Societal and technological transformation in the face of climate change will be won or lost in our cities and urban communities.

The implications of climate change and the end of the fossil fuel era suggest that we are entering a period of major, transformative, change requiring the restructure of the most fundamental systems for urban living. But rapid structural change is hard to negotiate within existing communities.

The Visions and Pathways 2040 Expert Consultation for Future Business and Finance was part of a series of research and workshop activities aimed at identifing key disruptive forces relevant for contributing to the 2040 targets set by the project.

The broad research domain of design for sustainability has evolved considerably from its early days of “green design” to currently emerging stream of “design for system innovations and transitions”. Design for system innovations and transitions integrates theories of design and design-led innovation with theories of system innovations and transitions. In...

Read the the Visions & Pathways 2040 project report on the potential contributions of the digital economy to low-carbon futures for Australian cities

Read the the Visions & Pathways 2040's second year project report on the potential contributions of the digital economy to low-carbon futures for Australian cities

Rapid urbanisation generates risks and opportunities for sustainable development. Urban policy and decision makers are challenged by the complexity of cities as social–ecological–technical systems. Consequently there is an increasing need for collaborative knowledge development that supports a whole-of-system view, and transformational change at multiple scales. Such holistic urban approaches are rare in practice.

This report looks at the future development in Ballarat, Victoria. New forms of urban planning, housing and also transport and use of natural resouces are some of the major topics covered.   

We are in the final years of the critical decade,4 the period in which our actions to reduce carbon emissions will determine whether we succeed globally to limit temperature rise to less than 2 degrees. At the same time, more than 50% of the global population now live in urban areas, which is expected...

Transdisciplinary research is increasingly used in projects dealing with transitions to sustainable, resilient and low-carbon societies. Transdisciplinary research projects require collaboration and coordination between researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds. Academic literature provides valuable insights on designing, facilitating, leading and evaluating transdisciplinary projects.