Sustainability

Researchers at UTS Science have worked with numerous industry partners over multiple decades on innovative materials that improve energy efficiency and human comfort in our buildings.

Algae. They’re green (some of the time), aquatic (most of the time) and seemingly unremarkable, except when they’re in the news for clogging up our waterways. But it turns out these unassuming organisms might just spell salvation for the future of our planet.

A unique approach to managing supply and demand during Australia’s worst drought transformed the way Australia thought about its most valuable resource, water.

In November 2016, a high grass pollen count, stormy weather and strong winds conspired to create a deadly thunderstorm asthma event in Melbourne. Nine people died from severe asthma attacks and hundreds more overwhelmed ambulance services and hospital emergency departments.

A multi-disciplinary team bringing together science, sustainable building design and architecture may soon develop the first living algae buildings in Australia.

A partnership between the UTS Advanced Analytics Institute and the NSW Department of Industries (Water) is resulting in more efficient management of water resources through the application of data analytics.

A vision of how we could live more sustainably into the future is being realised in a quiet pocket of Sydney’s western suburbs. Opened in 2016, Fairwater was heralded as one of the country’s most progressive, environmentally-friendly community developments: 800 homes set in a landscape including wetlands and waterways, and with the largest geothermal heating and cooling system in the southern hemisphere.

Seawater desalination has been hailed as the way of the future for meeting our ever-expanding water needs, but current methods are inefficient and environmentally destructive. In a world first, an international team of researchers has developed a method for extracting more fresh water from the process, and recovering valuable resources from the by-products.