Flows of food, water & energy: Sustainable materialism in practice

A symposium held by the Sydney Network on Climate Change

University of Sydney, November 29-30th, 2012

Sustainable materialism refers to new approaches to the way human communities supply basic needs from the environment. The desire for environmental sustainability has spawned an interest in changing the very material relationship with ‗resources‘ and the nonhuman realm. This symposium will address merging frameworks and practices around the flows of water, food and energy. We feature ideas from different parts of the world as well as Australian practices in developing sustainable material relationships within human and nonhuman environments. The aim of the symposium is to draw from particular examples. For instance, speakers will address, Indigenous knowledge about water care, the postcolonial effects of mining, carbon offset policies, new ways of creating sustainable supply chains in the fisheries of British Columbia and urban practices for sustainable food sourcing. The objective of the symposium is to build sustainable and multidisciplinary research networks in this area.

SYDNEY IDEAS THURSDAY 29

TH NOVEMBER 6.00PM – 7.30 PM

SYDNEY LAW SCHOOL FOYER, EASTERN AVENUE, CAMPERDOWN CAMPUS

'What is Sustainable Materialism: An Environmentalism of Everyday Life'. A panel discussion with

Chair: Elspeth Probyn, University of Sydney John Meyer, Humboldt State University, Gisli Palsson, University of Iceland David Schlosberg, University of Sydney Eric Enno Tamm, EcoTrust, Canada

What is sustainable materialism? Do our choices about what we eat and where, how we get about everyday, and where we live matter … and to whom? How does sustainable materialism affect us as individuals, as a society, locally and globally? In this panel we bring together distinguished international scholars to ask them what they think about these tough questions. From Iceland, Gisli Palsson brings years of research into sustainable fishing and knowledge of European efforts to instill these practices in policy. Tasha Sutcliffe has inaugurated a highly original traceability scheme in Canada, which ties fishers together with big retail, and consumers. John Meyer comes to us from the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität where he is working on a practical politics of sustainability. Together with University of Sydney professors David Schlosberg (Politics) and Elspeth Probyn (Gender & Cultural Studies), they will outline ideas about how to embed environmental sustainability in everyday life.

FRIDAY, 30

TH NOVEMBER 8.30AM - 5.00PM

SYDNEY LAW SCHOOL FOYER, EASTERN AVENUE, CAMPERDOWN CAMPUS

8.30 – 8.50 8.50 – 9.00

Registration, tea and coffee Acknowledgement of Country

9.00 – 9.15 9.15 – 11.15

Introduction by Fiona Allon, University of Sydney Session 1: Flow of Water

Chair: Fiona Allon, University of Sydney Gisli Palsson, University of Iceland Entanglements: Life in the Time of Biomics and Epigenetics

Brad Moggridge, NSW Office of Water Cultural Value of Water and the Aboriginal Water Initiative Zoe Sofoulis, University of Western Sydney Gender and Crypto-Gender in Urban Water Management

11.15 – 11.35

Morning tea

11.35 – 1.35

Session 2: Flow of Food

Chair: Elspeth Probyn, University of Sydney Eric Enno Tamm, Ecotrust, Canada Thisfish.info: How social networking and traceability can transform the seafood industry Andrea Gaynor, University of Western Australia Innovations and transformations in Australian urban agro-food networks during the second world war Jeff Neilson, University of Sydney Sustainability, tropical commodities and certification

1.35 – 2.35

Lunch

2.35 – 4.35 4.35 – 5.00

Session 3: Flow of Energy Chair: Tess Lea, University of Sydney Bobby Banerjee, University of Western Sydney Histories of Oppression, Voices of Resistance: The Politics of Anti-Corporate Social Movements The Honourable Tom Roper Climate change, energy and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Alan Jones, City of Sydney Moving Sydney Towards a Sustainable Low Carbon Future Wrap – Up & drinks with Jodi Frawley & Elspeth Probyn

5.00

Close

Symposium Speaker Abstract and Biographies

(in order of presentation)

John Meyer “Stories of Materiality and Sustainability” ABSTRACT Materiality is central to the quest for sustainability, but how? I sketch competing stories told about materialism and the growth of environmental activism, highlighting the insights and limitations of each. Recognizing these stories can foster a more expansive political imagination, by helping us to think about material practices – those in which human experience is interwoven with technology, the built environment, and the non-human world – in new and more productive ways.

