Journal articles on the topic 'Environmental auditing Victoria Case studies'

Drought across swathes of Australia, highlights our need for water conservation in addition to seeking new sources of water (demand and supply-side resource options). Water conservation or efficiency improvement is currently a non-systematic process along the lines of ‘if we do such and such then we will save so much water’. Such an approach is ad-hoc and only has the appearance of being ‘quantitative’. We would class it as qualitative, or maybe advanced qualitative water conservation. True quantitative or structured water auditing of non-domestic water consumption is an iterative, systematic and documented process of obtaining reliable use data, validated by a closure approach. Opportunities are identified for water use reduction, water reuse, recycling and for water resource substitution. Financial assessment of savings in cost against cost of measures will provide a payback period. A water management strategy or Water Management Plan (WMP) as it is known in Victoria, Australia, is devised which is consistent with legal requirements, the enterprise's environmental policy and its movement towards sustainable development. Regulators have legislated for mandatory WMPs and audits in Victoria, but this is the only state so far to do this. Mandatory water auditing should be an uncontested choice as it can only provide a win:win situation regulation to the private sector. We argue that only the systematic process provided by structural water auditing constitutes quantitative water conservation. Further, statutory obligation for water users to engage in the water auditing process will give the broad, systematic quantitative information, and based upon which optimal water management strategies or WMPs can be devised. This will ensure a rational approach to our future water needs and the needs of our environment. It is anticipated that voluntary auditing in the arenas not mandated will increase in the long term if this is done.

This particular case study looks at the problem of curriculum and professional development in environmental education at a small semi rural primary school in south western Victoria. In this paper the ‘study’ refers to the case study research at Elliminyt Primary School and the ‘project’ refers to a wider OECD-CERI ENSI project which included many other case studies other than the one described here.

This paper introduces an enhanced energy auditing process including a ring-fencing mechanism for the selection of energy efficiency measures considering a multi-stage planning of the energy retrofitting project. The proposed ring-fencing approach enables SMEs to overcome the barrier of lack of capital for the implementation of energy efficiency measures by implementing first no-cost measures and only after that energy savings are accumulated considering the installation of low-cost, medium-cost and finally high-cost measures. The advantages of the proposed methodology are illustrated by means of three case studies, where a variety of energy efficiency measures were first identified throughout the auditing process involving three different SMEs, then most effective measures were selected and scheduled to be implemented according to a multi-annual plan while considering budget and operational constraints. The results of the pilot studies show that the business owners have improved their decision-making with respect to energy efficiency upgrades by engaging in the auditing process and accepting the recommendations about the suggested interventions to maximize financial (and environmental) benefits.

AbstractThe Waste Wise Schools Program was established by EcoRecycle Victoria to implement waste and litter education in Victorian schools. It is now operating in over 900 schools in Victoria and 300 schools in other Australian states / territories. This paper provides detailed case studies of two active schools in the Waste Wise Schools Program and considers for each school how the Program started, what it meant to the school, the environmental, educational, social and economic outcomes of the Program and the key success factors. It discusses evidence that the Program has changed the thinking and behaviour of many families at the schools, suggesting that the children may be acting as catalysts to influence their parent's waste wise behaviour, i.e. having an intergenerational influence. Guidelines for promoting this influence are proposed.

Victoria’s (Australia) Environment Protection Authority (EPA), the state’s environmental regulator, has recognized the need to develop an Environmental Health Tracking System (EHTS) to better understand environmental health relationships. To facilitate the process of developing an EHTS; a linkage-based conceptual framework was developed to link routinely collected environmental and health data to better understand environmental health relationships. This involved researching and drawing on knowledge from previous similar projects. While several conceptual frameworks have been used to organize data to support the development of an environmental health tracking system, Driving Force–Pressure–State–Exposure–Effect–Action (DPSEEA) was identified as the most broadly applied conceptual framework. Exposure and effects are two important components of DPSEEA, and currently, exposure data are not available for the EHTS. Therefore, DPSEEA was modified to the Driving Force–Pressure–Environmental Condition–Health Impact–Action (DPEHA) conceptual framework for the proposed Victorian EHTS as there is relevant data available for tracking. The potential application of DPEHA for environmental health tracking was demonstrated through case studies. DPEHA will be a useful tool to support the implementation of Victoria’s environmental health tracking system for providing timely and scientific evidence for EPA and other decision makers in developing and evaluating policies for protecting public health and the environment in Victoria.

The growing recognition of recreational and amenity demands on water systems introduces a multitude of issues, many of them complex, to the established tasks of water quality management and water management generally. Victorian case studies are presented. They (1) illustrate the range and diversity of situations that can arise in managing competition and enhancing compatibility between traditional water supply objectives and recreational demands. (2) Fluctuation of storage levels, essential to storage operations, detract from recreational value. Recreational and tourism demands upon Lake Hume have grown to threaten traditional operating flexibility. (3) Mokoan is another such instance, but with its supply function in a state of flux, Lake Mokoan provides more scope for a shift in the balance. (4) Salinity management has become an issue in the management of lakes and wetlands when water supply interests and environmental/recreation interests respectively have different perspectives on salt disposal. (5) Recreational use of town supply sources has long been a vexed issue, although marked shifts in the attitudues of many supply authorities have occurred in recent years. (6) Eutrophication of lakes and estuaries raises difficult issues of responsibility and scientific uncertainty, and the water management connection may be tenuous but will attract public attention. (7) The water body attributes valued by specialised recreational interests require definition in terms that water managers can deal with using routine techniques of systems analysis and evaluation. (8) The demands of the fish population and anglers introduce a new perspective in river management and perceptions of instream values are changing markedly. (9) Direct costs of recreational services supplied by water authorities are not fully accounted: allocation choices and fiscal incidence will emerge as issues of significance. (10) These case studies raise only a fraction of the total range of matters that will, in the years to come, tax the technology and political skills of governments and management.

Few studies have examined the link between air cargo and business travel, despite there being a generally accepted understanding that these two variables are inextricably related to each other. This paper examines the relationship between air cargo and business travel at the international level and analyses how these two variables are causally related. Moreover, we break down the sample into three major Australian states (New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria), as each possesses a distinct flavour in trade and commerce. Utilising Granger causality methods, we have found evidence that there is a direct causal relationship between business travel and air cargo in the short run, and a bi-directional relationship in periods of 12 months and longer. The nature of the Granger causality at the state-level substantially differs from state to state, suggesting that the economic landscape of Australia’s local economy has a significant impact on the air cargo and business travel relationship.

Over the past decade environment protection policies have placed increasing emphasis on waste minimisation and cleaner production techniques. The Environment Protection Authority in Victoria, Australia, has sought to encourage waste minimisation by establishing a Clean Technology Incentive Scheme. This Scheme makes available secured interest-free loans of up to $100,000 to selected small and medium-sized companies proposing to install proven yet innovative waste reducing technology. Applications are evaluated by a Review Committee drawn from a diversity of backgrounds. The technical feasibility, innovativeness, environmental benefits and financial soundness of proposals are assessed and a short-list of potential loan recipients prepared. The managerial competence and financial status of short-listed applicants is checked before loans are made. The Scheme was established in 1988 and since then 35 offers of loans have been made. Whilst the newness of the Scheme makes evaluation of its long-term effectiveness premature, results to date are encouraging. Case studies of three especially successful projects are presented.

Provision of information for the purposes of evaluating and monitoring recreation and tourism land use is a conceptually difficult task for economists and land managers. A range of techniques has been developed since the pioneering work of Clawson and Knetsch in the 1960s to estimate the market value of recreation and tourism in natural areas. These techniques involve a number of conceptual and practical difficulties when used for environmental auditing and evaluation purposes. This article outlines the process of evaluating recreation and tourism on public lands in order to provide information for an environmental audit of the Upper North East region of New South Wales. The range of market and non-market values associated with tourism and recreation on public lands is based on existing studies of the region. The values of commercial production, recreation and tourism on public lands are compared within a structural model (input–output) of the regional economy.

This article is about a case of policy failure and negative lesson drawing, namely the implementation of a mandatory smart metering programme – the Advanced Metering Infrastructure Program – in the State of Victoria, Australia, in the period 2009–2013. The article explores the framing of policy failure, and the ways in which failed polices might be mobile. The Advanced Metering Infrastructure Program provides an important empirical counterbalance to existing scholarship on policy learning, transfer and mobility, which is for the most part about positive best practice case studies, emulation and the travelling of ‘fast’ and (by implication) successful policy. There is evidence that the Victorian Advanced Metering Infrastructure Program circulated domestically within Australia and was influential in policy decision making, but that its international mobility was limited. The case is used to explore what gets left behind – or is immobile – in the telling of policy stories about failure. Science and Technology Studies scholarship on the inherent fragility of sociotechnical networks is drawn upon to consider how the concept of assemblage – a popular conceptual lens within policy mobility scholarship – might be applied to better understand instances of policy failure.

Water is used almost in every sector, growth in population and increase in the standard of living of people so demand is increased. Water is used by all the living creatures found in the world but a very small portion of water is available for drinking and other purposes. This available usable water is mismanaged by human beings, for this mismanagement of water introducing a tool by IWA/AWWA is water-audit. Water-audit is used for reducing water-losses, leakages and gives the information of water used by consumers. Environment audit carried out in stages, water audit also consists of many stages. In this review paper, case studies are highlighted, which gives the general methodology adopted for auditing. Water balance sheet is very useful for understanding the types of losses and type of water used in particular DMA (District Metered Area). Due to the loss of water Non-revenue water is increased, for reducing losses requires huge investments.

The Minerva gas field is situated approximately 10 km offshore Port Campbell, Victoria, in the Southern Ocean in water depth of approximately 60 m. The development involves the drilling and completion of two wells, offshore pipelines to the coast, subterranean shore crossing and onshore pipelines to a gas treatment plant where liquids will be removed prior to exporting the gas.From the outset, the project attracted the interest of the local and wider community due to its proximity to the highly regarded Port Campbell National Park. The National Park is known for its unique geomorphological features, its fauna and flora and aboriginal heritage sites.The development has been subject to a dual jurisdiction, State and Federal, Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process. The process included the formation of a Community Consultative Committee consisting of representatives from government agencies, local community groups, environmental groups, industry associations and the proponent. The Committee provided input to the scope of the EIA and reviewed and endorsed the studies and report prior to public exhibition. An independent panel hearing and ministerial assessments followed public exhibition.A phased process was adopted in the selection of routes, sites and technologies to achieve the lowest practicable environmental impact. Each phase was supported by studies of environmental aspects, fauna, flora, heritage, visual and social impacts. The process commenced on a regional scale and progressively refined the concept and the study area. Detailed studies of key environmental aspects were conducted for the selected development options.The final development concept addressed the key findings of the baseline and subsequent environmental studies and was largely supported by an independent panel. However, there still remained concerns by sectors of the community on the issue of precedent and integrity of the National Park. The Ministerial assessment reflected the issues of community value above technical, environmental, archaeological and heritage considerations.

New WHO and Australian guidelines promote a risk-management approach for minimising exposure to pathogens in recreational waters. Between 2003 and 2005, they were applied to Lake Parramatta (10 ha, 450 ML), a potential recreation site in Sydney, Australia. A three stage approach was developed involving (1) initial suitability assessment using historic data, (2) revised suitability assessment based on new data and (3) characterisation of hazardous (especially wet weather) events. Contrary to the stage 1 suitability classification, stage 2 baseline data indicated that during dry weather the lake had water quality sufficient for primary contact recreation (95th percentiles for enterococci=19 MPN/100, n=50) and the major pathogen source was wildfowl. Guideline principles provided a rationale for collecting microbiological and geographic data needed to understand local cycles of lake contamination/recovery. The concept of hazardous events was particularly useful. Studies of stormwater events led us to identify a transition point (>10 mm rainfall in 24 h) where human-faecal pathogen risks increased and access needed to be controlled. Together baseline and event data yielded operational tools (i.e. event detection methods, action triggers, auditing criteria, remediation priorities) for minimising bather exposure.

