2020 TOP 100 GOOD PRACTICE STORY

Title of the Story: Transforming an Industrial City – One

Sustainable Story at a Time

Destination Name: (include any state, province or region)

Townsville, North Queensland

Country: Australia

Submitter name: Greg Bruce

Email address: greg.bruce@townsville.qld.gov.au

Position: General Manager – Environment and Sustainability

Nomination Category: (Please check the boxes that indicate the focus of your

story)

☒ Culture & Communities

☒ Environment & Climate

☒ Nature & Ecotourism

☒ Islands & Seaside

☐ Immediate responses in dealing with the COVID -19

☐ Post COVID -19 recovery

☐ One of the 17 SDGs* (if yes, which one) Click or tap to choose

*The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by all United Nations Member States

in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by

2030. The 17 SDGs are integrated—that is, they recognize that action in one area will affect outcomes in others, and that

development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability. What are the Sustainable Development Goals?

https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html

For further information on Tourism for SDGs: http://tourism4sdgs.org/

Find detailed instructions for submitting good practices here

DESCRIBE YOUR GOOD PRACTICE STORY Address each aspect of your good practice story in the different sections being specific including relevant quantitative

and qualitative information.

Issues faced The community of Townsville, like every other community in the world, is made up of individuals who all have varying beliefs and attitudes towards different behaviours (ie. Energy and water use, behaviour in national parks, littering and polluting). A challenge is when these beliefs and attitudes result in behaviours which are detrimental to our natural environment, and our community’s resilience. What makes this challenge even more difficult, is that; • “you can’t tell nothing to no one”- people’s beliefs and attitudes are their own and some have been developed over a long time, therefore are strong, as well as; • “learning does not lead to loving”- increasing someone’s factual knowledge about something, does not lead to an appreciative attitude regarding the item being communicated about A major challenge faced is doing something that hasn’t been done before. Methods, steps and tools applied Townsville’s Citysolar (Design System for Change) is a whole-of-Community Collaborative framework for action, which begun in 2004. This framework for action introduced tools and processes for communicating in meaningful ways within the city which lead to community collaboration and action – people creating their own preferred sustainable and resilient future. Collaboration and action to creating a sustainable future has been achieved through the following tools; Thematic Communication Thematic Communication delivers the key message (or theme) based on what is relevant to the audience, to provoke them to think about what really matters to them. Communicating in strong themes increases elaboration likelihood which can ultimately influence how people think, feel and behave with respect to the things or issues one is communicating about. Experiential Learning Townsville has developed a city-wide network of inter-communicating “Learnscapes” where the community can communicate and interpret nature, energy and water through Experiential Learning in the form of Eco-Catchment Education Tours and Eco-Efficiency Tours and demonstrations. These tours connect people with their physical environment in ways that provoke them to think about what sustainability means to them in their everyday lives. Collective Social Learning (CSL) Collective Social Learning (CSL) provides a neutral framework where knowledge, ideas, experiences and challenges can be shared. CSL enhances thought provoking and collaborative processes to enable the community to design their own future of which they hold themselves responsible for and can

take their own actions to create. This process has been used hundreds of times across a wide range of projects within the city. Smart Technology Integration with Sensors and Analytics This has been used to drive insight and transformation in sustainability – of energy, water and nature in Townsville. Systems Based Thinking and Action

Key success factors Unlike other cities, Townsville isn’t telling anyone ‘what sustainability is’ and ‘how it is done’, rather it aims to communicate and implement sustainability differently and relevantly so that the community can ‘figure it out for themselves’ and ‘act in ways that matter to them’. In communicating differently, there will always be an element of resistance and unacceptance in the community. Townsville, as a destination, is reducing the ‘flight, fright and fight’ reaction of the community by making sustainability easy to process and relevant to them. Innovative, impactful, integrative smart-technology, engineering and sustainability demonstrations (eg. CBD sustainability precinct, Rowes Bay Sustainability Centre, Riverway and Townsville Stadiums, etc.) Peer to peer sharing and enthusiasm for practical, affordable sustainability that works, that has been developed and fostered across individual and collective programs (Townsville SolarCity and IBM Smarter City), projects (Creek to Coral), activities and public events internationally (Hunter Lovins, Janine Benyus, David Suzuki, Professor Sam Ham and Gunther Pauli - Blue Economy) and nationally (Professor Valerie Brown – Collective Learning, The Natural Edge Project (TNEP) – Cheryl Desha and Charlie Hargroves) and locally (TCC Sustainability Team/Environmental Products and Services) for Ecofiesta held annually for the past 28 years (excluding COVID-19). Environmental business success – mentoring and supporting small business to uptake and lead sustainability (Townsville CETD). Fostering and allowing an innovative environmental and sustainability culture to thrive and grow within at least part of a local government organisation and amplify across the council and community. Generating national and international support – Energy Queensland (Ergon Energy and Yurika), IBM Smarter Cities/Research, International City Managers Association (ICMA) and Local Government Managers Australia (LGMA). This includes collaborative city-to-city projects with Papua New Guinea (PNG), Jamaica (Portmore), United States of America (USA – Dubuque and the Bronx in New York City). This has evolved overtime to involve relationships and partnerships with Thailand, China (Dezhou Solar City), India and South Africa.