John M. Meyer is Professor in the Department of Politics at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, where he is affiliated with programs in Environmental Studies and “Environment and Community.” Co-editor of The Environmental Politics of Sacrifice (MIT Press, 2010), he is completing a book on “Environmentalism as Social Criticism.” During 2012-2013 he is a fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU-Munich.

Gisli Palsson “Entanglements: Life in the Time of Biomics and Epigenetics” ABSTRACT Nowadays, human activities are not just altering natural resources and the climate of the globe, but also the structures of human bodies and genomes, even life itself. At the same time it has become increasingly clear that the human body is intimately connected to the environment in which it is embedded. This article highlights the implications of recent studies of genomics, microbiomes, and epigenetic processes for the understanding of humans and their environmental relations, focusing on an expanded, entangled notion of the Anthropos, the blurring of the nature-society divide, and the challenges of governance. Given the intimate relations of porous bodies and molecular environments, how should human-environmental relations be conceptualized and refashioned? What are the implications of the evidence from epigenetics and biomics for the nature-society divide? Might we benefit from applying the same theoretical frameworks to both domains, the nano-world of bodies, cells, biomes, and genes and the giga-worlds of the globe and the Milky Way? I suggest the expanding fields of biomics and epigenetics invite rethinking of resources, governance, law, human rights, and related issues. If that is the case, environmental anthropology needs some rethinking too, revising its notions of adaptation and interaction and relaxing its assumption of the bounded nature and exceptional status of the human world.

Gisli Palsson is Professor at the University of Iceland and (formerly) at the University of Oslo. He holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Manchester, England (1982). He has written extensively on a variety of issues, including human-animal relations, fishing, arctic exploration, biomedicine, genomics, genetic history, and environmental discourse. He has done anthropological fieldwork in Iceland, the Republic of Cape Verde, and the Canadian Arctic. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of several books, including Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives (co-edited with Philippe Descola, 1996, Routledge); Anthropology and the New Genetics (Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Biosocial Becomings; Integrating Social and Biological Anthropology (co-edited with Tim Ingold, Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Bradley Moggridge “Cultural Value of Water and the Aboriginal Water Initiative”

ABSTRACT

Mr Bradley Moggridge is a proud Murri from the Kamilaroi Nation (North-West NSW) and is currently employed by NSW Office of Water as the Program Manager Aboriginal Water Initiative. Previously he was with CSIRO for the 3.5 years as the Indigenous Water Research Specialist. Brad has qualifications in Environmental Science (BSc) from ACU and Hydrogeology (MSc) from UTS. Brad grew up in and around Sydney but moved to the ACT in 2010. He has an ambition of leading research dealing with promoting Aboriginal Traditional Knowledge (culturally appropriately) and finding commonalities between Traditional water science and western water science, as he can appreciate both. Prior to NSW Office of Water and CSIRO, Brad worked with a private consultancy as a senior environmental scientist, and also has significant experience in environmental protection and regulation and cultural heritage operational policy with NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change and the former NSW EPA. Brad has also spent 4 years working in local government as an environment officer. Brad was appointed as a Councillor to the First Peoples' Water Engagement Council administered by the National Water Commission in 2010, which provided advice to the NWC on national Indigenous water issues and is also a member of the Joint Steering Committee reviewing the National Water Quality Management Strategy Documents 4 and 7 (ANZECC Guidelines) as the Australian Indigenous representative. He is also a judge for both the Australian RiverPrize and the River Management Youth Achievers Award and also a external advisory panel member of the International Water Centres Masters Course review. Brad‟s claim to fame is that he can be Google‟d (because of his Master thesis), has presented at the Australian Academy of Science and has played golf for Australia.