This investigation was designed to provide preliminary information to the Environment Protection Authority concerning the input of faecal matter to stormwater drains in the Rippleside area of Geelong, Victoria. Results derived from the combined use of sterol biomarkers (e.g. coprostanol and 24-ethylcoprostanol) and four sub-groups of bacterial indicators (e.g. thermotolerant coliforms, E. coli, faecal streptococci and enterococci) indicated that during wet weather, all sites sampled were affected by significant human faecal contamination. Ratios of coprostanol to bacterial indicators were similar to those for samples collected from nearby sewer mains. During dry weather, there were still severely elevated levels of faecal contamination based on bacterial indicators, but correspondingly low concentrations of faecal sterols suggesting minimal human or herbivore faecal contamination. The origin of the majority of the faecal pollution in dry weather therefore remains to be fully explained. It is clear from this and related studies that the combined measurement of faecal sterols and bacterial indicators can greatly assist distinguishing sources of faecal pollution. It is also shown for aquatic environments that the measurement of coprostanol or other single indicators alone, is inadequate to fully discern faecal contamination from human sources.

The author (MA, MCIP, RPP) co-manages Evergreen's Common Grounds program which focuses on the protection and restoration of public lands in urban areas. He has a Master's degree in urban planning from the University of Waterloo, a Bachelor's Degree in resource geography from the University of Victoria , and he is a full member of the Canadian Institute of Planners. Over the past five years, he has developed urban greening resources for land use professionals and community groups including a national grant program, guidebooks, research reports, municipal policy guidelines and case studies. He has also developed and led professional training workshops for public land managers and other municipal officials on partnership approaches for protecting and stewarding urban green spaces. Prior to joining Evergreen, Stewart worked in the private and public sectors leading a variety of land-use planning, environmental assessment and resource conservation projects. Mr Chisholm has written journal articles and presented papers at national and international conferences including the Canadian Institute of Planners (2002) and the Society for Ecological Restoration (2001). The paper that follows is based on a presentation that he gave at the international symposion on "The Natural City," Toronto, 23-25 June, 2004, sponsored by the University of Toronto's Division of the Environment, Institute for Environmental Studies, and the World Society for Ekistics.

Currently there is no tool to assess the sustainability performance of reuse systems in Australia. This research fulfills that gap by developing a set of sustainability indicators (SIs). A unique methodology was developed based on understanding of the reuse systems, reviewing and examining the issues related to reuse, and Australian policy and guidelines in terms of sustainability. It was established that a sustainable reuse system should be based beyond the triple bottom line approach, and involve consumers in decision making, address institutional issues, and focus on the outcomes rather than the output, with a system approach. Twenty seven SIs were identified under five categories: environmental, technical, social, economical, and institutional. The case studies demonstrated the application of the SIs in sustainability assessment of two reuse systems: (1) tree plantation and (2) lake discharge for augmenting environmental flow. The evaluation was done based on multi criteria decision assessment.

Abstract The Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV) encourages local churches to give priority to contributing to the well-being of their local neighbourhoods through community engagement and advocacy. This commitment to holistic mission and local community development is an integral part of the public theology of local churches, given Elaine Graham’s argument that ‘practical care and service constitutes the essential praxis of public theology’. But to what extent does the reality of BUV local church mission match this rhetoric? The 2016 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) helps identify what community service BUV churches and their members are involved in. This article discusses the statistical state-wide responses of Victorian Baptists from NCLS 2016, together with interview responses from church leaders. It explores aspects of community development most valued by attenders, where church members are volunteering, and how and where churches are providing social services, prophetic advocacy and environmental care. This denominational case study illustrates that churches offering social services and fostering advocacy and creation care are functioning as the local praxis of public theology.

The study aimed at exploring the critical enablers to the development and usage of information security governance frameworks for cloud computing in Uganda. The study was motivated by the continuous information security governance challenges in the Public Cloud. The theoretical frameworks that underpinned this study included; Contingency management theory, the Risk Management framework, the Technological Organisational and Environmental (TOE) model and the Information Security Governance model. This study adopted a quantitative research approach to obtain data through a survey. Five key factors for information security governance were identified: a) Technological factors: flexibility, scalability, availability, agility, data protection governance, trust of cloud, data source, maintenance, data retention and policy. b) Organisation: size and structure of the organisation, top management support. c) Environmental factors: governance and regulation, marketing, vendor, resource availability, obsoleteness. d) Individual: user resistance, attitude, skills, belief and learnability. e) Risk management and control factors: risk assessment, disaster recovery, access and authorisation control, monitoring, auditing, and process risk control. The study contributes to theory and practice in information security. The developed framework and its accompanying model helped to inform public departments, organisational top management and information security strategies to avoid excessive information risks and potential regulatory compliance failures in public cloud. The study was inclined on subjective information security, which alone may not fully address all information security problems in a public cloud. Therefore, it is recommendable that future research studies on objective security in public cloud

The study aimed at exploring the critical enablers to the development and usage of information security governance frameworks for cloud computing in Uganda. The study was motivated by the continuous information security governance challenges in the Public Cloud. The theoretical frameworks that underpinned this study included; Contingency management theory, the Risk Management framework, the Technological Organisational and Environmental (TOE) model and the Information Security Governance model. This study adopted a quantitative research approach to obtain data through a survey. Five key factors for information security governance were identified: a) Technological factors: flexibility, scalability, availability, agility, data protection governance, trust of cloud, data source, maintenance, data retention and policy. b) Organisation: size and structure of the organisation, top management support. c) Environmental factors: governance and regulation, marketing, vendor, resource availability, obsoleteness. d) Individual: user resistance, attitude, skills, belief and learnability. e) Risk management and control factors: risk assessment, disaster recovery, access and authorisation control, monitoring, auditing, and process risk control. The study contributes to theory and practice in information security. The developed framework and its accompanying model helped to inform public departments, organisational top management and information security strategies to avoid excessive information risks and potential regulatory compliance failures in public cloud. The study was inclined on subjective information security, which alone may not fully address all information security problems in a public cloud. Therefore, it is recommendable that future research studies on objective security in public cloud.

AbstractIntroduced into Lake Victoria in the 1950s, the Nile perch has gained fame for prompting rapid regional economic growth and for driving scores of endemic fish species into extinction. This study uses oral and archival data to trace the historical development of the Nile perch fishery on Lake Victoria. Particular emphasis is placed on local responses and adaptations to (1) the Nile perch itself; (2) the abrupt integration of the Lake Victoria fishery with the global economy; and (3) the ecological changes that the Nile perch has precipitated. I also attempt to situate Lake Victoria's history in the larger debate about environment and African livelihoods. Because so much of Lake Victoria's species diversity has been lost within one generation – biologist E. O. Wilson (1992) has called this process ‘the most catastrophic extinction episode of recent history’ – the lake is an ideal case study with which to examine ‘local’ perceptions of biodiversity. The data suggest that species diversity is important and highly resolved in the worldviews of Lake Victoria's fishermen; yet, although the will for conservation is present, poverty obstructs its realization. These findings are discussed in relation to other work on indigenous environmental knowledge and ecological ethics. I argue that ‘intrinsic’ valuation of species diversity and ecological processes may be more widespread in rural societies than has traditionally been assumed by natural and social scientists, and that the preponderance of social studies highlighting oppositions between Western science and ethno-science, and between conservation concerns and local livelihoods, may have blinded us to synergies between them. More effort is needed to understand fully the nuances in these complex local ecological worldviews, perhaps via ‘social histories of extinction’ that explore the local consequences of species loss.

The care of people living with HIV/AIDS in the home and community can be complex and challenging, requiring high levels of knowledge, skill, preparedness and, importantly, the ability to engage with people belonging to marginalised groups. In 2003, the Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) HIV/AIDS Team in Victoria, Australia, developed the new role of HIV Resource Nurse at two RDNS centres in Melbourne serving high numbers of people living with HIV/AIDS. Drawing from two case studies and interviews with two HIV Resource Nurses from one of the centres, this paper describes this practice innovation. Benefits (including a positive impact on client engagement with services, client care, relationships with other health care workers and job satisfaction) are outlined, along with challenges in the implementation and evolution of the role. Strategies to sustain and develop the HIV Resource Nurse role are proposed.

The purpose of this article was to evaluate the level of satisfaction of a sample of graduates in relation to different online postgraduate programs in the environmental area, as part of the process of continuous improvement in which the educational institution was immersed for the renewal of its accreditation before the corresponding official bodies. Based on the bibliographic review of a series of models and tools, a Likert scale measurement instrument was developed. This instrument, once applied and validated, showed a good level of reliability, with more than three quarters of the participants having a positive evaluation of satisfaction. Likewise, to facilitate the relational study, and after confirming the suitability of performing a factor analysis, four variable grouping factors were determined, which explained a good part of the variability of the instrument’s items. As a result of the analysis, it was found that there were significant values of low satisfaction in graduates from the Eurasian area, mainly in terms of organizational issues and academic expectations. On the other hand, it was observed that the methodological aspects of the “Auditing” and “Biodiversity” programs showed higher levels of dissatisfaction than the rest, with no statistically significant relationships between gender, entry profile or age groups. The methodology followed and the rigor in determining the validity and reliability of the instrument, as well as the subsequent analysis of the results, endorsed by the review of the documented information, suggest that the instrument can be applied to other multidisciplinary programs for decision making with guarantees in the educational field.

Abstract Cage aquaculture has been on a steady rise in Lake Victoria, Kenya, since 2016, resulting in the current culturing of over 3,600 cages of Tilapia (O. niloticus) (Orina et al., 2018). Unfortunately, there has been limited, if any, focus on fish health aspects. Rise in intensification and commercialization predisposes fish stocks to disease due to rise in stress levels and consequent reduction in the fish immunity. Nutrient rich surroundings create a conducive environment for rapid proliferation of bacterial and saprophytic fungal growth leading to net clogging and consequently a low biological oxygen demand. Such conditions predispose the stocks to infections. This study was conducted to provide a baseline analysis of the health conditions/status of the cultured fish in this region. It encompassed studies from 2016 to 2018 on tilapia of the genus O. niloticus using both experimental (using standard procedures and protocols) and socio-economic studies (using structured questionnaires, see annexure 1). Results found the following occurrences; bacterial infections (10%), fungal infestations (12.5%), myxosporean parasites in the gills (5%), parasitic copepods (10%) and fin rot (2.5%) in the stocks. There were no significant differences between abiotic parameters in the cage locations and the wild (p > 0.05). Additionally, 90% of the respondents had no fish disease training or clue on the treatment action necessary whenever fish diseases struck. Findings from this study put to the fore the significance of fish diseases in a cage culture system in light of commercialization of the industry and the importance of biosecurity and maintenance of optimal environmental conditions within the scope of Blue Economy growth in this region. This study did not detect any disease or parasite of zoonotic importance.

The pre-conditions, processes, and outcomes associated with best practice in women's health at the primary health care level are discussed. The paper draws on a study which identified projects that exemplified best practice in relation to: collaboration with consumers and communities; the adoption of a social model of health; the collaboration between providers at different levels of the health system and government; and addressing immediate health needs in a way which recognises the underlying conditions which cause ill health. The methodology involved identifying 187 recently published and documented episodes of primary health care practice. Using ratings and reports from 90 experienced referees from around Australia, the 187 case studies were reduced to 25 which the referees agreed represented 'best practice'. A more detailed investigation of these 25 studies was undertaken to determine what structures contributed to the good processes and outcomes. Of these, eight were women's health projects, with six undertaken by women's health services in Victoria. The paper outlines the kinds of outcomes, processes and pre-conditions which are associated with best practice as illustrated by one of the Victorian women's health projects. The findings from this research project provided practical, informative and useful models of best practice which can be of assistance to women, health workers, policy makers and government.

