Sustainability: Pressure and Condition
Pressures on the state's natural, social and economic systems include increasing greenhouse gas emissions, especially from energy production and transport, drought, population growth, especially in Queensland's south-east (SEQ), increasing coastal development, and burgeoning mineral resource exploitation.
These pressures drive trends that seriously challenge government, industry and the community, especially in the context of a changing climate:
- Queensland has one of the fastest growing populations in a developed country, especially in SEQ where the population is expected to grow by one million by 2026;
- Queensland is getting hotter and drier-hot, dry years could be normal by 2030;
- Queensland is warming faster than the global average;
- the environmental health of many of the waterways in SEQ is getting worse;
- rainfall has declined along the east coast south of Cairns;
- coastal rainfall now falls in shorter, more intense bursts;
- the state's climate could become more variable and extreme.
- Around the world, efforts are being made to account for, calculate and express a measure of the planet's wellbeing in simple terms, allowing comparison between peoples and over time. Traditional economic measures such as gross national product (GNP) have serious limitations for this purpose, and so the concept of ecological footprint accounting (and greenhouse footprinting as a refinement of this) is evolving as a measure of societal resource consumption and wellbeing.
Ecological footprint accounting
To provide current information for Queensland, the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York and The University of Sydney (Integrated Sustainability Analysis) were contracted to prepare an ecological footprint assessment. This work was part of a comparative study, jointly commissioned by the Queensland and Victorian EPAs (Wood and Wiedman 2007).
Ecological footprint results for Queensland
The 'ecological footprint' measures the amount of renewable and non-renewable ecologically productive land area required to support the resource demands and absorb the wastes of a given population or of specific activities. This includes the land area needed to provide raw materials and crops, as well as the land required to absorb the carbon dioxide emissions due to residents' consumption patterns. Therefore, the results that follow document the ecological footprint of the average Queensland resident, wherever the products and services they consumed were produced (Figure 2.1). The results cover the financial year 2003-04 and meet international standards in ecological footprinting.
The average Queensland resident has an ecological footprint of 7.19 gha, nearly three and a half times higher than the world average. This equates to a total footprint of 27 million hectares, or 16% of the state's land area. However, part of the state's ecological footprint will be located in every country in the world that contributes to the vast array of goods and services consumed by Queensland's residents. The ecological footprint consists of both 'real land' (arable land, pasture, forests, built land) and 'energy land' (the land required to absorb the carbon dioxide emitted from the consumption patterns of a given population). For Queensland, just over half of the footprint is energy land (54%). This is due to our heavy reliance on fossil fuels where the two big hitters are home electricity (20% of energy land) and the purchase of petrol for cars (8% of energy land). In terms of real land, forests account for nearly 50%. This reflects the use of wood in new houses and wooden furniture, these two items representing 45% of wood consumption.
Globally, we are consuming more resources than the planet can regenerate each year, with a current global overshoot of 22%. While the Queensland per capita footprint is lower than the Australian average (by 2%), it is still contributing disproportionately to global overconsumption compared with that of the average global citizen. If everyone in the world had the same footprint as the average Queensland resident, we would need four planets to live within ecological limits.
Figure 2.1 Ecological footprint of average residents of selected
populations, partitioned by real land components and energy land
Source: EPA
Ecological footprint by consumption category
The results can be organised by land or by consumption activities, such as travelling, the food we eat, the energy we consume, the products we buy and the services we use. Figure 2.2 quantifies consumption categories.
Using this classification, consumption of food and demand for services are most significant in the ecological footprint. Over 50% of the food footprint is from meat consumption. The services category includes elements such as telecommunications, financial services, medical services, entertainment and government expenditure.
The main pattern of consumption in Queensland is similar to the national average. The notable difference is in the area of shelter, where residents have a higher ecological footprint due to construction of new houses in response to our rapidly growing population, meaning a 33% higher result than the national average specifically for this category.
Figure 2.3 provides an understanding of the difference between ecological footprints in Queensland and Australia. Notably, the home energy footprint is smaller than the national average by a considerable margin (12%), reflecting our milder winters. Food is also notably lower, 6% lower than the national average. Apart from construction of new houses, there is little variation in other categories.
Figure 2.2 Ecological footprint by consumption category for
Queensland and Australia
Source: EPA
Figure 2.3The difference between ecological footprints for Queensland and the whole of Australia
Source: EPA
The big hitters
The high-level categories discussed above can hide some of the finer details of the Queensland footprint. These seven categories can be broken down into more than 300 consumption activities (commodities). Twenty-four of the 300 account for two-thirds of the total ecological footprint. These 'big hitters' have been included in Figure 2.4. To some extent they reflect Queensland's industrial structure. Identifying the big hitters helps focus on where action can be taken to gain maximum reduction in the ecological footprint.