Zoë Sofoulis “Gender and Crypto-Gender in Urban Water Management” ABSTRACT A general rule of hydropolitics seems to be that water and power flow in opposite directions. The gender implications of this are particularly apparent in the developing world, where the expected range of traditional barriers (lacks of literacy, mobility, wealth, entitlement) limit women‘s input into water planning and allocation decisions to the point of end use, but make it easier to recognize gender as salient to water management. By contrast, gender remains cryptic in water management discourses

of developed nations like Australia, where women may head major water organisations, yet domestic divisions of labour—and by extension, gendered differences in domestic water usage—persist but are ignored or left implicit. Socially sustainable and culturally intelligent water governance would address rather than ignore social realities like gender difference and other diversities. This talk highlights three sites where bringing ‗crypto-gender‘ to the foreground could improve analyses of water consumption and contribute to smarter and more equitable water policies and programs. First are the material infrastructures themselves. Water infrastructure has feminist implications, because houses with plumbing and washing machines create women with different degrees of health, freedom and servitude compared with women who do their laundry on a riverbank, or trudge miles each day to fetch and carry water. Changes to existing water services likewise have implications for women‘s everyday lives. Second are industry understandings of domestic water consumption, where gender and other social differences are routinely obscured in the focus on the statistical construct of the ‗average‘ consumer and ‗household‘ as the basic units of water consumption. Third are the institutions and policies of water governance, where an apparent gender neutrality makes it hard to discern deeper masculinist biases—such as those associated with western Enlightenment rationality, positivist knowledge paradigms, and extractive approaches to resources.

Zoë Sofoulis is an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney. She is an interdisciplinary cultural researcher currently concerned with applying humanities knowledge and methods to the social and cultural dimensions of complex 21st century problems, especially urban water. She has led research projects on domestic water consumption and water industry views of consumers, and convened or co-convened workshops and symposia that bring together water researchers from different disciplines and sectors, including the international conference Tapping the Turn: Water‟s Social Dimensions (ANU, 15-16 November 2012). Expanding the scope of humanities, arts and social science research and knowledge that informs urban water management, and enhancing cross sectoral collaborative capacity, were themes of her 2010 National Water Commission Fellowship 'Cross Connections: Linking urban water managers with humanities, arts and social sciences researchers', the report on which is published in the NWC‟s Waterlines series.

Eric Enno Tamm ―Thisfish.info: How social networking and traceability can transform the seafood industry‖ ABSTRACT

Fishing is an ancient pursuit, steeped in legend and lore the world over. Yet nowadays most of us are disconnected from our seafood. We have little idea where it comes from, never mind who actually caught it. In 2010, Vancouver-based nonprofit Ecotrust Canada launched Thisfish.info, which brings you closer to your seafood by

allowing consumers to trace its journey back to its origins: who caught it, when, where and how. The system brings together elements of food traceability and social networking accessible through computers, tablets and smart phones. Established in collaboration with a small group of fishermen on Vancouver Island, Canada, Thisfish has rapidly expanded to include 385 registered fish harvesters, 26 processors and distributors, and two retail chains with 1,300 stores in Canada. Currently, some 20 different fish species are traceable from the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. About 6.5 million pounds of seafood was traceable through Thisfish in 2012. Ecotrust Canada is committed to helping consumers make more informed choices about the authenticity, quality and sustainability of the seafood they eat, while promoting the fish harvesters and seafood businesses who proudly stand behind their catch. Thisfish sets out to make the seafood business more transparent and reward those who responsibly harvest and handle your catch. Ecotrust Canada believes there shouldn’t be anything fishy about eating seafood.

Eric Enno Tamm is team leader for Ecotrust Canada‟s Traceability Initiatives and Thisfish.info, a seafood traceability system launched in 2010. He is also an award-winning author and journalist who has written widely on coastal and fisheries issues. His first book, Beyond The Outer Shores: The Untold Story of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell, was a Kiriyama Prize Notable Book in 2005. Tamm holds a Masters in Journalism from the University of Southern California and a Masters in European Affairs from Lund University, Sweden. He currently resides in Ottawa, Canada. For more info, visit www.ericennotamm.com