AbstractObjectiveAn increasing focus on legislation, policy and guidance on the nutritional content of school food has in part been in response to the limited impact of more behavioural or educational approaches. However, there is a risk that a sole focus on policy-level action may lead to neglect of the important contribution that more behavioural approaches can make as components of effective, coordinated, multilevel action to improve the dietary intake of schoolchildren. The current paper aims to highlight the potential importance of viewing alternative approaches as complementary or synergistic, rather than competing.DesignThe socio-ecological and RE-AIM frameworks are used to provide a theoretical rationale and demonstrate the importance of explicitly identifying the interdependence of policies, interventions and contextual structures and processes. School food case study evidence is used to exemplify how understanding and exploiting these interdependencies can maximise impact on dietary outcomes.SettingCase studies of trials in schools in the UK (South West England and Wales) and Australia (Victoria).SubjectsSchoolchildren.ResultsThe case studies provide examples to support the hypothesis that the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation and maintenance of school food policies and interventions can be maximised by understanding and exploiting the interdependence between levels in the socio-ecological framework.ConclusionsRather than being seen as competing alternatives, diverse approaches to improving the diets of schoolchildren should be considered in terms of their potential to be complementary and synergistic, acting at multiple levels to improve acceptability, fidelity, effectiveness and sustainability.

Half of the wastewater facilities constructed in Mexico for wastewater treatment and projected to be constructed in the next ten years, are waste stabilisation pond systems. The existing facilities have several problems in their operation. A national programme was developed by federal and local authorities responsible for sanitation and treatment for the monitoring and evaluation of the existing pond systems. The aim of the programme was the monitoring and evaluation of pond performance and effluent quality of a number of waste stabilisation ponds systems in different regions in Mexico and to upgrade and expand them if necessary. The programme was developed during 1998 and the specific sites selected were distributed within the country in the southern, central and northern part of Mexico. The evaluation of the specific ponds led to the production of a series of case studies on the various pond systems selected, that were discussed and jointly developed with local technicians in charge of the operation of the facilities. The case studies developed were: Gómez Portugal pond system located in the state of Aguascalientes, constituted by a baffled facultative pond; Guadalupe Victoria pond system located inthe State of Durango and constituted by a primary facultative, a secondary facultative and a third facultative pond; La Reforma pond system in Sinaloa, with two facultative ponds in series; González Ortega pond system in the State of Baja California Norte, with four anaerobic and four facultative ponds, and Chapilla pond system, located in the state of Chiapas. Plant effluents are intended for several purposes: irrigation and for discharge into receiving bodies. Effluent quality complies only with BOD limits, but not with microbiological limits established in national standards. For each pond, an upgrading plan is presented to comply with microbiological standards for discharge or for its use in irrigation.

This paper reports findings from a comparative study which investigated public attitudes to recycled water in two Australian locations both in the state of Victoria: the capital city, Melbourne, and Bendigo, an urban regional centre. Two commercial buildings were used as case studies, one at each location. These buildings will soon be using recycled water for non-potable uses. The study was facilitated by an on-line survey of future occupants of both buildings to gauge their attitudes to recycled water use. Specifically the paper reports on happiness/willingness to use recycled water for various uses and attitudinal factors which were found to influence this. The circumstances for potable water availability and recycled water use differ in Melbourne and Bendigo, making this study a significant contribution to understanding public acceptance of recycled water use in these different contexts. No significant difference in happiness to use recycled water was found between locations. However, prior experience (use) of recycled water was found to be a significant and positive factor in facilitating happiness/willingness to use recycled water, particularly for closer to personal contact uses such as showering and drinking. Various attitudinal and demographic variables were found to influence happiness to use recycled water. Results indicate it is not just the locational context of water availability that influences happiness to use recycled water, but a person's experience and particular perceptions that will facilitate greater willingness to use recycled water.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore a health program comprising the individual experiences, successes and setbacks of adults in an individually tailored, community-based smoking intervention and physical activity program. The program incorporated physical activity consultation (PAC) and phone support from the well-established Quit smoking cessation program, and in partnership with Melton City Council, Victoria, Australia. Design/methodology/approach Expert facilitators in PAC led the intervention. The program was titled “ActivePlus” and the intervention was conducted for eight weeks. Post-program facilitator guidance continued for three weeks and follow-up on participants was conducted at week 24. Five participants continued to week 24 and were interviewed. Three case descriptions were chosen as a sample to analyse using descriptive content analysis to illustrate the range of experiences, successes and setbacks reported by these individual participants. Findings Smoking reduction/cessation results varied among cases, but increases in PA were sustained. Participants valued the expert support of PAC facilitators, though usage and appraisal of Quit telephone smoking cessation services was mixed. The individually tailored PAC was valued by participants, who felt it also contributed to their smoking reduction/cessation goals. Practical implications In future, the intervention would benefit from the same ongoing support in smoking cessation as the PAC. Practitioners should consider the benefit of including PAC in smoking cessation interventions. However, such interventions should be individually tailored and include facilitation by a PAC and a smoking cessation expert. Originality/value Few studies have looked at completely individualised smoking cessation interventions using PAC. The current study also addresses the recommendations of previous research to investigate the use of more intense PA intervention supported by expert PAC facilitation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical insights into urban household perceptions and (in)action towards the perceived impacts of climate change, based on a case study in Kensington, Victoria, Australia. This case utilises households as sites of active agency, rather than as passive recipients of climate change or associated governance. Design/methodology/approach This research trialled an approach to engaging a community in the context of disaster risk reduction (DRR). It involved a two-stage quantitative door-knocking survey (reported elsewhere), followed by a qualitative interview with interested households. In total, 76 quantitative surveys contextualise 15 qualitative interviews, which are the focus of this analysis. The findings are presented comparatively alongside the current literature. Findings Heatwaves are understood to be the most concerning hazard for the households in this sample who associate their increasing frequency and severity with climate change. However, subsequent (in)action is shown to be situated within the complexities of day-to-day activities and concerns. While respondents did not consider themselves to have “expert” knowledge on climate change, or consider their actions to be a direct response to climate change, most had undertaken actions resulting from experience with heatwaves. These findings suggest there may be an under-representation of DRR, which includes climate change adaptation actions, within the existing research. Research limitations/implications While this sample justifies the arguments and conclusions, it is not a representative sample and therefore requires follow-up. It does however challenge traditional approaches to risk management, which focus on awareness raising and education. The research highlights the unique contexts in which households perceive and act on risk, and the need for risk “experts” to consider such contexts. Originality/value This research provides empirical evidence of urban household responses to perceived climate change-related risk, an often-neglected dimension of heatwave and adaptation studies in Australia. The findings also suggest promise for the methodological approach.

Background: ICSI typically results in fertilisation rates of >65% however patients may still have low or no fertilisation despite the oocyte and sperm quality appearing normal. After entry of the sperm into the oocyte, a cascade of reactions facilitates calcium release and subsequent oocyte activation. In cases of poor or failed fertilisation it is possible that this cascade fails and therefore different methods of artificial oocyte activation are used to try and induce calcium release. Aim: To determine if calcium chloride dihydrate supplementation in the PVP (5mM) at the time of ICSI (ICSI-Ca) improves fertilisation, utilisation and clinical pregnancy rates compared to ICSI alone, particularly in patients with a history of low fertilisation (<50%). Methods: Retrospective study between 2016-2021 at Monash IVF Victoria on a paired cohort of patients (n=178 patients) where an ICSI cycle was analysed coupled with the subsequent ICSI-Ca cycle. The paired cohort was further subdivided into a low-fertilisation cohort (<50% fertilisation on previous cycles: n=66 patients) compared to the remaining patients with normal-fertilisation ([Formula: see text] 50%; n=122). Exclusion criteria included donor cycles, PGT patients, surgical sperm retrieval, women [Formula: see text] 45 years old, patients with >6 cycles and [Formula: see text] 5 inseminated oocytes. Results: Calcium supplementation increased both fertilisation (28.8% ICSI vs 49.7% ICSI-Ca, p<0.0001) and clinical pregnancy rate (4.9% ICSI vs 25.0% ICSI-Ca: p<0.05) in the low-fertilisation cohort but not in the normal-fertilisation cohort. Interestingly, utilisation rate increased in the normal-fertilisation cohort (32.6% ICSI vs ICSI-Ca: 44.9%, p<0.01) but not in the low-fertilisation cohort, although the number of extra embryos utilised per patient after ICSI-Ca increased in both groups. Conclusion: Calcium supplementation appears not to be a detrimental addition to ICSI and may improve IVF outcomes, particularly for patients with a history of low fertilisation. Further investigations including prospective case matched studies or RCT are required to confirm these findings.

Abstract. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is a hydrological simulation tool that is widely applied within the Nile basin. Up to date, more than 20 peer reviewed papers describe the use of SWAT for a variety of problems in the upper Nile basin countries, such as erosion modeling, land use modeling, climate change impact modeling and water resources management. The majority of the studies are clustered in the tropical highlands in Ethiopia and around Lake Victoria. The popularity of SWAT is attributed to the fact that the tool is freely available and that it is readily applicable through the development of Geographic Information System (GIS) based interfaces and its easy linkage to sensitivity, calibration and uncertainty analysis tools. The online and free availability of basic GIS data that are required for SWAT made its applicability more straight forward even in data scarce areas. However, the easy use of SWAT may not always lead to knowledgeable models. In this paper, we aim at critically reviewing the use of SWAT in the context of the modeling purpose and problem descriptions in the tropical highlands of the Nile Basin countries. A number of criteria are used to evaluate the model set-up, model performances, physical representation of the model parameters, and the correctness of the hydrological model balance. On the basis of performance indicators, the majority of the SWAT models were classified as giving satisfactory to very good results. Nevertheless, the hydrological mass balances as reported in several papers contained losses that might not be justified. Several papers also reported unrealistic parameter values. More worrying is that many papers lack this information. For this reason, it is difficult to give an overall positive evaluation to most of the reported SWAT models. An important gap is the lack of attention that is given to the vegetation and crop processes. None of the papers reported any adaptation to the crop parameters, or any crop related output such as leaf area index, biomass or crop yields. A proper simulation of the land cover is important for obtaining correct runoff generation, evapotranspiration and erosion computations. It is also found that a comparison of SWAT applications on the same or similar case study but by different research teams and/or model versions resulted in very different results. It is therefore recommended to try to find better methods to evaluate the representativeness of the distributed processes and parameters, especially when land use studies are envisaged or predictions of the future through environmental changes. The main recommendation is that more details on the model set-up, the parameters and outputs should be provided in the journal papers or supplementary materials in order to allow for a more stringent evaluation of these models.

