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The Sunshine Coast World Environment Day Festival is organised in partnership between the Sunshine Coast Environment Council (SCEC), Sunshine Coast Council, Sunshine Coast TAFE and the University of the Sunshine Coast.

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Speaker Forum - A Message from our sponsor

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'The Green Economy' (11:00 am in Lecture Theater 7 )

Did you know that at the current rate of consumption the world will have used all known reserves of hafnium and paladium (minerals essential in the produciton of mobile phones and LCD screens) in about 20 years time?

Did you know that mankind will run out of phosphorous (an essential ingredient of fertiliser) in the next 50 years?

Did you know that global demand for energy is predicted to outstrip the globale production of energy by 400 EJ (the equivalent of global energy production in 2000) by 2050?

Did you know we are consuming renewable resources at a rate that requires 1.6 planets to replace them? And that Western Countries consume renewable resources at a rate that requires 4 plantes to replace them?

Did you know that the cost of responding to climate change increases exponentially the longer we postpone taking action?

Did you know that we need to reduce the Carbon intensity of production (grams CO2 per $) approximately 65 fold in order to avoid catastrophic climate change whilst growing the global population and economy?

The Green Economy:
'The Green Economy' is one of those terms that gets bantered around by everyone and seems to mean lots of different things to lots of different people. The fact is that our current mode of consumption and production cannot be sustained even with current levels of affluence and population much less so for a global population set to rise to 9 billion by 2050 and with China, India and many smaller countries rapidly growing their economies.

Responding to this challenge will require a fundamental transformation in the way we manage our economy and the production and consumption processes that drive it. A green economy will require a fundamentally different approach to mineral resource consumption and use, to energy production and to the use and production of renewable resources.

This year the Speaker Forum will seek to shed some light on what a 'green economy' might look like, what some of the processes and products might be that will help us make this transformation. A panel of five speakers will be addressing the question: 'What are the economic and environmental challenges and opportunities in moving towards a green economy?' The speakers come from different sectors across the economic spectrum and include representatives from community, industry and academia.

The speakers are:

The forum will be facilitated by:

The forum will provide ample opportunity for Q&A style audience participation. Seating in the auditorium is limited so please register your interest if you want to avoid being disappointed on the day.

To reserve a seat for the speaker forum please email us at:

 

Speaker Profiles

Ms Cate Collins - Head of Sutainability LendLease Australia

For the past 10 years, Cate has been actively involved in the design, planning and management of sustainability strategies across both the public and private sectors. 

As the Head of Sustainability for Lend Lease’s Australian Businesses, Cate is responsible for managing the implementation of sustainability across all the Lend Lease Australian businesses, including Investment Management, Asset Management – Retail, Project Management & Construction, Development – Communities, Apartments, Retirement Living and Aged Care.

Cate’s role builds upon her previous appointments as the Head of Sustainability for Lend Lease’s Asia Pacific Investment Management, Retail and Communities Development Businesses and as the Sustainability Manager for the Investment Management business of Lend Lease, in which Cate was responsible for driving the strategic implementation of sustainability across new and existing wholesale funds globally (Aus, Asia, UK and US), contributing to the achievement of the Lend Lease vision to become a sustainable organisation.

Previously, as Associate Director ESD at Hyder Consulting, Cate was responsible for building the Melbourne Sustainable Design Group and the coordination of multi-disciplined teams across Hyder’s Australian Offices, providing sustainability consultancy services for built environment projects around Australia.  Her work prior to that with Victorian local and State Government resulted in the development and implementation of several key initiatives, including the Doncaster Hill Sustainability Guidelines and the Moreland STEPS and Sustainable Design Scorecard.

Cate is an active participant of the new Green Building Council of Australia’s Asia Pacific Committee and Advocacy Committee, the Property Council of Australia’s National Sustainability Roundtable and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative Property Working Group, developing resources to facilitate sustanable responsible investment globally.

