Sustainability in Australia

It took me quite a long time to write about this, right? But subjects that interest us continue catching our attention – maybe even more than before – when we’re abroad.

So, since I arrived in Australia, I’ve been getting involved and meeting people engaged in sustainability related things:
- engaged in a very nice sustainability virtual network, commanded by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation), which produces a high level worth reading scientific newsletter - http://www.csiro.au/;
- engaged in the social investment committee of Colmar Brunton, which is focused on the Habitat for Humanity program - http://www.habitat.org/;
- participated of some events: launch of One at a Time Foundation, GreenPeace renewable energy seminar and social leadership lecture at Sydney University, where I can understand Australian stage in terms of sustainability practices and thinking and, most importantly, connect to locals;
- watched “The inconvenient truth” movie.

Some sad findings:
- Australia is among the top 3 countries in greenhouse emissions per capita (after US and Kuwait);
- 90% (!!!) of Australian energy comes from coal (in Brazil, 96,8% come from water);
- Australia and US are the only developed countries who didn’t sign the Kyoto Protocol;
- More than half of the people drive to work;
- Although Australia produces lots of technology around environmentally friendly systems, it generally exports it without implementing in the country;
- The level of conscience and engagement is still very low and even the ambitions of the environmental leaders is shy – they are fighting to have 15% of the total energy production coming from renewable sources by 2025.

Given this situation, we are planning to start a discussion group on the theme in the upcoming weeks, formed by people with different backgrounds, willing to spread knowledge, create individual commitment and put some actions into practice. Let’s see…