Abstract. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is an integrated river basin model that is widely applied within the Nile basin. Up to date, more than 20 peer-reviewed papers describe the use of SWAT for a variety of problems in the upper Nile basin countries, such as erosion modelling, land use and climate change impact modelling and water resources management. The majority of the studies are focused on locations in the tropical highlands in Ethiopia and around Lake Victoria. The popularity of SWAT is attributed to the fact that the tool is freely available and that it is readily applicable through the development of geographic information system (GIS) based interfaces and its easy linkage to sensitivity, calibration and uncertainty analysis tools. The online and free availability of basic GIS data that are required for SWAT made its applicability more straightforward even in data-scarce areas. However, the easy use of SWAT may not always lead to appropriate models which is also a consequence of the quality of the available free databases in these regions. In this paper, we aim at critically reviewing the use of SWAT in the context of the modelling purpose and problem descriptions in the tropical highlands of the Nile basin countries. To evaluate the models that are described in journal papers, a number of criteria are used to evaluate the model set-up, model performances, physical representation of the model parameters, and the correctness of the hydrological model balance. On the basis of performance indicators, the majority of the SWAT models were classified as giving satisfactory to very good results. Nevertheless, the hydrological mass balances as reported in several papers contained losses that might not be justified. Several papers also reported the use of unrealistic parameter values. More worrying is that many papers lack this information. For this reason, most of the reported SWAT models have to be evaluated critically. An important gap is the lack of attention that is given to the vegetation and crop processes. None of the papers reported any adaptation to the crop parameters, or any crop-related output such as leaf area index, biomass or crop yields. A proper simulation of the land cover is important for obtaining correct runoff generation, evapotranspiration and erosion computations. It is also found that a comparison of SWAT applications on the same or similar case study but by different research teams and/or model versions resulted in very different results. It is therefore recommended to find better methods to evaluate the representativeness of the distributed processes and parameters (especially when land use studies are envisaged) or predictions of the future through environmental changes. The main recommendation is that more details on the model set-up, the parameters and outputs should be provided in the journal papers or supplementary materials in order to allow for a more stringent evaluation of these models.

Objective: School-based prevention interventions informed by the World Health Organization Health Promoting School (HPS) framework aim to improve the health and wellbeing of school-aged children, yet few studies describe factors influencing the successful implementation of this framework in secondary schools. This study sought to explore why and how secondary schools might implement the HPS framework and factors contributing to success. Design: Qualitative case study. Setting: A single secondary school in Victoria, Australia, purposefully selected due to local recognition of an HPS policy. Method: Data collection included semi-structured interviews, document retrieval, drawings and ethnographic observation. Data were analysed using framework analysis. Results: The school had elected to implement the policy as it aligned with its existing health and wellbeing policy framework and provided a flexible yet evidence-based framework to guide a whole-of-school approach to promoting health and wellbeing. Success was perceived to be dependent on selecting easier health priority areas to address initially, the allocation of a designated team to guide policy implementation and access to a skilled health promotion worker to assist implementation. Conclusion: Study findings highlight potential reasons why and how secondary schools might implement the HPS framework and factors contributing to success. Further research is warranted to enhance the transferability of these findings and explore the impact of the HPS framework in secondary schools.

Background. Primary care waiting rooms can be sites of health promotion and health literacy development through the provision of readily accessible health information. To date, few studies have considered patient engagement with televised health messages in the waiting room, nor have studies investigated whether patients ask their clinicians about this information. The aim of this study was therefore to examine patient (or accompanying person) and clinician engagement with waiting room health information, including televised health messages. Design and methods. The mixed methods case study was undertaken in a regional general practice in Victoria, Australia, utilising patient questionnaires, waiting room observations, and clinician logbooks and interviews. The qualitative data were analysed by content analysis; the questionnaire data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Results. Patients engaged with a range of health information in the waiting room and reportedly received health messages from this information. 44% of the questionnaire respondents (33 of 74) reported watching the television health program, and half of these reported receiving a take home health message from this source. Only one of the clinicians (N=9) recalled a patient asking about the televised health program. Conclusions. The general practice waiting room remains a site where people engage with the available health information, with a televised health ‘infotainment’ program receiving most attention from patients. Our study showed that consumption of health information was primarily passive and tended not to activate patient discussions with clinicians. Future studies could investigate any link between the health infotainment program and behaviour change.

Abstract This paper investigates the investor reaction to audit reports containing a going concern modification (GCM) in the Italian market following new amendments regarding auditing regulations and public financial information disclosures. We applied the event study (ES) methodology to short event windows considering Italian listed companies during the period 2009–2015. Our findings partially contradict previous studies revealing a systematic negative impact of GCMs, especially when a GCM is attached to unqualified opinions. We clearly observe that Italian auditors have a strong higher propensity to issue a GCM than to express a qualification. Moreover, we find other interesting results that contradict the mainstream literature, detecting a stronger negative reaction in the case of recurring GCMs and when the modification is issued by non-Big 4 auditing firms. These differences could be explained considering the environmental characteristics of the Italian market such as the ownership structure, governance mechanisms and accounting culture, where minority investors act against ownership in accordance with the type II agency problem. Our empirical results suggest that the domestic and international regulatory amendments during the study period have increased the value relevance of GCMs and the usefulness of financial disclosures. This study might be of interest to practitioners and regulators in regard to contributing to the introduction of further regulatory interventions that will enhance both the informativeness of audit reports and awareness of investors in regard to going concern uncertainty.

Abstract Background Measuring health inequality is essential to ensure that everyone has equal accessibility to health care. Studies in the past have continuously presented and showed areas or groups of people affected by various inequality in accessing the health resources and services to help improve this matter. Alongside, disease prevention is as important to minimise the disease burden and improve health and quality of life. These aspects are interlinked and greatly contributes to one’s health. Method In this study, the Gini coefficient and Lorenz curve are used to give an indication of the overall health inequality. The impact of this inequality in granular level is demonstrated using Bayesian estimation for disease detection. The Bayesian estimation used a two-component modelling approach that separates the case detection process and incidence rate using a mixed Poisson distribution while capturing underlying spatio-temporal characteristics. Bayesian model averaging is used in conjunction with the two-component modelling approach to improve the accuracy of estimates by incorporating many candidate models into the analysis instead of using fixed component models. This method is applied to an infectious disease, influenza, in Victoria, Australia between 2013 and 2016 and the corresponding primary health care of the state. Result There is a relatively equal distribution of health resources and services pertaining to general practitioners (GP) and GP clinics in Victoria, Australia. Roughly 80 percent of the population shares 70 percent of the number of GPs and GP clinics. The Bayesian estimation with model averaging revealed that access difficulty to health services impacts both case detection probability and incidence rate. Minimal differences are recorded in the observed and estimated incidence of influenza cases considering social deprivation factors. In most years, areas in Victoria’s southwest and eastern parts have potential under-reported cases consistent with their relatively lower number of GP or GP clinics. Conclusion The Bayesian model estimated a slight discrepancy between the estimated incidence and the observed cases of influenza in Victoria, Australia in 2013-2016 period. This is consistent with the relatively equal health resources and services in the state. This finding is beneficial in determining areas with potential under-reported cases and under-served health care. The proposed approach in this study provides insight into the impact of health inequality in disease detection without requiring costly and time-extensive surveys and relying mainly on the data at hand. Furthermore, the application of Bayesian model averaging provided a flexible modelling framework that allows covariates to move between case detection and incidence models.

The journey of environmental auditing began in the USA in the early 1970s. An environmental impact assessment is defined as an assessment of the impacts of planned activities on the environment, biodiversity, vegetation and ecology, water, and air. Research objective was to elucidate the significance of collaborative synergies in executing EIA and Audits for environmental sustainability. The researcher applied the descriptive design in carrying out the survey in Laikipia County where a comprehensive review of literature review was done from relevant journals, conference and workshop papers, review papers, theses, books, reports, informative flyers/booklets and information available on the internet published by individual researchers, NEMA, NETFUND, UNEP and questionnaires were administered to 400 sampled respondents were the main sources of data for this paper. Findings revealed that 30% NEMA officials carried out environmental impact assessments during the planning phase; 20% UNEP Officials provided information via conferences, workshop papers, review papers, theses, books, reports, informative flyers/booklets & responded to questionnaires on significance of collaborative synergies in executing EIA & Audits for environmental sustainability and 20% Laikipia county residents took part in Public participation on the significance of collaborative synergies in executing EIA and Audits for environmental sustainability & responded to questionnaires. 20% of NETFUND officials disseminated information on EIA & Audit Case Studies. The researcher recommended environmental safeguarding measures such as, introduction of corporate environmental policies and strategies, adequate human and institutional capacity; environmental impact assessments during the planning phase.

Global warming effects have far reaching impacts of livelihoods of many rural communities including fishers. It is in record that fishing accounts for world’s 36 million fishers nearly 1.5 billion consumers who rely on fish for their dietary animal protein. Past studies have concentrated on fisher communities and climate variability in marine waters and oceans; mainly investigating the impact of climate variability on fish distribution and production. Limited focus has addressed the interaction between impacts of climate change on the fishing activities on inland and fresh waters such as in Lake Victoria and the fishers coping and adapting with changes and variability of climate. The discussions in this article focused on Lake Victoria shore location of Mbita where the livelihood of local community is largely fishing. The objectives were to: Determine the influence of gender on access and control of fisher resources for climate adaptation in Mbita sub-county; Document the current coping strategies and constraints to Climate variability/change in Mbita sub-county. The study used a constructivist epistemology and the mixed methods research design to help it achieve its findings. Yamane’s formula (1964) is used to get the sample size of 388 respondents out of a population of 13191. Primary data was collected through use of questionnaires, interview schedules for KII and FGDs. Secondary data collection was collected through document reviews of relevant past studies reports and working papers on (temperature/rainfall data) of Mbita for the last 30 years data to get the trend of these elements and to determine climate variability and change. The instruments were validated using experts’ content validity with the supervisors. Piloting was used to ascertain reliability of the instruments Analysis was accomplished using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences. Presentation was done in descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found that there was gender discrimination in access and control of resources which support adaptive activities that makes women more vulnerable to Climate Variability/Change hazards and disasters. The study further found that adaptation requires access and control of factors of production which were traditionally under the control of male fishers making women more vulnerable and susceptible to surviving through chamas and table banking activities. Statistically access to and control was significant to adaptation at p-value of 0.000. Under coping strategies the study found that adaptation required transformation of mind set that called for bigger investment which required the collaboration and consultation of entire Mbita community and county government to address environmental and conservative resource utility. The study concluded that lack of alternative livelihood opportunities/options is the major constraints to adaptation for people living in the Lake Victoria region escalated with limitation of skills outside fishing industry, limitation of other employable professional skills including lack of capital. The study recommends a transdiciplinary concientization of adaptive strategies which can translate into flexible and sustainable climate change adaptation and gender inclusive livelihood activities. Future research should explore participatory action research on environmental influences affecting CCA by comparing findings across other beaches and livelihoods to see if gendered resources have any role in their adaptation.

Abstract Industrial energy efficiency assessments not only provide benefits to manufacturers but also generate significant economic and environmental benefits to localities, states, and the nation through indirect and induced benefits. Quantifying these benefits requires a systematic economic framework for capturing these interactions. This article employs methodologies for improving the energy efficiency of small- and medium-sized industry through their combustion systems. Combustion systems offer large opportunities to enhance energy efficiency through adopting advanced technologies and better-informed operations. The case studies presented illuminate the potential savings and impacts from implementing energy-efficient combustion recommendations and the importance of energy audits and energy efficiency in the fight against climate change. This study describes and quantifies the cascading economic and environmental impacts of implementing the industrial energy efficiency recommendations offered by an energy auditing program by participating facilities over a 10-year period. Results showed that it is expected that a total of $185 M would be saved in energy costs, and 2.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions would be avoided annually, and about 972 jobs could be created in the studied region if all the combustion recommendations would be implemented. The broader view afforded by the proposed study can be used to support better energy-efficient practices in manufacturing facilities, communities, and states.