Lessons learned There is no silver bullets; although everyone is looking for one or more of them – however, there are multiple integrative, system based tools and methods needed to make a meaningful, city-wide impact, that have been applied in Townsville. Townsville is a place of firsts; A major challenge we faced is doing something that hasn’t been done before and demonstrating that change is possible. In communicating from a story-telling perspective, we always face an element of resistance and unacceptance in the community, which can be overcome through peer-to-peer learning and business success. All things are audience dependant; Everything is 100% audience dependant – when an audience changes (or location), different messages need to be crafted. This results in cost and time impacts due to the time required to gather data and create different communications. Collaboration and relationships are key; Having a system that supports collaboration and fosters relationships amongst different parties is key; having multiple groups all supporting consistent messages enables a greater spread and chance of success. Being a neutral party is helpful for key behaviour outcomes; i.e. people may not listen to energy provider about energy saving behaviours, but will listen to Council potentially as they are non-biased, and have nothing to gain from these behaviours

Results, achievements and recognitions Many qualitative outcomes of the project were achieved – please see pg. 69-70 of the Townsville Qld Solar City Final Report. “The project has been embraced locally and raised interest from national and international stakeholders...” Since 2012 there has been massive uptake in residential rooftop solar, almost exclusive white roofs in new developments and significant uptake of reflective white roof paint on existing building stock - https://www.sustainabletownsville.org.au/ (click cooler home less cost). The Solar City project until its finalisation in 2013 resulted in energy consumption reductions of 46% as well as a demand reduction of 46% compared to business as usual for Magnetic Island. The demand reduction was the major critical component as this resulted in the deferral of a third undersea cable to the Island by over 8 years (the cable is now reaching technical end of life and a third is no longer needed) – see Solar City Final Report. •Cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50,000 tonnes within a 3 year period – delaying million dollar infrastructure upgrade for Magnetic Island’s underwater power supply •2013 – Australian Government Smart Infrastructure Project – IBM Townsville Smart Water Pilot •2013 National Awards for Local Government Category Winner Regional Collaborations – Citysolar Program – Whole-of-Community Collaborative Framework for Action

•2011 National Awards for Economic Development Excellence – Townsville City Council Environmental Economic Innovation Category •2008 - Keep Australia Beautiful – Queensland Winner Sustainable City – Magnetic Island Solar Suburb •2003/04, 2007/08 – National Winner Australian Cleanest Beaches •Banksia Finalist – 2003, 2006, 2007, 2012 National Commednation for Local Government Awards (Australian Government) Greening Townsville Program 2007 – Facilitating Community Participation and Education in Natural Resources Management

Additional references Attachment 1; Banksia Environmental Award submission 2012 Citysolar; design system for change - a Whole-of-Community Collaborative framework for action (finalist) – winner for 2013 National Awards for Local Government Significant quotes; “Townsville is the most wonderful city in the world, for it’s environment, it’s people and sustainability. It has everything you could want” - Professor Anne Steinemann Professor of Engineering, and Chair of Sustainable Infrastructure, at James Cook Universityand Professor of Civil Engineering, and Chair of Sustainable Cities, at the University of Melbourne. “Townsville is at the extreme end of making innovation work” – Professor Fernando Martirena “My favourite place is North Queensland. It has for a naturalist everything. It has an amazing rainforest which is quite unlike any other rainforest in the world.” “Not only does it have that, but down on the coast, it has the Great Barrier Reef,” he continued. “On top of that, there’s terrific wine and food, so that’s the place for me.” Sir David Attenborough “We thought that facts, data, books would drive change, but it is story…we have to tell better stories” - Hunter Lovins (who presented at 3 council run workshops in 2006 – 15,000 attendees) https://soundcloud.com/regennarration/61-were-gonna-reinvent-everything-with-legendary-author-educator-rancher-l-hunter-lovins