Andrea Gaynor ―Innovations and transformations in Australian urban agro-food networks during the second world war‖. ABSTRACT During the second world war, the material networks and cultural assumptions underpinning Australian food systems were thrown into turmoil - and into stark relief. The scale of food production had to be increased to meet the demands of a nation and its allies at war, just as the flow of foodstuffs and food production materials into Australia was dramatically diminished. Shortages of fuel, fertilisers, pesticides and other components of commercial food production networks highlighted the vulnerability of the Australian food system. Home gardeners were called upon to ‗grow their own‘, to make up expected shortfalls in production and as a backup in case of food supply failures. This paper examines how agro-food networks were exposed and renegotiated in this context, with a focus on Australian cities and suburbs: how did various human actors respond to this situation, and how did those responses embed social relations in the modified networks? How did nonhuman organisms and processes in urban settings constrain or facilitate human efforts to adapt existing networks? Were the transformed networks in any sense more ‗sustainable‘? The paper concludes with some reflections on what we can learn about resilience in food systems from this historical episode.

Andrea Gaynor is Professor of History at The University of Western Australia. An environmental historian, she pursues various questions relating to historical relationships between the human and non-human. Her publications include the book Harvest of the Suburbs: An environmental

history of growing food in Australian cities (UWA Press, 2006), and articles on diverse topics in environmental history, from landscape art to feral cats.

Jeff Neilson “Sustainability, tropical commodities and certification‖ Abstract The tropical crops of coffee and cocoa are two of the world‘s most widely traded commodities. Both possess a distinct ‗south-north‘ flow: they are mostly produced in countries across Latin America, Africa and Asia, and are consumed primarily in Western Europe and North America. The two extremities of these global value chains present starkly contrasting material worlds and standards of living. These juxtaposed worlds of poverty and affluence provided the initial impetus for value chain schemes to address poverty in sites of production through ethical consumption practices, most noticeably through the Fair-trade movement. Similar certification schemes have subsequently evolved to address concerns over sustainability, which is more broadly understood to encompass environmental practices alongside social development. This paper presents the emergence of value chain certification schemes to encourage sustainability in the coffee and cocoa sectors, and discusses the implications of these schemes for rural livelihoods and environmental management in a key producing country, Indonesia.

Jeff Neilson is a lecturer in economic geography at the University of Sydney, where he conducts research on natural resource management and rural economic development in South and Southeast Asia. He has regional expertise in Indonesia, where he has worked and studied since 1994, and is the country coordinator for the University of Sydney‟s Indonesia activities through the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre (SSEAC). His current research projects are examining the global value chains for coffee and cocoa, through which he is assessing the „the impacts of certification schemes for sustainability on smallholder livelihoods‟. This work explores the role of multinational corporations and international NGOs in the proliferation of sustainability standards across rural communities in the global south.

Bobby Banerjee “Histories of Oppression, Voices of Resistance: The Politics of Anti-Corporate Social Movements” Abstract In this seminar I discuss the rise of resistance movements against extractive industries. I analyze the case of an ongoing resistance movement against a proposed bauxite mine in India and show how market, state and civil society actors at local, national and international levels shape resistance movements against mining. I show how corporations deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a weapon to counter-mobilize against resistance movements. I discuss the theoretical implications of the case for studying transnational and national anti-corporate movements.

Bobby Banerjee is Professor of Management and Director of Research in the School of Business, University of Western Sydney. His primary research interests are in the areas of sustainability, climate change and corporate social responsibility. Other research interests include critical

management studies, Indigenous ecology, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, and globalization. He has published more than 130 papers in journals, edited volumes and conference proceedings and has been awarded 33 research grants.

The Honorable Tom Roper “Climate change, energy and Small Island Developing States (SIDS)” ABSTRACT SIDS are tiny contributors to climate change and emissions yet they stand to lose the most – the destruction of whole nations. Nonetheless many want to set their more polluting colleagues an example By tackling their own minor emissions. Their moves to expand renewable energy and energy efficiency will also improve their bottom line by reducing expensive diesel use and providing electricity to the many citizens without it. The presentation will emphasise the threats to SIDs counterbalanced by the opportunities technological change offers them and details of what they are already doing.