There is a moment in Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth devised to expose the sheer audacity of fossil fuel lobby groups in the United States. In their attempts to address significant scientific consensus and growing public concern over climate change, these groups are resorting to what Gore’s film suggests are grotesque distortions of fact. A particular example highlighted in the film is the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CPE—a lobby group funded by ExxonMobil) “pro” energy industry advertisement: “Carbon dioxide”, the ad states. “They call it pollution, we call it life.” While on the one hand employing rhetoric against the “inconvenient truth” that carbon dioxide emissions are ratcheting up the Earth’s temperature, these advertisements also pose a question – though perhaps unintended – that is worth addressing. Where does life reside? This is not an issue of essentialism, but relates to the claims, materials and technologies through which life as a political object emerges. The danger of entertaining the vested interests of polluting industry in a discussion of climate change and its biopolitics is countered by an imperative to acknowledge the ways in which multiple positions in the climate change debate invoke and appeal to ‘life’ as the bottom line, or inviolable interest, of their political, social or economic work. In doing so, other questions come to the fore that a politics of climate change framed in terms of moral positions or competing values will tend to overlook. These questions concern the manifold practices of life that constitute the contemporary terrain of the political, and the actors and instruments put in this employ. Who speaks for life? And who or what produces it? Climate change as a matter of concern (Latour) has gathered and generated a host of experts, communities, narratives and technical devices all invested in the administration of life. It is, as Malcom Bull argues, “the paradigmatic issue of the new politics,” a politics which “draws people towards the public realm and makes life itself subject to the caprices of state and market” (2). This paper seeks to highlight the politics of life that have emerged around climate change as a public issue. It will argue that these politics appear in incremental and multiple ways that situate an array of actors and interests as active in both contesting and generating the terms of life: what life is and how we come to know it. This way of thinking about climate change debates opposes a prevalent moralistic framework that reads the practices and discourses of debate in terms of oppositional positions alone. While sympathies may flow in varying directions, especially when it comes to such a highly charged and massively consequential issue as climate change, there is little insight to be had from charging the CPE (for example) with manipulating consumers, or misrepresenting well-known facts. Where new and more productive understandings open up is in relation to the fields through which these gathering actors play out their claims to the project of life. These fields, from the state, to the corporation, to the domestic sphere, reveal a complex network of strategies and devices that seek to secure life in constantly renovated terms. Life Politics Biopolitical scholarship in the wake of Foucault has challenged life as a pre-given uncritical category, and sought to highlight the means through which it is put under question and constituted through varying and composing assemblages of practitioners and practices. Such work regards the project of human well-being as highly complex and technical, and has undertaken to document this empirically through close attention to the everyday ecologies in which humans are enmeshed. This is a political and theoretical project in itself, situating political processes in micro, as well as macro, registers, including daily life as a site of (self) management and governance. Rabinow and Rose refer to biopolitical circuits that draw together and inter-relate the multiple sites and scales operative in the administration of life. These involve not just technologies, rationalities and regimes of authority and control, but also politics “from below” in the form of rights claims and community formation and agitation (198). Active in these circuits, too, are corporate and non-state interests for whom the pursuit of maximising life’s qualities and capabilities has become a concern through which “market relations and shareholder value” are negotiated (Rabinow and Rose 211). As many biopolitical scholars argue, biopower—the strategies through which biopolitics are enacted—is characteristic of the “disciplinary neo-liberalism” that has come to define the modern state, and through which the conduct of conduct is practiced (Di Muzio 305). Foucault’s concept of governmentality describes the devolution of state-based disciplinarity and sovereignty to a host of non-state actors, rationalities and strategies of governing, including the self-managing subject, not in opposition to the state, but contributing to its form. According to Bratich, Packer and McCarthy, everyday life is thus “saturated with governmental techniques” (18) in which we are all enrolled. Unlike regimes of biopolitics identified with what Agamben terms “thanopolitics”—the exercise of biopower “which ultimately rests on the power of some to threaten the death of others” (Rabinow and Rose 198), such as the Nazi’s National Socialism and other eugenic campaigns—governmental arts in the service of “vitalist” biopolitics (Rose 1) are increasingly diffused amongst all those with an “interest” in sustaining life, from organisations to individuals. The integration of techniques of self-governance which ask the individual to work on themselves and their own dispositions with State functions has broadened the base by which life is governed, and foregrounded an unsettled terrain of life claims. Rose argues that medical science is at the forefront of these contemporary biopolitics, and to this effect “has […] been fully engaged in the ethical questions of how we should live—of what kinds of creatures we are, of the kinds of obligations that we have to ourselves and to others, of the kinds of techniques we can and should use to improve ourselves” (20). Asking individuals to self-identify through their medical histories and bodily specificities, medical cultures are also shaping new political arrangements, as communities connected by shared genetics or physical conditions, for instance, emerge, evolve and agitate according to the latest medical knowledge. Yet it is not just medicine that provokes ethical work and new political forms. The environment is a key site for life politics that entails a multi-faceted discourse of obligations and entitlements, across fields and scales of engagement. Calculating Environments In line with neo-liberal logic, environmental discourse concerned with ameliorating climate change has increasingly focused upon the individual as an agent of self-monitoring, to both facilitate government agendas at a distance, and to “self-fashion” in the mode of the autonomous subject, securing against external risks (Ong 501). Climate change is commonly represented as such a risk, to both human and non-human life. A recent letter published by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in two leading British medical journals, named climate change as the “biggest global health threat of the twenty-first century” (Morton). As I have argued elsewhere (Potter), security is central to dominant cultures of environmental governance in the West; these cultures tie sustainability goals to various and interrelated regimes of monitoring which attach to concepts of what Clark and Stevenson call “the good ecological citizen” (238). Citizenship is thus practiced through strategies of governmentality which call on individuals to invest not just in their own well-being, but in the broader project of life. Calculation is a primary technique through which modern environmental governance is enacted; calculative strategies are seen to mediate risk, according to Foucault, and consequently to “assure living” (Elden 575). Rationalised schemes for self-monitoring are proliferating under climate change and the project of environmentalism more broadly, something which critics of neo-liberalism have identified as symptomatic of the privatisation of politics that liberal governmentality has fostered. As we have seen in Australia, an evolving policy emphasis on individual practices and the domestic sphere as crucial sites of environmental action – for instance, the introduction of domestic water restrictions, and the phasing out of energy-inefficient light bulbs in the home—provides a leading discourse of ethico-political responsibility. The rise of carbon dioxide counting is symptomatic of this culture, and indicates the distributed fields of life management in contemporary governmentality. Carbon dioxide, as the CPE is keen to point out, is crucial to life, but it is also—in too large an amount—a force of destruction. Its management, in vitalist terms, is thus established as an effort to protect life in the face of death. The concept of “carbon footprinting” has been promoted by governments, NGOs, industry and individuals as a way of securing this goal, and a host of calculative techniques and strategies are employed to this end, across a spectrum of activities and contexts all framed in the interests of life. The footprinting measure seeks to secure living via self-policed limits, which also—in classic biopolitical form—shift previously private practices into a public realm of count-ability and accountability. The carbon footprint, like its associates the ecological footprint and the water footprint, has developed as a multi-faceted tool of citizenship beyond the traditional boundaries of the state. Suggesting an ecological conception of territory and of our relationships and responsibilities to this, the footprint, as a measure of resource use and emissions relative to the Earth’s capacities to absorb these, calculates and visualises the “specific qualities” (Elden 575) that, in a spatialised understanding of security, constitute and define this territory. The carbon footprint’s relatively simple remit of measuring carbon emissions per unit of assessment—be that the individual, the corporation, or the nation—belies the ways in which life is formatted and produced through its calculations. A tangled set of devices, practices and discourses is employed to make carbon and thus life calculable and manageable. Treading Lightly The old environmental adage to “tread lightly upon the Earth” has been literalised in the metaphor of the footprint, which attempts both to symbolise environmental practice and to directly translate data in order to meaningfully communicate necessary boundaries for our living. The World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report 2008 exemplifies the growing popularity of the footprint as a political and poetic hook: speaking in terms of our “ecological overshoot,” and the move from “ecological credit to ecological deficit”, the report urges an attendance to our “global footprint” which “now exceeds the world’s capacity to regenerate by about 30 per cent” (1). Angela Crombie’s A Lighter Footprint, an instruction manual for sustainable living, is one of a host of media through which individuals are educated in modes of footprint calculation and management. She presents a range of techniques, including carbon offsetting, shifting to sustainable modes of transport, eating and buying differently, recycling and conserving water, to mediate our carbon dioxide output, and to “show […] politicians how easy it is” (13). Governments however, need no persuading from citizens that carbon calculation is an exercise to be harnessed. As governments around the world move (slowly) to address climate change, policies that instrumentalise carbon dioxide emission and reduction via an auditing of credits and deficits have come to the fore—for example, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme and the Chicago Climate Exchange. In Australia, we have the currently-under-debate Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a part of which is the Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (AETS) that will introduce a system of “carbon credits” and trading in a market-based model of supply and demand. This initiative will put a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and cap the amount of emissions any one polluter can produce without purchasing further credits. In readiness for the scheme, business initiatives are forming to take advantage of this new carbon market. Industries in carbon auditing and off-setting services are consolidating; hectares of trees, already active in the carbon sequestration market, are being cultivated as “carbon sinks” and key sites of compliance for polluters under the AETS. Governments are also planning to turn their tracts of forested public land into carbon credits worth billions of dollars (Arup 7). The attachment of emission measures to goods and services requires a range of calculative experts, and the implementation of new marketing and branding strategies, aimed at conveying the carbon “health” of a product. The introduction of “food mile” labelling (the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the transportation of the food from source to consumer) in certain supermarkets in the United Kingdom is an example of this. Carbon risk analysis and management programs are being introduced across businesses in readiness for the forthcoming “carbon economy”. As one flyer selling “a suite of carbon related services” explains, “early action will give you the edge in understanding and mitigating the risks, and puts you in a prime position to capitalise on the rewards” (MGI Business Solutions Worldwide). In addition, lobby groups are working to ensure exclusions from or the free allocation of permits within the proposed AETS, with degrees of compulsion applied to different industries – the Federal Government, for instance, will provide a $3.9 billion compensation package for the electric power sector when the AETS commences, to enable their “adjustment” to this carbon regime. Performing Life Noortje Mares provides a further means of thinking through the politics of life in the context of climate change by complicating the distinction between public and private interest. Her study of “green living experiments” describes the rise of carbon calculation in the home in recent years, and the implementation of technologies such as the smart electricity meter that provides a constantly updating display of data relating to amounts and cost of energy consumed and the carbon dioxide emitted in the routines of domestic life. Her research tracks the entry of these personal calculative regimes into public life via internet forums such as blogs, where individuals notate or discuss their experiences of pursing low-carbon lifestyles. On the one hand, these calculative practices of living and their public representation can be read as evidencing the pervasive neo-liberal governmentality at work in contemporary environmental practice, where individuals are encouraged to scrupulously monitor their domestic cultures. The rise of auditing as a technology of self, and more broadly as a technique of public accountability, has come under fire for its “immunity-granting role” (Charkiewicz 79), where internal audits become substituted for external compliance and regulation. Mares challenges this reading, however, by demonstrating the ways in which green living experiments “transform everyday material practices into practices of public involvement” that (118) don’t resolve or pin down relations between the individual, the non-human environment, and the social, or reveal a mappable flow of actions and effects between the public realm and the home. The empirical modes of publicity that these individuals employ, “the careful recording of measurements and the reliable descriptions of sensory observation, so as to enable ‘virtual witnessing’ by wider audiences”, open up to much more complex understandings than one of calculative self-discipline at work. As “instrument[s] of public involvement” (120), the experiments that Mares describe locate the politics of life in the embodied socio-material entanglements of the domestic sphere, in arrangements of humans and non-human technologies. Such arrangements, she suggests, are ontologically productive in that they introduce “not only new knowledge, but also new entities […] to society” (119), and as such these experiments and the modes of calculation they employ become active in the composition of reality. Recent work in economic sociology and cultural studies has similarly contended that calculation, far from either a naturalised or thoroughly abstract process, relies upon a host of devices, relations, and techniques: that is, as Gay Hawkins explains, calculative processes “have to be enacted” (108). Environmental governmentality in the service of securing life is a networked practice that draws in a host of actors, not a top-down imposition. The institution of carbon economies and carbon emissions as a new register of public accountability, brings alternative ways to calculate the world into being, and consequently re-calibrates life as it emerges from these heterogeneous arrangements. All That Gathers Latour writes that we come to know a matter of concern by all the things that gather around it (Latour). This includes the human, as well as the non-human actors, policies, practices and technologies that are put to work in the making of our realities. Climate change is routinely represented as a threat to life, with predicted (and occurring) species extinction, growing numbers of climate change refugees, dispossessed from uninhabitable lands, and the rise of diseases and extreme weather scenarios that put human life in peril. There is no doubt, of course, that climate change does mean death for some: indeed, there are thanopolitical overtones in inequitable relations between the fall-out of impacts from major polluting nations on poorer countries, or those much more susceptible to rising sea levels. Biosocial equity, as Bull points out, is a “matter of being equally alive and equally dead” (2). Yet in the biopolitical project of assuring living, life is burgeoning around the problem of climate change. The critique of neo-liberalism as a blanketing system that subjects all aspects of life to market logic, and in which the cynical techniques of industry seek to appropriate ethico-political stances for their own material ends, are insufficient responses to what is actually unfolding in the messy terrain of climate change and its biopolitics. What this paper has attempted to show is that there is no particular purchase on life that can be had by any one actor who gathers around this concern. Varying interests, ambitions, and intentions, without moral hierarchy, stake their claim in life as a constantly constituting site in which they participate, and from this perspective, the ways in which we understand life to be both produced and managed expand. This is to refuse either an opposition or a conflation between the market and nature, or the market and life. It is also to argue that we cannot essentialise human-ness in the climate change debate. For while human relations with animals, plants and weathers may make us what we are, so too do our relations with (in a much less romantic view) non-human things, technologies, schemes, and even markets—from carbon auditing services, to the label on a tin on the supermarket shelf. As these intersect and entangle, the project of life, in the new politics of climate change, is far from straightforward. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Village Roadshow, 2006. Arup, Tom. “Victoria Makes Enormous Carbon Stocktake in Bid for Offset Billions.” The Age 24 Sep. 2009: 7. Bratich, Jack Z., Jeremy Packer, and Cameron McCarthy. “Governing the Present.” Foucault, Cultural Studies and Governmentality. Ed. Bratich, Packer and McCarthy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 3-21. Bull, Malcolm. “Globalization and Biopolitics.” New Left Review 45 (2007): 12 May 2009 . < http://newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2675 >. Charkiewicz, Ewa. “Corporations, the UN and Neo-liberal Bio-politics.” Development 48.1 (2005): 75-83. Clark, Nigel, and Nick Stevenson. “Care in a Time of Catastrophe: Citizenship, Community and the Ecological Imagination.” Journal of Human Rights 2.2 (2003): 235-246. Crombie, Angela. A Lighter Footprint: A Practical Guide to Minimising Your Impact on the Planet. Carlton North, Vic.: Scribe, 2007. Di Muzio, Tim. “Governing Global Slums: The Biopolitics of Target 11.” Global Governance. 14.3 (2008): 305-326. Elden, Stuart. “Governmentality, Calculation and Territory.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25 (2007): 562-580. Hawkins, Gay. The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2006. Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?: From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern.” Critical Inquiry 30.2 (2004): 225-248. Mares, Noortje. “Testing Powers of Engagement: Green Living Experiments, the Ontological Turn and the Undoability and Involvement.” European Journal of Social Theory 12.1 (2009): 117-133. MGI Business Solutions Worldwide. “Carbon News.” Adelaide. 2 Aug. 2009. Ong, Aihwa. “Mutations in Citizenship.” Theory, Culture and Society 23.2-3 (2006): 499-505. Potter, Emily. “Footprints in the Mallee: Climate Change, Sustaining Communities, and the Nature of Place.” Landscapes and Learning: Place Studies in a Global World. Ed. Margaret Somerville, Kerith Power and Phoenix de Carteret. Sense Publishers. Forthcoming. Rabinow, Paul, and Nikolas Rose. “Biopower Today.” Biosocieties 1 (2006): 195-217. Rose, Nikolas. “The Politics of Life Itself.” Theory, Culture and Society 18.6 (2001): 1-30. World Wildlife Fund. Living Planet Report 2008. Switzerland, 2008.

