Global Game Changers

Hi everybody and welcome to everyone, not just here in Australia but everyone who's Zooming in from around the world. We have just shy of 2,000 people in the room with us virtually and physically for this event this evening, which is pretty great. So, we are literally touching all points of the compass, which is fantastic. We're in the centre of something significant here. This is the first event of a major international speaker series, The UTS Global Game Changers series, that is being hosted here at UTS. The whole idea of the series is to tackle the issues that matter most today, and you can imagine, across the campus, there are lots of different opinions about what matters most today, from sciences to engineering and all the rest. But tonight, we're talking about green infrastructure. I'll get to that in just a second.

The first thing I would like to do, the way I would like to start proceedings here, is with an Acknowledgement of Country and to acknowledge the ancient land upon which we are standing. I always find this is a really serious thing. I mean, as an architect or someone who's studied architecture, I think a lot about place and where we are and how important context is. So, when I do these Acknowledgements of Country, it always makes me stop just for a second to think, "Yeah, this place has been around for a while. I'm only a newcomer here, and there are people who have a lot of knowledge about where we are." So, it's a customary thing here in Australia to pay respects to the land and to the people who have lived here for thousands of years at the beginning of any important gathering, and this is most certainly an important gathering.

As I said before, we have all of us in the auditorium here in the UTS Great Hall, and we have everyone with us online. For those of us who are here in person and for the many hundreds of viewers watching internationally, the Welcome to Country or the Acknowledgement of Country extends to everybody. Welcome to everybody. So, in honour of this great land and its ancient traditions and people, I would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and to pay my respects to the Elders, both past and present. It's one of those things that's taken us a long time to listen to that knowledge and that wisdom, but we are listening and we are learning, which is wonderful.

Right, so we're here to talk about green cities. Green cities, and I hear you say, "What is that?" I'll get to that in just a moment. The first thing I want to do is introduce these lovely people who are up here on stage with me, and our best friend Remy, who's over there. He normally lives in Nairobi, but he's currently in Frankfurt doing important UN business. I'll get to Remy in a second. First, I want to introduce Rob Stokes, who's here on stage. Rob, welcome! Round of applause for Rob. You know the name, you know the man. He's a leading Australian spokesman on city planning and the importance of net-zero cities. Former New South Wales Minister for Planning and Public Spaces—boy, that was a job! Life after that, hey? It's good, huh? Yeah, it's a lot more comfortable now. It was a lot of fun. Passionate about beauty in people, nature, and urban spaces. I'm now thinking of Rob as our poet in politics. Welcome, Rob.

Right here on this end of the seats is Jua Cilliers. She is a global leader in urban planning and green infrastructure solutions. She is also the Professor of Urban Planning and Head of the School of the Built Environment here at UTS. She runs the school, which is why she's so busy, and she's known—this is a funny story behind this one—as a defender of the future. Just sit with that for a second. This is what a defender of the future looks like, everyone. I think we're in good hands, don't you think? Yes.

Germain Briand is here with us, also sitting in the centre. Woohoo! He's an innovative entrepreneur and he connects nature to city environments. He's the owner and director of the Urban Canopy Australia, and he's on a mission to reconnect people with nature. He's the entrepreneur bridge builder whose whole job is to give us the pathway back to nature, which I think is a great job to have. Thank you for joining us.

And zooming in with us on the big screen here is this very impressive-looking gentleman who's six foot tall, and we're only seeing him from the shoulders up, Remy Sietchiping. He is an international strategist on urban planning and geographic information systems. He's a community educator and he is also the Chief of Policy at UN-Habitat, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme in Africa. Remy, welcome to you. Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

Alright, so what is green infrastructure? I'm going to take a little second here to set the scene, and then my learned colleagues here are going to take the conversation away. My whole job is just to keep them talking, but I think they're going to do a great job of that on their own. What I want to do first is ask you to close your eyes just for a second. Close your eyes. Now, imagine the perfect city street in your mind's eye. The perfect city street. Give yourself a second to form that image. What's going on in that mind? What are you seeing now? I bet the first thing you're seeing—you can open your eyes now—I bet the first thing you're seeing are the people around you. Yeah, give me a quick show of hands if I'm right. Yeah, the people, that's the first thing you notice. Okay, a couple of people. That's the first thing I think of, and I polled everyone in my family about that, and they all said, "Yeah, the people." What's the second thing you saw? I bet there were trees on the street. Yeah, who had trees? Oh, okay, that's better. That's feeling a lot better. So, isn't that interesting that the perfect city includes—well, okay, let's put trees at the top of the pile. Trees are one of those things that are the first thing you think of when you think of a city. Now, think of downtown Sydney or downtown any city, for that matter, and think of how many trees you can count, again in that mind's eye of yours. Not as many as you'd like, right? Am I right?

