At the age of 21, Aaron Fuller, Fellowship Program participant and creator of Wipe It Out, had an epiphany.
“I realised that working 80 hour weeks was not for me and spent the next four years travelling the globe.” Aaron studied property for three years after finishing school but ended up working, ‘crazy hours, riding the real estate boom’.
On returning to Australia, he decided to change direction and obtained a Diploma in Marketing and has spent the last seven years in Analytics, Marketing and Sustainability. Aaron is due to complete his Masters degree in Environmental Management this December.
A… Read more
Creating a green oasis and fresh food farm in the city jungle is the ambitious aim of a group of Melbourne urban professionals.
Pippa Howard, Alex Houlston and Nicky Scheltus have teamed up on a project to prove the viability of establishing a fresh food farm in the Melbourne CBD. They worked with fellow participant Russell Hughes, whose architectural design work on urban farming has been a central inspiration.
The group has also been inspired by the City of Melbourne’s success in turning other dead spaces, such as laneways and industrial areas, into active and vibrant zones that are an… Read more
Rachel Mimmo came to Australia from the UK in April 2008 when she gave up her job as a corporate lawyer in Sheffield. Rachel and her husband, who works in sustainability, decided to travel around Australia by car for eight months.
As a way of lessening their carbon footprint they had the novel idea of using waste cooking oil to fuel their epic 37,000 km car journey. The couple stopped off at fish and chip shops and Thai restaurants across the country whenever they needed to top up. (You can read more about their ecoadventure on www.ozonabatteredfish.blogspot.com.)
Rachel’s battered fish… Read more
Check out the films we are making for an online version of our program.
We are collecting case studies of great young leaders like Anna Rose below.
If you know any great stories for us to film email us on info@csl.org.au .
Get a feel for what our online program is about and what’s involved.
Also we spent a month filming leaders in the UK. Check out some of our footage below.
The Third session involved the first of the participants presentations on the readings and of the left, right, forward debates.
The session started punctually as usual. Rupert gave a creative and somewhat cuddly context to the summation of the previous week’s workshop content. He reviewed the decision tree and used this tool to help determine if we should believe in god. This then posed the question of which god, given the variety of faiths that exist. He also reminded us of Pascall’s wager as another tool which when applied to Rupert’s god example, we could consider the… Read more
Participants gathered from 7.30pm on Friday night, ready for a weekend of workshopping and getting to know each other. Homework assignments were prepared in advance, particularly our own eulogies or testimonials, with one or two participants finishing off their assignments upon arrival at Adekate!
With dinner out of the way, Dean Steele-Bennett discussed goal setting and planning. Dean has an amazing knack of connecting sustainability-oriented people together and is famous for his Melbourne Sustainability Drinks, hence his successful recruitment business, amongst others. He asked us our expectations of the retreat, and spoke about the benefits of working with mentors. Dean… Read more
AS A 2020 summiteer, I was among those who were told that no idea was a bad idea. But the big ideas that would avert runaway climate change never made it through.
An example of this is that the majority of people in the climate-change stream wanted no new coal-fired power stations to be built until carbon capture and storage was proven and commercially viable. Representatives of the coal lobby hijacked the discussion, fighting for the interests of their companies, not their country.
The final ideas that made it through were not the bold ones that would position Australia as… Read more
For some time, 450ppm has been a widely adopted target for the stabilisation of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations. This was thought to be consistent with a likely limiting of the global rise in temperature to roughly 2oC – in turn seen as a threshold beyond which damage to the earth’s ecosystems would rise rapidly and the climate system begin a self-sustaining and rapid evolution towards a new and very different state. In terms of both rate and magnitude, such changes would threaten extinction on a catastrophic scale, and despite the arbitrary nature of the term, there is little doubt that… Read more
Larissa Brown, Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership will attend the 2020 Summit in Canberra. Here are her thoughts.
Despite having thankfully moved on from the ‘Is it real or isn’t it?’ debate that marked the early history of the climate change issue, the debate over emissions control is far more complex terrain – in the new territory of ‘how much?’ and ‘how fast?’, there are few straightforward answers to be had.
Kevin ‘Waiting for Garnaut’ Rudd’s Labor government has so far stuck with its pre-election commitment of 60% (on 2000 levels) by 2050. While the science is… Read more
Why it matters
If you are seeking to make change it is much more difficult alone. Therefore it is important to get other people on board. Community involvement in issues that directly affects the public creates a sense of solidarity between community members. You may also be surprised to discover other people who are passionate about making change who have some great ideas and experience that will help.
Basic answer
Encouraging community members to act together and actively create positive change will create a sense of pride in one’s community. This will then create a snow ball effect in that… Read more
WHY IT MATTERS
In a democratic society, achieving long-lasting change begins and ends with Government. Government sets the legislation by which citizens abide. If there are problems that need solving, it usually means there is a lack of legislation or policy around the issue. In some cases, the legislation itself has caused the problem in the first place. However, sometimes we forget that the Government is representing the voice of the people so we need to be active and make our cause known to our local Member of Parliament (MP).
THE BASICS
In 2005, a study conducted by Parker &… Read more
First take a deep breath because you need to keep a cool head. After decades of misinformation it is understandable the some people are confused about this climate stuff.
While the reporting of climate change in the media has moved from ‘is climate change real?’ to ‘how bad is climate change?’, there are still a few climate sceptics to be found. More commonly these people are sceptical of potential solutions.
Sustainability leaders need to be armed with facts as well as a good understanding of human nature to guide these lost souls towards a stable climate future. Our governments… Read more