Abstract The aim of this work is to provide the necessary steps to acquire the total cost of water at industrial facilities. Therefore, the research was developed in three parts: literature review to identify the available tools related to water management; a case study in the context of the dairy industry; and an analysis and discussion of results achieved. Water applications for process and utility end-users in the manufacturing context require pre- and post-treatment – these are interconnected assets that increase the cost of water, and introduce system inefficiencies, thus, they represent a challenge faced by companies and energy/utility managers. A meta-analysis approach was used to examine data from several independent studies of water management, in order to determine overall trends. The sources utilized during the study were water-related scientific publications, Master theses, books, companies, and standards’ websites. The results of the study highlight that auditing can be used to investigate water flows within productive processes entirely, as well as within individual process units and operations. The present study incorporates water-related thinking about supply and demand costs, opportunities, and strategies, promoting energy systems thinking and providing an internationally replicable solution to calculate the true cost of water.

Old growth is a critical growth stage in many forest types globally. It has many key ecological roles including biodiversity conservation, carbon storage and the provision of services such as water production. The extent of old growth forest has been declining in many ecosystems around the world, with major ecological and ecosystem service consequences. Important insights about such declines, as well as the structure, function and conservation of old growth forest, can be gained from detailed cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of different age cohorts within a given forest ecosystem. In this review article, we outline key insights into the characteristics of, and threats to old growth forests, using the Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria, south-eastern Australia as a detailed case study. These forests are dominated by the tallest flowering plants on earth and have been subject to several decades of intense study. These studies show that old growth Mountain Ash forests are characterized by (among other features): giant trees (approaching 100 m tall and sometimes exceeding 20 m in circumference), numerous trees with hollows, an understorey of Acacia and rainforest trees, a range of plant and animal species that are rare or absent in younger aged stands, and moist, nutrient-rich soils. The area of old growth Mountain Ash forest has declined to 1.16% of the ∼141,000 ha area occupied by ash-type forests in the Central Highlands region. This is up to 60 times less than it was at the time of European colonization ∼220 years ago. The loss of old growth has major implications for bird, mammal and other biodiversity, as well as for carbon storage and water production for human consumption. The main drivers of old growth decline are recurrent wildfire, widespread clearcutting, and a logging-fire interaction in which cut and then regenerated forests become more flammable and are at significantly elevated risk of burning at high (stand replacing) severity. Climate change is also a driver of old growth decline both through elevating the mortality of large old living trees and underpinning an increase in the frequency of high severity wildfire. These interacting drivers mean that restoring old growth Mountain Ash forest will be an ecological and policy challenge. We argue that a first step must be to cease all commercial logging in the Mountain Ash ecosystem to allow new cohorts of old growth forest to be recruited and thereby expand the extent of the old growth estate. In addition, the Government of Victoria should revert to a past definition of old growth that made it easier for forest to qualify for protection. Given there are high risks of recurrent high-severity wildfire in the existing Mountain Ash forest estate which is dominated by highly flammable young regrowth forest, new technologies (such as the use of drones and satellites) are needed to rapidly detect and then suppress ignitions before fires become large and difficult to control. Mountain Ash forests have provided an important natural laboratory for understanding the dynamics, management and conservation of old growth forest. They have also helped generate some valuable general perspectives likely to be relevant to other forest ecosystems globally. These include: (1) the critical value of multi-facetted cross-sectional and longitudinal studies in quantifying attributes of, and threats to, old growth forest, (2) the need for a carefully crafted definition of old growth that will typically be ecosystem-specific and based on the time required to develop key ecosystem attributes (e.g., large old trees), (3) the importance of rigorous protection measures because poor decisions that result in the loss of old growth now will take prolonged periods to rectify, and (4) setting protection levels that are relative to the existing spatial coverage of remaining old growth and the extent and impacts of stressors driving old growth decline.

Australian local governments undertake a range of activities that can contribute to a healthy, sustain­able, and equitable food system. However, their engagement in food system governance is highly uneven, and only a handful have developed dedi­cated food system policies. This article reports on case studies of food system policy development and implementation in six local governments in the states of New South Wales and Victoria. The main motivators for policy and program development were to improve environmental sustainability, reduce food waste, improve diet-related health and food security, and support local, sustainable agri­culture. Key steps included consulting with the community, identifying local food-related issues, and developing policy solutions. Local government activities targeted many dimensions of the food system, and policy implementation processes included hiring dedicated food system employees, creating partnerships with organizations outside local government, advocacy to higher levels of gov­ernment for policy and legislative change, and pro­gram evaluation. The research also identified key enablers of and barriers to policy development and implementation, including factors internal to local government (e.g., presence/absence of local cham­pions, high-level leadership, and a supportive inter­nal culture) as well as important state- and federal-level constraints, including absence of comprehen­sive policy frameworks for food and nutrition, of dedicated funding for local government food sys­tem work, and of leadership for food system gov­ernance from higher levels of government. The authors conclude with recommendations for strengthening the role of Australian local govern­ments in creating a healthy, sustainable, and equita­ble food system, applicable to both local govern­ments and to Australian state and federal govern­ments. These recommendations may also be useful to local governments in other national jurisdictions.

PurposeThis article explores the different ways in which the vegan turn within the animal advocacy movement in Australia has played out for two organisations, Animal Liberation Victoria (ALV) and Animals Australia. Previous research has found that this promotion of veganism has occurred to varying degrees for different organisations and this article will analyse some of these variations in greater depth, drawing on the sociological theory of resource mobilisation.Design/methodology/approachThis article provides a case study on the campaigning of ALV and Animals Australia on the issue of the dairy industry, as well as an overview of their histories, with a focus on the changing level of vegan campaigning over time. In order to explore this issue, this article will draw on the campaigning materials of the organisations studied, a wide range of academic literature and interviews with key figures from both of these organisations.FindingsLarger organisations have a limited ability to regularly promote a vegan message due to their need to bring in a large amount of resources to sustain costs such as their office costs and paid staff. It is more grassroots organisations that have far greater scope to consistently and strongly promote a vegan message, although they reach fewer people.Social implicationsThe increasing uptake of veganism will have important implications for animals as well as for human health and the environment. The environmental benefits of veganism become even more significant in light of the urgent need to tackle the substantial threat of climate change.Originality/valueThis article is a contribution to the expanding field of critical animal studies as well as to the literature on sociology and animals. It builds on the limited amount of existing sociological literature on vegan activism and contributes an analysis in Australian context.