Cate was also announced as a winner of the 2009 Australian Financial Review - BOSS Magazine Young Executive of the Year Award. http://www.afrboss.com.au/youngexec.aspx

 

Assoc Prof Michelle Rosano - Director of Industrial Ecology Group, Curtin University

In addition to directing the Centre for Excellence in Cleaner Production, Michele also leads the Industrial Ecology Group within the Centre of Sustainable Resource Processing (CSRP). Michele has worked internationally in the mining industry in a number of senior executive positions, and as a Lecturer and Researcher in Australia. She is currently assisting with the establishment of Australia's first IndustrialEcology Networking organisation.

 

Mr Robert Pekin - Founder & Director of Food Connect

Robert Pekin is has a lifelong association with farming and a passion for the cooperative. Having seen farms suffer from regulation, corporatisation and drought and even loosing his own farm he set up Food Connect - a cooperative way of direct marketing (predominantly organic) food produce into the Brisbane Market. The idea caught on and under the umbrella of the Food Connect Foundation local farmers are reclaiming control over the supply chain across Australia.

Dr Haley Jones - Senior Lecturer Engineering, Australian National University

Haley Jones is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering in the ANU College of Engineering and Computer Science. Haley's research interests are in the area of sustainability with an avid interest in sustainable manufacturing processes. She is particularly interested in the application and modelling of the cradle-to-cradle paradigm applied to manufacturing. The cradle-to-cradle paradigm is about producing things in closed cycles, as opposed to the traditional cradle-to-grave paradigm that pervades today's industrial landscape.

The cradle-to-cradle paradigm has four basic tenets:

The effects of including cradle-to-cradle principles into manufacturing systems can be effectively determined using dynamic modelling as an extension to the traditional life-cycle analysis techniques.

An example of this paradigm could be that in designing, say, a new mobile phone, the four tents are included at each stage of the process from design to idea, through to development, manufacture and end-of-life. Dr Jones believes that while this is a difficult concept to grasp, it is critical (particularly in developed countries that have the biggest environmental footprint) if the global environment is to prosper in a sustainable way.

Mr Garrie Lette - Chief Investment Officer Catholic Super Fund

Garrie Lette is Chief Investment Officer for the Catholic Super Fund which provides superannuation and pension benefits for members across Australia.   Catholic Super’s $4.1b portfolio is diversified across equity, property, infrastructure and fixed interest markets, both listed and unlisted.   Prior to joining Catholic Super in February 2010, Garrie worked for many years at a major investment consulting firm, both in the UK and Australia.   As a result, he has knowledge of the institutional investment industry including the challenges faced in implementing sustainability-driven investment strategies and has recently contributed to the report ‘Climate Change Scenario’s – Implications for Strategic Asset Allocation’.

Richard Cassels - Director of Climate Leadership

An early fascination with the archaeological remains of ancient civilizations has lead Richard Cassels to became an archaeologist, museum director and now environmental educator and lobbyist, passionate about the history and future of human sustainability.

Currently he is Director of Climate Leadership, a group actively lobbying and educating for a price on carbon pollution. He convened two seminar series at the Queensland Museum, “Pioneering a Sustainable Queensland” in 2006 and “Climate Change Down Under” in 2007.

Former positions he has held include Director of Exhibitions and Publications at the Queensland Museum, Director of the New Zealand National Maritime Museum and Director of the Otago Museum in Dunedin, New Zealand. As Senior Lecturer in Prehistory at Auckland University, he excavated sites showing the impact of prehistoric peoples on the fauna and ecosystems of the Pacific, including the giant flightless birds of New Zealand. He trained as a Palaeolithic archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, England, and has worked on Ice-Age archaeological sites in Europe and prehistoric and historic sites in the Middle East. He is a keen bird watcher. He and his wife have created two “more sustainable” homes and habitat gardens in Brisbane.  He is a Governor of W.W.F.Australia.