Figure 2.4 A breakdown of the 24 consumption activities that account for two-thirds of Queensland's total ecological footprint
Source: EPA
Spatial variation within Queensland and Brisbane
The spatial variation within Queensland and Brisbane is mapped in Figures 2.5 and 2.6 respectively. For Queensland, the ecological footprint ranges from <6.5 to >8.5 gha/person. The ecological footprint tends to be lower in the state's northern parts than elsewhere, reflecting patterns of settlement and land use. In Brisbane, the ecological footprint is concentrated around areas of commercial activity. It should be noted that household expenditure data can be subject to large standard errors at the statistical local area (SLA) level, and so analysis of ecological footprint by SLA should be treated with caution.
Differences between urban and rural consumption impacts
The breakdown of ecological footprint results by SLA allows a detailed spatial analysis of consumption-related environmental impacts. When separated into Brisbane's SLAs and those from the rest of Queensland, we are able to compare the ecological footprint of urban and rural areas. The relative contribution of main consumption categories in the two areas are shown in Figure 2.7. A more detailed breakdown is shown in Figure 2.8.
Brisbane 's ecological footprint is notably higher in the categories of new construction, furnishing, clothes and shoes, real estate and rental lodging, and other miscellaneous services. Rural areas, on the other hand, have significantly higher impacts in electricity and passenger cars or trucks, the latter reflecting a higher dependency on private transport in regional areas. These findings reflect differences in population growth and consumption patterns between Queensland's south-east and its rural areas.
Ecological footprint analysis of commodities
The methodology applied in this project allows the full life-cycle analysis of ecological footprints of over 300 commodities consumed by residents in different parts of Queensland. Figure 2.9 and Table 2.1 show the relative contributions of the 20 commodities that have the highest individual footprint. In Figure 2.9, each bubble in the diagram represents one commodity (for instance, electricity). The size is proportional to the per-capita ecological footprint. The location of the bubble is determined by the level of consumption (expenditure on the commodity in $ per person, x -axis) and the relative intensity of the impact (EF per $ spent, y -axis).
This method of looking at detailed footprint results can provide information on whether impacts are mainly due to the production process or come from high levels of consumption. Commodities located in the top left part of Figure 2.9 have high intensities per dollar, which means that a relatively high load of ecological-footprint-related impacts is embodied per value of product, most likely because of a footprint-intensive production process. Wheat, beef cattle and electricity are examples of this type. If, on the other hand, the commodity is located towards the right of the diagram, impacts are increasingly due to the level of consumption as expenditure increases. In Queensland, much money is spent on dwellings, home construction and retail trade. The marked impact observed for residential building construction is being driven by the need to accommodate a rapidly growing population.
As can be seen from Figure 2.9, we did not find commodities that had both high-intensity and high-expenditure values, and thus the top right of the diagram is empty.
Table 2.1 shows that the top ten products and services account for almost half, and the top twenty for almost two-thirds, of the state's total ecological footprint.
Table 2.1 Ecological footprint of 20 top-ranking commodities consumed in Queensland
Rank |
Queensland |
EF intensity (gha/$) |
Expenditure ($/cap) |
EF per capita (gha/cap) |
1 |
Residential building construction |
0.0003 |
2661 |
0.79 |
2 |
Electricity supply |
0.0030 |
259 |
0.77 |
3 |
Retail trade |
0.0002 |
1959 |
0.34 |
4 |
Petrol |
0.0002 |
1393 |
0.27 |
5 |
Beef cattle |
0.0035 |
70 |
0.25 |
6 |
Hotels, clubs, restaurants and cafes |
0.0003 |
798 |
0.21 |
7 |
Wooden furniture |
0.0007 |
319 |
0.21 |
8 |
Other food products |
0.0005 |
401 |
0.21 |
9 |
Ownership of dwellings |
0.0000 |
3311 |
0.16 |
10 |
Air and space transport |
0.0002 |
900 |
0.14 |
11 |
Non-building construction |
0.0001 |
1058 |
0.14 |
12 |
Electronic equipment |
0.0001 |
1165 |
0.14 |
13 |
Non-residential building construction |
0.0001 |
1086 |
0.14 |
14 |
Finished cars |
0.0001 |
1306 |
0.13 |
15 |
Wheat |
0.0066 |
18 |
0.12 |
16 |
Education |
0.0001 |
1641 |
0.12 |
17 |
Clothing |
0.0002 |
611 |
0.12 |
18 |
Meat products |
0.0009 |
105 |
0.10 |
19 |
Federal government |
0.0001 |
831 |
0.09 |
20 |
Wholesale trade |
0.0001 |
726 |
0.09 |
Source: Wood and Wiedman 2007
Figure 2.5 The ecological footprint for the statistical local areas (SLAs) in Queensland, June 2007
Source: EPA
Figure 2.6 Per capita ecological footprint of statistical local areas (SLAs) in Brisbane
Source: EPA
Figure 2.7 Comparison of relative contributions: main categories in Brisbane and rural areas
Source: EPA
Figure 2.8 Per capita ecological footprint: Brisbane and the rest of Queensland
Source: EPA
Figure 2.9 Ecological footprints of the 20 top-ranking commodities in Queensland by expenditure ( x -axis), intensity ( y -axis) and absolute EF (size of circles)
Source: EPA
Sustainability reporting by organisations
Sustainability reporting has become a growing part of large organisations' public reporting. The global reporting initiative (GRI) is an important reference point for sustainability reporting practice. The public sector agency supplement produced as part of the GRI provides a comprehensive framework for sustainability reporting by government agencies.