Introduction Fashion has long been associated with resistance movements across Asia and Australia, from the hand-spun cotton Khadi of Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom struggle to the traditional ankle length robe worn by Tibetans in the ‘White Wednesday Movement’ (Singh et al.; Yangzom). There are many reasons why fashion and activism have been interlinked. Fashion can serve as a form of nonverbal communication (Crane), which can convey activists’ grievances and concerns while symbolising solidarity (Doerr). It can provide an avenue to enact individual agency against repressive, authoritarian regimes (Yangzom; Doerr et al.). Fashion can codify a degree of uniformity within groups and thereby signal social identity (Craik), while also providing a means of building community (Barry and Drak). Fashion, therefore, offers activists the opportunity to develop the three characteristics which unite a social or environmental movement: a shared concern about an issue, a sense of social identity, and connections between individuals and groups. But while these fashion functions map onto movement characteristics, it remains unclear whether activists across the world deliberately include fashion into their protest action repertoires. This uncertainty exists partly because of a research and media focus on large scale, mass protests (Lester and Hutchins), where fashion characteristics are immediately visible and amenable to retrospective interpretation. This focus helps explain the rich volume of research examining the manifestation of fashion in past protests, such as the black, red, and yellow colours worn during the 1988 Aboriginal Long March of Freedom, Justice, and Hope (Maynard Dress; Coghlan), and the pink anti-Trump ‘pussyhats’ (Thompson). However, the protest events used to identify these fashion characteristics are a relatively small proportion of actions used by environmental activists (Dalton et al.; Gulliver et al.), which include not only rallies and marches, but also information evenings, letter writing sessions, and eco-activities such as tree plantings. This article aims to respond to Barnard’s (Looking) call for more empirical work on what contemporary cultural groups visually do with what they wear (see also Gerbaudo and Treré) via a content analysis of 36,676 events promoted on Facebook by 728 Australian environmental groups between 2010 and 2019. The article firstly reports findings from an analysis of this dataset to identify how fashion manifests in environmental activism, building on research demonstrating the role of protest-related nonverbal communications, such as protest signage (Bloomfield and Doolin), images (Kim), and icons, slogans, and logos (Goodnow). The article then considers what activists may seek to achieve through incorporating fashion into their action repertoire, and whether this suggests solidarity with activists seeking to effect environmental change across the wider Asian region. Fashion Activism Fashion is created through a particular assemblage of clothes, accessories, and hairstyles (Barry and Drak), which in turn forms a prevailing custom or style of dress (Craik). It is a cultural practice, providing ‘real estate’ (Benda 7) for an individual to express their social roles (Craik) and political identity (Behnke). Some scholars argue that fashion became overtly political during the 1960s and 70s, as social movements politicised appearance (Edwards). This has only increased in relevance with the rise of far right, populist, and authoritarian regimes, whose sub-cultures enact politicised identities through their distinct fashion characteristics (Gaugele and Titton; Gaugele). Fashion can therefore play an important role in protest movements, as “political subjectivities, political authority, political power and discipline are rendered visible, and thereby real, by the way fashion co-establishes them” (Behnke 3). Across the literature scholars have identified two primary avenues by which fashion and activism are connected. The first of these relates to activism targeting the fashion industry. This type of activism is found in both Asia and Australia, and promotes sustainable consumption choices such as buying used goods and transforming existing items (Chung and Yim), as well as highlighting garment worker exploitation within the fashion industry (Khan and Richards). The second avenue is called ‘fashion activism’: the use of fashion to intentionally signal a message seeking to evoke social and/or political change (Thompson). In this conceptualisation, clothing is used to signify a particular message (Crane). An example of this type of fashion activism is the ‘SlutWalk’, a protest where participants deliberately wore outfits described as slutty or revealing as a response to victim-blaming of women who had experienced sexual assault (Thompson). A key element of fashion activism thus appears to be its message intentionality. Clothes are specifically utilised to convey a message, such as a grievance about victim-blaming, which can then be incorporated into design features displayed on t-shirts, pins, and signs both on the runway and in protest events (Titton). However, while this ‘sender/receiver’ model of fashion communication (Barnard, Fashion as) can be compelling for activists, it is complex in practice. A message receiver can never have full knowledge of what message the sender seeks to signify through a particular clothing item, nor can the message sender predict how a receiver will interpret that message. Particular arrangements of clothing only hold communicative power when they are easily interpreted and related to the movement and its message, usually only intelligible to a specific culture or subculture (Goodnow). Even within that subculture it remains problematic to infer a message from a particular style of dress, as demonstrated in examples where dress is used to imply sexual consent; for example, in rape and assault cases (Lennon et al.). Given the challenges of interpreting fashion, do activists appear to use the ‘real estate’ (Benda 7) afforded by it as a protest tool? To investigate this question a pre-existing dataset of 36,676 events was analysed to ascertain if, and how, environmental activism engages with fashion (a detailed methodology is available on the OSF). Across this dataset, event categories, titles, and descriptions were reviewed to collate events connecting environmental activism to fashion. Three categories of events were found and are discussed in the next section: street theatre, sustainable fashion practices, and disruptive protest. Street Theatre Street theatre is a form of entertainment which uses public performance to raise awareness of injustices and build support for collective action (Houston and Pulido). It uses costumes as a vehicle for conveying messages about political issues and for making demands visible, and has been utilised by protesters across Australia and Asia (Roces). Many examples of street theatre were found in the dataset. For example, Extinction Rebellion (XR) consistently promoted street theatre events via sub-groups such as the ‘Red Rebels’ – a dedicated team of volunteers specialising in costumed street theatre – as well as by inviting supporters to participate in open street theatre events, such as in the ‘Halloween Dead Things Disco’. Dressed as spooky skeletons (doot, doot) and ghosts, we'll slide and shimmy down Sydney's streets in a supernatural style, as we bring attention to all the species claimed by the Sixth Mass Extinction. These street theatre events appeared to prioritise spectacle rather than disruption as a means to attract attention to their message. The Cairns and Far North Environment Centre ‘Climate Action Float’, for example, requested that attendees: Wear blue and gold or dress as your favourite reef animal, solar panel, maybe even the sun itself!? Reef & Solar // Blue & Gold is the guiding theme but we want your creativity take it from there. Most groups used street theatre as one of a range of different actions organised across a period of time. However, Climacts, a performance collective which uses ‘spectacle and satire to communicate the urgency of the climate and biodiversity crisis’ (Climacts), utilised this tactic exclusively. Their Climate Guardians collective used distinctive angel costumes to perform at the Climate Conference of Parties 26, and in various places around Australia (see images on their Website). Fig. 1: Costumed protest against Downer EDI's proposed work on the Adani coalmine; Image by John Englart (CC BY-SA 2.0). Sustainable Fashion Practices The second most common type of event which connected fashion with activism were those promoting sustainable fashion practices. While much research has highlighted the role of activism in raising awareness of problems related to the fashion industry (e.g. Hirscher), groups in the dataset were primarily focussed on organising activities where supporters communally created their own fashion items. The most common of these was the ‘crafternoon’, with over 260 separate crafternoon events identified in the dataset. These events brought activists together to create protest-related kit such as banners, signs, and costumes from recycled or repurposed materials, as demonstrated by Hume Climate Action Now’s ‘Crafternoon for Climate’ event: Come along on Sunday arvo for a relaxed arvo making posters and banners for upcoming Hume Climate Action Now events… Bring: Paints, textas, cardboard, fabric – whatever you’ve got lying around. Don’t have anything? That’s cool, just bring yourself. Events highlighting fashion industry problems were less frequent and tended to prioritise sharing of information about the fashion industry rather than promoting protests. For example, Transition Town Vincent held a ‘Slowing Down Fast Fashion – Transition Town Vincent Movie Night’ while the Green Embassy promoted the ‘Eco Fashion Week’. This event, held in 2017, was described as Australia’s only eco-fashion week, and included runway shows, music, and public talks. Other events also focussed on public talks, such as a Conservation Council of ACT event called ‘Green Drinks Canberra October 2017: Summer Edwards on the fashion industry’ and a panel discussion organised by a group called SEE-Change entitled ‘The Sustainable Wardrobe’. Disruptive Protest and T-Shirts Few events in the dataset mentioned elements of fashion outside of street theatre or sustainable fashion practices, with only one organisation explicitly connecting fashion with activism in its event details. This group – Australian Youth Climate Coalition – organised an event called ‘Activism in Fashion: Tote Bags, T-shirts and Poster Painting!’, which asked: How can we consistently be involved in campaigning while life can be so busy? Can we still be loud and get a message across without saying a word? The iconic 21st century activist "t-shirt and tote-bag" combination is hard to miss these days! Unlike street theatre and sustainable fashion practices, fashion appeared to be a consideration for only a small number of disruptive protests promoted by environmental groups in Australia. XR Brisbane sought to organise a fashion parade during the 2019 Rebellion Week, while XR protesters in Melbourne stripped down to underwear for a march through Melbourne city arcades (see also Turbet). Few common fashion elements appeared consistently on individual activists participating in events, and these were limited to accessories, such as ‘Stop Adani’ earrings, or t-shirts sold for fundraising and promotional purposes. Indeed, t-shirts appeared to be the most promoted clothing item in the dataset, continuing a long tradition of their use in protests (e.g. Maynard, Blankets). Easy to create, suitable for displaying both text and imagery, t-shirts sharing anti-coal messages featured predominantly in the Stop Adani campaign, while yellow t-shirts were a common item in Knitting Nanna’s anti-coal seam gas mining protests. Fig. 2: Stop Adani earrings and t-shirts; Image by John Englart (CC BY-SA 2.0). The Role of Fashion in Environmental Activism As these findings demonstrate, fashion appears to be deliberately utilised in environmental activism primarily through street theatre and the promotion of sustainable fashion practices. While fewer examples of fashion in disruptive protest were found and no consistent fashion assemblage was identified, accessories and t-shirts were utilised by many groups. What may activists be seeking to achieve through incorporating fashion via street theatre and sustainable fashion practices? Some scholars have argued that incorporating fashion into protest allows activists to signal political dissent against authoritarian control. For example, Yanzoom noted that by utilising fashion as a means of communication, Tibetan activists were able to embody their political goals despite repression of speech and movement by political powerholders. However, a consistent fashion repertoire across protests in this Australian dataset was not found. The opportunities afforded by protected protest rights in Australia and absence of violent police repression of disruptive protests may be one explanation why distinctive dress such as the masks and black attire of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters did not manifest in the dataset. Other scholars have observed that fashion sub-cultures also developed partly to express anti-establishment politics, such as the punk movement in the 1970s. Radical clothing accessorised by symbols, bright hair colours, body piercings, and heavy-duty books signalled opposition to the dominant political ideology (Craik). However, none of these purposes appeared to play a role in Australian environmental activism either. Instead, it appears that Maynard’s contention that Australian protest fashion barely deviates from everyday dress remains true today. Fashion within the events promoted in this large empirical dataset retained the ‘prevalence of everyday clothing’ (Maynard, Dress 111). The lack of a clearly discernible single protest fashion style within the dataset may be related to the shortcomings of the sender/receiver model of fashion