So, with that thought in mind, that perfect idea in mind, urban—and now I'm reading this, so excuse me for reading—green infrastructure refers to all of the vegetation that provides environmental, economic, and social benefits such as clean air and water, climate regulation, food provision, erosion control, and places for recreation. Green infrastructure includes urban parks and reserves, wetlands and stream corridors, street trees and roadside verges, gardens, vegetable patches, bikeways, pedestrian trails, wall and rooftop gardens, orchards, farms, cemeteries, and derelict land. That's a lot, don't you think? These aren't my words; this is coming from the CSIRO. So, this is the definition that we as a research community would probably defer to as what is green infrastructure. But I think you can see from just that that it is very encompassing. It includes a lot, and as you can imagine, that idea of green cities with all of those different components requires enormous expertise across a broad wave of not just the university campus but across all of our disciplines, ranging from planning, landscape architecture, architecture, horticulture, ecology—what else have we got? Psychology, engineering, and policy, and that's just for starters. Basically, as we know, cities are big, complex animals and they're very hard to tame. They're very hard to direct. They're very hard to kind of point in a direction that we know is better because cities kind of have a mind of their own because there are a lot of people involved.

So, with that kind of situation in front of us, let me tell you a little bit about why some of the green benefits—or the benefits, sorry, of green infrastructure—are there to sort of not so much tame the city but to orient it in a better direction for our future. Some of those benefits include things like—I'm just thinking, actually, before I give you that, I'm thinking I'm about to list a few things for you but really these aren’t nice-to-have things; these are really need-to-have things in our future cities. So, this kind of list of want-to-haves is actually—no, these are the must-do things for our cities going into the future. So, with that in mind: sustainability. Green infrastructure gives us cooler streets, management of heat island effects, flood and stormwater management, cleaner waterways and air, drought tolerance, and lower building and energy needs. And that's just sustainability for a starter. Public health: better air quality, better water quality, cooler and calmer streets and neighbourhoods. Social benefits that bring us outside, that reconnect us to nature—that one's going to Germain—allow humans to use the city again. That perfect city we're all imagining? That's the one where we're all outside. We're all outside on the street, probably in some Parisian café, sitting on a street corner having a cup of coffee. But we're outside, we're with other people, and we're enjoying the ambience of being there. And biophilia—if you haven't heard that expression, it’s basically that feeling you get of wellness and goodness when you are with greenery, when you are with nature.

There's a science behind this, and I'm not going to go into it now, but basically, you know that when you look at a tree, you feel better. The other day, I heard a stat that if you spend 7 seconds, I think it was, looking at the ocean, you start to feel better. Just 7 seconds of watching the waves will actually physiologically calm you down and make you start to feel better in your whole body, physically and emotionally. So, that's biophilia—that's our connection with nature. So, that's just another one of those benefits.  

Costs—now this is the one where everyone goes, "Oh yeah, but that's going to cost a fortune. Why would we do that? Just way too expensive." Not true at all. Think about it like this: you spend a lot of money, billions of dollars, putting in freeways and what do you get for that? You get people in cars moving from A to B and back again. Now, think about putting in something like a stream that deals with stormwater, cleans the stormwater, gives people a place to walk, somewhere for my dog to go for a walk. All these benefits of health and things that I've just mentioned—these are all the add-ons that these infrastructures give you. So, you pay for one and you get ten. So, the cost-benefit analysis, the research is still really being done, but all the indicators are that you're getting such better bang for your buck in green infrastructure rather than the kinds of grey infrastructure that we're used to talking about when we talk about the city. So keep that in mind. I also heard somewhere that a treed street in a Sydney suburb will put $50,000 on the sale price of a property on that street. Something like that. Yeah, now I've got your attention, haven't I?