A background paper prepared by D. Green, 'The role of the private sector in environmental stewardship', for Australia : State of the Environment Report 2006 , contained the following useful overview of the state of sustainability reporting:
Sustainability reporting is of considerable interest around the world, and is becoming one of the basic criteria for judging the social responsibility of organisations. The number of companies in Australia releasing a public sustainability report is continuing to grow every year, although the overall reporting rate of the top 100 publicly listed companies is still low by international standards (KPMG and the University of Amsterdam 2005). Companies in the manufacturing and mining sectors are the most likely to produce sustainability reports. The benefit most often perceived by companies from producing a sustainability report is reputation enhancement (CAER et al. 2005). Increasing numbers of companies are producing reports using Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) guidelines. The GRI is an independent organisation that develops and disseminates globally applicable sustainability reporting guidelines for voluntary use by companies or other organisations.
Two organisations in Australia present awards for sustainability reporting: the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) and the Australasian Reporting Awards (ARA). The winners of the 2005 ACCA awards for Australia and New Zealand were:.mecu for Best Sustainability Report Watercare Services and Australian Ethical Investment for Continued High Quality Sustainability Reporting, BHP Billiton for Sustainability Communication Using the Internet (ACCA 2006). The winner of the 2005 Sustainability Reporting Award of the ARA was Aurora Energy Pty Limited (ARA 2005).
Industry survey
Initial findings: business sustainability survey 2007
A survey of the 241 ecoBiz participants and 3300 businesses in Ipswich City and surrounding areas was conducted in early 2007. One objective was to measure activity in the areas of eco-efficiency, design for sustainability, and rebuilding of natural and social capital to support business sustainability and competitiveness. After the incomplete responses were excluded, a total of 91 ecoBiz participants responded (38%) and 177 (5%) of the 3300 businesses from around Ipswich responded.
Of the ecoBiz respondents, 83 (91%) provided one or more examples of eco-efficiency actions to save energy, water, raw materials or waste. Twenty-four ecoBiz respondents (26%) provided one or more examples of actions to redesign a product, process or service to reduce the resources needed to produce or deliver products and services that would satisfy their customers.
Examples of actions taken to enhance the capacity of part of the environment, or of part of the community to support the success of that business in the short, medium or long term, were provided by 90 (98.9%) of the ecoBiz respondents. Types of actions varied: 78 businesses (85.5%) reported that they provide professional development opportunities to their employees; 72 (79%) sponsor community activities or donate goods or services to the community; 69 (76%) provide flexible work hours for employees; 62 (68%) offer work experience to students or the unemployed; 56 (61.5%) provide company-sponsored social events for employees. Specific health or wellbeing programs for staff (for instance, annual health check-ups or flu vaccinations) were provided by 43 businesses (47%).
Of the Ipswich business respondents, which included eight ecoBiz respondents, 109 (61%) provided one or more examples of eco-efficiency actions to save energy, water, raw materials or waste. Twelve respondents (6.7%) provided one or more examples of actions to redesign a product, process or service so as to reduce the resources needed to produce or deliver products and services that would satisfy their customers.
Examples of actions taken to enhance the capacity of part of the environment, or of part of the community to support the success of that business in the short, medium or long term, were provided by 165 (92.7%) of the Ipswich business respondents. Types of actions reported were similar to responses from ecoBiz participants, but percentage of engagement varied slightly. For example, 125 businesses (70%) provided flexible work hours for employees; 117 (66%) sponsored community activities or donated goods or services to the community; 106 (60%) provided professional development opportunities; 83 (47%) offered work experience to students or the unemployed; 68 (38%) offered company-sponsored social events for employees. Specific health or wellbeing programs for staff (for example, annual health check-ups or flu vaccinations) were provided by 49 businesses (27.7%).
Return to State of the Environment Queensland 2007 content page
Last reviewed 17 May 2011
Last updated 5 February 2008