The Hon. Tom Roper currently lives in Melbourne after eleven years overseas – Ottawa, London, New York - and has been involved in environmental policy at all levels – local to international. Since his retirement, after 21 years in the Victorian Parliament (Australia), he has been an active Board Member of the Washington DC based Climate Institute, Global Urban Development and Greenfleet (Australia), an advisor to government, business and NGO‟s on sustainability issues and an Honorary Life Member of the Metropolis Association. He provides briefings on climate change developments and green building issues to governments at all levels and is a frequent conference presenter and participant on the impacts of climate change. He is the Project Director of the Global Sustainable Energy Islands Initiative which provides assistance to Small Island States seeking to introduce renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, a contributor to the Pacific Power Association and an Observer in the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) SE Asia and Pacific Advisory Committee. During his ten years as a senior Government Minister his portfolios included Treasury, Planning and Environment, Health, Transport, Aboriginal Affairs, and Employment and Higher Education. He was the Leader of Government Business in the Legislative Assembly. He was appointed to the Board of Renewables SA by the Premier, Mike Rann, is a Senior Fellow of Melbourne University‟s Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society, the Chair of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council and Chair of the NABERS (National Australian Built Environment Rating System) Stakeholders Advisory Committee and of the Commonwealth Tax Breaks for Buildings Roundtable, a Member of the Australian Climate Change Adaptation Research Network for Settlements and Infrastructure.

Alan Jones Moving Sydney Towards a Sustainable Low Carbon Future ABSTRACT Sustainable Sydney 2030 is a practical plan for a city reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 70% and deriving its initial needs from low carbon resources whilst at the same time establishing a decentralised energy, water and waste infrastructure to enable future energy and water needs to be derived from wholly renewable resources by 2030. This concept can be applied to any community in Australia or indeed in the world. At Woking and in London Allan Jones was able to tease out the real issues and barriers to a sustainable future through the actual implementation of a decentralised green infrastructure, including trigeneration, renewable energy, fuel cells, renewable gases from waste and recycled water. This model is now being adapted to help to deliver the targets in Sustainable Sydney 2030. The presentation will cover the following:-

Sustainable Sydney 2030 – Green Infrastructure Plan.

Island Sydney – Decentralised Energy, Water and Waste Master Plans.

Showing by Doing – Implementing decentralised energy, water and waste projects on its own buildings and operations.

Implementing Australia‘s first city-wide trigeneration decentralised energy network.

Allan Jones is Chief Development Officer, Energy and Climate Change of the City of Sydney. Allan is also a Board member of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. Prior to his appointment Allan was Chief Executive Officer of the London Climate Change Agency and prior to that Woking Borough Council‟s Director of Thameswey Limited. Allan‟s role at the City is to deliver its Green Infrastructure Plan and major energy and climate change projects, including trigeneration, renewable energy, advanced waste treatment, automated waste collection and decentralised water. Since his appointment 2 years ago the City has reduced greenhouse gas emissions in its own buildings by 18% and is well on the way to reducing emissions in its own buildings by 48% and in its overall emissions by 20% by 2012 as well as setting in place the green infrastructure for its Local Government Area to reduce emissions by 70% by 2030. The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility is a national facility based at Griffith University studying how Australia can adapt to the impacts of climate change such as more frequent and severe droughts, floods and sea level rise. During his time in London Allan set up and ran the London Climate Change Agency, developed the energy and climate change elements of the London Plan, Mayor‟s Climate Change Action Plan and the Mayoral Climate Change Statutory Duty as well as developing and implementing decentralised energy and renewable energy projects in London.

During his time at Woking, Allan reduced CO2 emissions by 77.5% from 1990 levels to 2004 and undertook groundbreaking work on energy efficiency, trigeneration, renewable gases from waste, alternative fuels for transport, renewable energy and fuel cells. Under Allan, Woking installed 81 private wire decentralised energy systems, nearly 10% of the UK‟s total installed solar energy photovoltaics and the first fuel cell CHP in the UK. Allan was appointed a Member of the British Empire in 1999 for services to energy and water efficiency and was instrumental in Woking Borough Council gaining the Queen‟s Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development 2001 in the development of Local Sustainable Community Energy Systems, the only local authority ever to receive a Queen‟s Award for Enterprise.