So, with that in mind, the last thing I want to mention too is aesthetics. Now, I'm a professor of architecture, so I dig aesthetics. I think they're important. I think how beautiful things look is an important thing for us to think about. When we talk about aesthetics in terms of green infrastructure, it's back to that vision of the city that you first started with. Yeah, the one that's in your mind. You go, "Yeah, of course it's a beautiful place. You don't want to go and hang out in an ugly place. You want to go hang out somewhere that makes you feel good and visually that entices you to some kind of ownership almost. You want to feel connected to something that has that beauty for it." Now, you define beauty in your own way, but that idea of beauty and aesthetics is a part of the green infrastructure, and that's why we think of green trees and such when we think of a beautiful city.

Alright, now this is an intensely local and global phenomenon. 68% of the global population are expected to live in urban areas by 2050, according to the UN. And in Australia, for those international people who are zooming in, it might surprise you to learn that here in Australia, 73% of us already live in the major cities across Australia. So this is a big issue, and it's one that will have effects whatever we end up doing. It will have effects at a very large—dare I say—planetary scale. So these moves we're making now are not insignificant. They are really big issues. So, with that, that's enough from Anthony. With that, now I want to sort of take the conversation to the esteemed panel that we're here to talk with today. And Jua, you get the first question. Given all those wonderful benefits that green infrastructure seems to obviously provide us, why is it taking us so long to implement green infrastructure in our cities?

A really great question, Anthony. I think that is what all of us are shouting: why are we not doing this? I think three reasons from my side. The first one is, it's really inconvenient, right? We've been used to business as usual, and we know how to plan cities and we know how to build the buildings, and now you're asking us to do it differently. Really, it's really inconvenient, yeah? So we tend to just go with business as usual, right? So there's a part of that, right? We are challenging how we think about cities and nature and how we plan everything from the start to the end. The second thing for me is, it's a lack of leadership—policies, legislation, things enforcing this but also people standing up and saying, "Hey, we should be doing this," right? It's not a nice-to-have; it's a necessity, as you said. So 0.3% of urban infrastructure budgets goes to green infrastructure or nature. Just say that again. How much? 0.3%. Remy, you can check me if I'm quoting incorrectly. 0.3% of all urban infrastructure budgets goes to greening or green or nature-based solutions, which is ridiculous. So we need collective leadership to say this should change, right? So this, for me, is the second thing. And then the third thing is really those benefits that you called out. I really think we don't understand the value of nature and what it means for us as individuals and for our cities. I think we almost take it for granted, but we've never lived in an urbanised world that it is today, and we are seeing we are losing greenery across all our cities. So we're going to lose these great benefits; we are going to lose the medicine that you explained, right? And so, in a way, it's really to realise it's not a luxury; it's a necessity. And I had to throw in there, maybe it's because we haven't had it on Grand Designs yet. That's maybe why we still aren't pushing the buttons. So, there's a teaching component here because the knowledge about the benefits is not being communicated, so that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, there's a leadership issue. Actually, that makes me think then, Rob, do you, you know, you've got a fabulous career and a deep knowledge of politics. In your mind, is this green infrastructure question a technical question or is it a cultural question?

It's entirely cultural. When you started with that beautiful acknowledgment of country, part of acknowledgment is acknowledging that we have imported ontologies, ways of knowing, laws, cultures from the other side of the world, and just imagined that we can somehow translate them into an entirely different context and completely ignored the people who had lived here continuously since the dreaming. And so we instinctively, at some level, are scared of nature. A more recent British visitor to Australia, Bill Bryson, the travel writer, said that about Australia—everything's trying to kill you. And there's a sort of sense that, "Oh, we've got to control our gardens or our environment because it will make it safer that way." I mean, of the top four selling plants in Australian nurseries, you've got a type of ornamental privet, you've got English box, you've got Leylandii greens, otherwise known as spiked trees because they're there to block out the neighbours, and there's one native that makes the list. It's a lilly pilly, it's called "No More Neighbours." And so our entire, you know, the way we think about nature is how to exclude others and how to make it neat and tidy and ornamental so it doesn't get in the way. Nature's messy and we want to make sense and control of our lives and, you know, that's a great thing about a lawnmower. It's your little bit of, you know, exerting control over nature. I mean the nature strip, there's nothing natural about it; it's a b lawn. So it's entirely... and I was fascinated during my time in politics. I remember once actually I got given... I went to speak at something and I got a lift and they'd given me a little tree as a gift. It was lovely and I got in the lift in Parliament and there were a bunch of parliamentarians there, probably a little bit more right-wing, and they said to me, "Hey Stoky, what do you got there?" and I said, "Oh, it's a... it's a... it's a little tree. It's a baby tree." "What are you going to do with it?" and I was kind of getting a bit intimidated at this point and I said, "I'm going to plant it." They said, "Why would you do that? And it'll... it'll get stuck in your drains and then you'll be sorry." And like, "But it's just a little baby tree." Anyway, but there's that mentality, there's something scary or that needs to be controlled, and it comes from this colonial, colonial settler mindset that's still very much there.  