communication. As Barnard (Fashion Statements) argued, fashion is not always used as a vehicle for conveying messages, but also as a platform for constructing and reproducing identity. Indeed, a multiplicity of researchers have noted how fashion acts as a signal of what social groups individuals belong to (see Roach-Higgins and Eicher). Activist groups have a variety of goals, which not only include promoting environmental change but also mobilising more people to join their cause (Gulliver et al., Understanding). Stereotyping can hinder achievement of these goals. It has been demonstrated, for example, that individuals who hold negative stereotypes of ‘typical’ activists are less likely to want to associate with them, and less likely to adopt their behaviours (Bashir et al.). Accordingly, some activist groups have been shown to actively promote dress associated with other identity groups, specifically to challenge cultural constructions of environmental activist stereotypes (see also Roces). For example, Bloomfield and Doolins’s study of the NZ anti-GE group MAdGE (Mothers against Genetic Engineering in Food and the Environment) demonstrated how visual protest artifacts conveyed the protesters’ social identity as mothers and customers rather than environmental activists, claiming an alternative cultural mandate for challenging the authority of science (see also Einwohner et al.). The data suggest that Australian activists are seeking to avoid this stereotype as well. The absence of a consistent fashion promoted within the dataset may reflect awareness of problematic stereotypes that activists may be then deliberately seeking to avoid. Maynard (Dress), for example, has noted how the everyday dress of Australian protesters serves to deflect stereotypical labelling of participants. This strategy is also mirrored by the changing nature of groups within the Australian environmental movement. The event database demonstrates that an increasing number of environmental groups are emerging with names highlighting non-stereotypical environmental identities: groups such as ‘Engineers Declare’ and ‘Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action’. Beyond these identity processes, the frequent use of costumed street theatre protest suggests that activists recognise the value of using fashion as a vehicle for communicating messages, despite the challenges of interpretation described above. Much of the language used to promote street theatre in the Facebook event listings suggests that these costumes were deliberately designed to signify a particular meaning, with individuals encouraged to dress up to be ‘a vehicle for myth and symbol’ (Lavender 11). It may be that costumes are also utilised in protest due to their suitability as an image event, convenient for dissemination by mass media seeking colourful and engaging imagery (Delicath and Deluca; Doerr). Furthermore, costumes, as with text or colours presented on t-shirts, may offer activists an avenue to clearly convey a visual message which is more resistant to stereotyping. This is especially relevant given that fashion can be re-interpreted and misinterpreted by audiences, as well as reframed and reinterpreted by the media (Maynard, Dress). While the prevalence of costumed performance and infrequent mentions of fashion in the dataset may be explained by stereotype avoidance and messaging clarity, sustainable fashion practices were more straightforward in intent. Groups used multiple approaches to educate audiences about sustainable fashion, whether through fostering sustainable fashion practices or raising awareness of fashion industry problems. In this regard, fashion in protest in Australia closely resembles Asian sustainable fashion activism (see e.g. Chon et al. regarding the Singaporean context). In particular, the large number of ‘crafternoons’ suggests their importance as sites of activism and community building. Craftivism – acts such as quilting banners, yarn bombing, and cross stitching feminist slogans – are used by many groups to draw attention to social, political and environmental issues (McGovern and Barnes). This type of ‘creative activism’ (Filippello) has been used to challenge aesthetic and political norms across a variety of contested socio-political landscapes. These activities not only develop activism skills, but also foster community (Barry and Drak). For environmental groups, these community building events can play a critical role in sustaining and supporting ongoing environmental activism (Gulliver et al., Understanding) as well as demonstrating solidarity with workers across Asia experiencing labour injustices linked to the fashion industry (Chung and Yim). Conclusion Studies examining protest fashion demonstrate that clothing provides a canvas for sharing protest messages and identities in both Asia and Australia (Benda; Yangzom; Craik). However, despite the fashion’s utility as communication tool for social and environmental movements, empirical studies of how fashion is used by activists in these contexts remain rare. This analysis demonstrates that Australian environmental activists use fashion in their action repertoire primarily through costumed street theatre performances and promoting sustainable fashion practices. By doing so they may be seeking to use fashion as a means of conveying messages, while avoiding stereotypes that can demobilise supporters and reduce support for their cause. Furthermore, sustainable fashion activism offers opportunities for activists to achieve multiple goals: to subvert the fast fashion industry, to provide participation avenues for new activists, to help build activist communities, and to express solidarity with those experiencing fast fashion-related labour injustices. These findings suggest that the use of fashion in protest actions can move beyond identity messaging to also enact sustainable practices while co-opting and resisting hegemonic ideas of consumerism. By integrating fashion into the vibrant and diverse actions promoted by environmental movements across Australia and Asia, activists can construct and perform identities while fostering the community bonds and networks from which movements demanding environmental change derive their strength. Ethics Approval Statement This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Queensland (2018000963). Data Availability A detailed methodology explaining how the dataset was constructed and analysed is available on the Open Science Framework: <https://osf.io/sq5dz/?view_only=9bc0d3945caa443084361f10b6720589>. References Barnard, Malcolm. “Fashion as Communication Revisited.” Popular Communication 18.4 (2020): 259–271. ———. “Fashion Statements: Communication and Culture.” Fashion Statements. Eds. Ron Scapp and Brian Seitz. Routledge, 2010. ———. “Looking Sharp: Fashion Studies.” The Handbook of Visual Culture. Eds. Ian Heywood and Barry Sandywell. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. Barry, Ben, and Daniel Drak. “Intersectional Interventions into Queer and Trans Liberation: Youth Resistance against Right-Wing Populism through Fashion Hacking.” Fashion Theory – Journal of Dress Body and Culture 23.6 (2019): 679–709. Bashir, Nadia Y., et al. “The Ironic Impact of Activists: Negative Stereotypes Reduce Social Change Influence.” European Journal of Social Psychology 43.7 (2013): 614–626. Behnke, Andreas. The International Politics of Fashion: Being Fab in a Dangerous World. Routledge, 2016. Benda, Camille. Dressing the Resistance: The Visual Language of Protest. Chronicle Books, 2021. Bloomfield, Brian P., and Bill Doolin. “Symbolic Communication in Public Protest over Genetic Modification: Visual Rhetoric, Symbolic Excess, and Social Mores.” Science Communication 35.4 (2013): 502–527. Chon, H., et al. “Designing Resilience: Mapping Singapore’s Sustainable Fashion Movements.” Design Culture(s) Conference. La Sapienza University of Rome, 16-19 June 2020. <https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/18742/1/DCs-Designing%20Resilience.pdf>. Chung, Soojin, and Eunhyuk Yim. “Fashion Activism for Sustainability on Social Media.” The Research Journal of the Costume Culture 28.6 (2020): 815–829 Coghlan, Jo. “Dissent Dressing: The Colour and Fabric of Political Rage.” M/C Journal 22.1 (2019). Craik, Jennifer. Fashion: The Key Concepts. Berg Publishers, 2009. Crane, Diana. Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing. U of Chicago P, 2012. Dalton, Russell J., et al. “The Environmental Movement and the Modes of Political Action.” Comparative Political Studies 36.7 (2003): 743–772. Delicath, John W., and Kevin Michael Deluca. “Image Events, the Public Sphere, and Argumentative Practice: The Case of Radical Environmental Groups.” Argumentation 17.3 (2003): 315–333. Doerr, Nicole. “Fashion in Social Movements.” Protest Cultures. Eds. Kathrin Fahlenbrach, Martin Klimke, and Joachim Scharloth. 2016. ———. “Toward a Visual Analysis of Social Movements, Conflict, and Political Mobilization.” Advances in the Visual Analysis of Social Movements. Eds. Nicole Doerr, Alice Mattoni, and Simon Teune. Emerald Group, 2013. Edwards, Tim. Fashion in Focus: Concepts, Practices and Politics. Routledge, 2010. Einwohner, Rachel L., et al. “Engendering Social Movements: Cultural Images and Movement Dynamics.” Gender & Society 14.5 (2000): 679–699. Filippello, Roberto. “Fashion Statements in a Site of Conflict.” Fashion Theory – Journal of Dress Body and Culture (2022): 1–31. Gaugele, Elke. “The New Obscurity in Style. Alt-Right Faction, Populist Normalization, and the Cultural War on Fashion from the Far Right.” Fashion Theory – Journal of Dress Body and Culture 23.6 (2019): 711–731. Gaugele, Elke, and Monica Titton. “Letter from the Editors: Fashion as Politics: Dressing Dissent.” Fashion Theory – Journal of Dress Body and Culture 23.6 (2019): 615–618. Gerbaudo, Paolo, and Emiliano Treré. “In Search of the ‘We’ of Social Media Activism: Introduction to the Special Issue on Social Media and Protest Identities.” Information, Communication & Society 18.8 (2015): 865–871. Goodnow, Trischa. “On Black Panthers, Blue Ribbon, & Peace Signs: The Function of Symbols in Social Campaigns.” Visual Communication Quarterly 13.3 (2006): 166-179. Gulliver, Robyn E., et al. “The Characteristics, Activities and Goals of Environmental Organizations Engaged in Advocacy within the Australian Environmental Movement.” Environmental Communication 14.5 (2020): 614–627. ———. “Understanding the Outcomes of Climate Change Campaigns in the Australian Environmental Movement.” Case Studies in the Environment 3.1 (2019): 1-9. Hirscher, Anja Lisa. “Fashion Activism Evaluation and Application of Fashion Activism Strategies to Ease Transition towards Sustainable Consumption Behaviour.” Research Journal of Textile and Apparel 17.1 (2013): 23–38. Houston, Donna, and Laura Pulido. “The Work of Performativity: Staging Social Justice at the University of Southern California.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 20.4 (2002): 401–424. Khan, Rimi, and Harriette Richards. “Fashion in ‘Crisis’: Consumer Activism and Brand (Ir)responsibility in Lockdown.” Cultural Studies 35.2 (2021): 432–443. Kim, Tae Sik. “Defining the Occupy Movement: Visual Analysis of Facebook Profile Images Posted by Local Occupy Movement Groups.” Visual Communication Quarterly 22.3 (2015): 174–186. Lavender, Andy. “Theatricalizing Protest: The Chorus of the Commons.” Performance Research 24.8 (2019): 4–11. Lennon, Theresa L., et al. “Is Clothing Probative of Attitude or Intent? Implications for Rape and Sexual Harassment Cases.” From Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice 11.2 (1993): 39–43. Lester, Libby, and Brett Hutchins. “The Power of the Unseen: Environmental Conflict, the Media and Invisibility.” Media, Culture and Society 34.7 (2012): 847–863. Loscialpo, Flavia. “‘I Am an Immigrant’: Fashion, Immigration and Borders in the Contemporary Trans-Global Landscape.” Fashion Theory – Journal of Dress Body and Culture 23.6 (2019): 619–653. Maynard, Margaret. Blankets: The Visible Politics of Indigenous Clothing in Australia. Berg, 2002. ———. “Dress for Dissent: Reading the Almost Unreadable.” Journal of Australian Studies 30.89 (2006): 103–112. McGovern, Alyce, and Clementine Barnes. “Visible Mending, Street Stitching, and Embroidered Handkerchiefs: How Craftivism Is Being Used to Challenge the Fashion Industry.” International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 11.2 (2022): 87–101. Repo, Jemima. “Feminist Commodity Activism: The New Political Economy of Feminist Protest.” International Political Sociology 14.2 (2020): 215–232. Roach-Higgins, Mary Ellen, and Joanne B. Eicher. “Dress and Identity.” Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 10.4 (1992): 1–8. Roces, Mina. “Dress as Symbolic Resistance in Asia.” International Quarterly for Asian Studies 53.1 (2022): 5–14. Stuart, Avelie, et al. “‘I Don’t Really Want to Be Associated with the Self-Righteous Left Extreme’: Disincentives to Participation in Collective Action.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology 6.1 (2018): 242–270. Thompson, Charles J. “College Students’ Fashion Activism in the Age of Trump.” The Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies. Eds. Eugenia Paulicelli, Veronica Manlow, and Elizabeth Wissinger. Routledge, 2021. Titton, Monica. “Afterthought: Fashion, Feminism and Radical Protest.” Fashion Theory – Journal of Dress Body and Culture 23.6 (2019): 747–756. Tulloch, Carol. The Birth of Cool: Style Narratives of the African Diaspora. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016. Turbet, Hanna Mills. “‘We Are Overexposed’: Climate Activists Strip, March through City Streets.” The Age, 12 Oct. 2019. <https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/we-are-overexposed-climate-activists-strip-march-through-city-streets-20191012-p5301f.html>. Von Busch, Otto. “Engaged Design and the Practice of Fashion Hacking: The Examples of Giana Gonzalez and Dale Sko.” Fashion Practice 1.2 (2009): 163–185. Yangzom, Dicky. “Clothing and Social Movements: Tibet and the Politics of Dress.” Social Movement Studies 15.6 (2016): 622–633.