Western Sydney, the region with Australia’s fastest-growing population, bears the brunt of 21st century sustainability challenges disproportionately compared to the rest of Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area: rapid urban growth, extreme urban heat, and entrenched inequalities.
Over the past few years, regular and severe bushfires, heatwaves, and floods have heavily impacted Western Sydney’s local communities. The region’s socio-economic and demographic make-up further compounds individuals’ risk and vulnerability to climatic events. Community resilience is being tested.
Communities are calling for bold action on climate change and greater leadership. As we start the year, let’s make sure we strengthen our resolution and respond.
Our leaders share their bold actions
Monica Richter, acting head of the climate and food security team at World Wide Fund for Nature Australia and chair of the external advisory board at Western Sydney University’s (WSU) Urban Transformations Research Centre, engaged three leaders in discussion at the Centre’s official launch.
Richter asked NSW infrastructure, cities and active transport minister Rob Stokes, environment commissioner for the Greater Cities Commission Meg McDonald, and WSU vice chancellor Professor Barney Glover to share their bold actions to tackle the hard-pressed sustainability challenges in Western Sydney and beyond.
Sustainable, affordable, energy-efficient quality of life
Stokes stressed that the idea that economic expansion and energy efficiency are irreconcilable is outmoded. As the Net Zero Cities Action Plan suggests, a sustainable future is not only possible, but we can make sure it is also affordable for local communities. As such, we will need to incentivise forward-thinking choices by providing fiscal benefits, for example.
Ongoing education, automation, skilled jobs, and creativity are also vital. Rob Stokes’ bold action is to create “a city in a park” rather than parks within a city.
“We’ve got an incredible canvas of Western Sydney. It’s more than eight thousand square kilometres. How can we possibly think of it as one place? It’s a whole series of places. It’s vast… Let’s use our land thoughtfully. All these forgotten rivets and drainage corridors and reserves. We can reimagine this place as a city in a park.”
Six Cities strategic planning and the decarbonisation agenda
McDonald emphasised the importance of the Greater Cities Commission’s Six Cities Region strategic plan to achieve net zero by 2030. 59 per cent of our emissions are derived from urban energy usage, so it is crucial that we make the move to renewables. With 14 per cent of our emissions being derived from organic waste, we must focus on how to manage our waste effectively. Western Sydney also needs to be seen as a regional ecosystem in which green space is used for both recreation and combating rising urban heat, for example.
These ideas fed into Meg’s bold action: “Well, my big, bold idea would be Western Sydney as the first climate positive region in Australia.”
Transdisciplinary research to tackle complex problems
Professor Glover stressed the importance of transdisciplinary research to tackle the sustainability challenges that our region faces. There are real benefits to be gained from bringing together expertise from, for example, architecture, urban planning, social sciences, science, design, and engineering, alongside a strong historical appreciation of Western Sydney’s culturally rich and diverse backgrounds.
There is also a clear need for strong regional leadership, collaboration, and working in dialogue with our partners, so that we truly move towards sustainable urban development.
Glover also reaffirmed WSU’s commitment to its First Nations people and the need to embrace Indigenous knowledge in all that we do.
Barney’s bold action involved solving Western Sydney’s transport woes.
“Let’s make it easier to move around our cities. Despite all the investment we’ve made, Western Sydney is not easy to get around, and we’ve got to solve that problem… If we’re going for faster rail, which I think we should, I’d like to see Parramatta as [London’s] Saint Pancras of the southern hemisphere… we need public transport connectivity right across the west.”
Biodiversity and climate resiliency
Richter, who facilitated the conversation, expressed the impact of substantial loss of biodiversity in Western Sydney. She suggested that there is a considerable lack of public knowledge about the ecological importance of the region.
Her bold action centred on building resilience in Western Sydney’s homes and infrastructure. “My idea is to look at a large retrofit program over a number of years to help retrofit existing homes, and particularly those that haven’t been built as well as we might have hoped for, over the last few years.”
Moving toward a sustainable, equitable, and resilient future
The bold actions that our leaders have proposed were not a wish list. They were firm New Year’s resolutions: actions that need to be collectively delivered.
The Western Sydney community deserves our dedication to this task. WSU’s Urban Transformations Research Centre is committed to enabling our communities and infrastructure to be sustainable, equitable, and resilient; delivering action-oriented research and innovation in partnership with industry and society, and leading urban transformations research and innovation in Western Sydney and across the world.
It is crucial to make these resolutions a reality in 2023 and beyond.
