of the houses.

In April 2008, the City of Sydney released Sustainable Sydney 2030 outlining a series of large visionary projects to transform Sydney into a more sustainable, more liveable, global and connected city by 2030. Sustainable Sydney 2030 also recognised the importance of reducing the City’s carbon emissions to both directly contribute to climate change mitigation and...

The key finding of this review is that a greater focus on externalities, preferably quantified in monetary terms, will help Australia to gain maximum social and environmental benefit from the portfolio of electricity generating technologies it will use for meeting emission reduction targets.