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what do you think then about Jua's point about leadership though? Do you agree with Jua?  

Entirely. There's leadership. What's that old saying in, you know, the series Yes Minister? You know, "Well, that was courageous." There's doing courageous things that are career limiting, and the clever things are the incremental change that no one... that you can get away with. COVID was an amazing time to do things that you could get away with because we trialled, for example, you know, like bike lanes. I was amazed. You try and put a motorway in Sydney and, you know, there's a little bit of resistance but most people go, "Oh yeah, we need to get where we're going faster." Try to build a bike lane, everyone goes absolutely bananas. But in COVID we were able to just put them in and say, "Oh, well, they're temporary," and then just left them there.

Can I chip in? Leadership... well, I call it leadership because there's good examples globally where we do get this right, right? And so there are some world cities that do get it right, or individuals.

So it's not like we're... everybody's lost, but it's a leadership and it's standing up for it and pushing through with it."

"That is a perfect segue to Remy. You with us?"

"Remy?"

"Yes, I am. I hope you can hear me."

"Oh, that's great. Yes, we can hear you loud and clear. I want to throw that question then to you and ask, you know, this idea of green infrastructure from your perspective, you know, as the UN. You are our UN representative here. Do you think of it as a global issue or a local issue?"

"Well, thanks a lot. I believe that global is also local. Everything that happens globally affects things locally and vice versa. So within the... I can hear some echoes but I hope it's okay. Within the framework under which we are operating, the social sustainable development goals, if you look through, many of them actually touch on infrastructure, on the environment, on, you know, resilience. All the topics that we're going to cover here. So it's an issue of global relevance. If you take one dimension, which is climate change, that we are all familiar with, we know that we are witnessing how it manifests itself, and this was not... this was... we still had some deniers around but 30-40 years ago that was not the issue. So sometimes push comes to shove and then you have to reckon with it. But I just want to take us a little bit back. I don't know, you might have read the great book by Jared... The Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In that book, for those who have not read, you will understand that we are... many of the societies actually had neglected the value, the benefits of nature, and turned into consumerism rather than living with that nature in a more, you know, symbiotic manner. And that had come at a cost, and we today we are also facing similar situations. And I know that we already mentioned the importance when we culturally, I think Rob had clearly indicated, it's mainly cultural. I agree because nature-based solutions are not easily, you know, reflected. People cannot relate easily and Prof had mentioned, but the element of beauty, aesthetic, that you Anthony, you mentioned is also relative, it's subjective, but still we have some common thread that we can look at. We don't know if green is actually a good sign for everybody. In some cultures, green is not good. In some cultures, it's not good but in others it's actually a sign of aesthetic, reconnecting with your place and nature. But I just want to also add the element of heritage. Nature is heritage because that's why we talk about tangible and intangible heritage. And until we bring all these things together in terms of nature as part of our common heritage, then we continue struggling. One example, just to illustrate the point, is the during the COVID-19. It must still be fresh in our mind. Green space was or parks were the most sought-after spaces because this was one of the unique environments where we can practice more social distancing while enjoying nature. Those who were suffering from COVID were, you know, encouraged to have some... Elements of sunlight, green spaces, and clean air – all these things are important. But globally, one of the unintended consequences of COVID was that the untouched nature, the, you know, the hardly less impacted environment actually grew. It was a positive thing for nature globally. Some plants and areas recovered, just to say that nature is there, and we have to nurture it. We have to do our best to live with that and keep nature as one of our best friends. If you were to be the champions and be the city, the champion of the future, as Professor just said and who she is, so let me stop here just to say that this conversation is very important and globally very relevant. I'm not going to let you off the hook just yet because what you're saying is, yes, it's everyone's problem. It's a global problem. Global solutions. It is a common humanity, a common humanity that we're talking about here. We all fell back in love with our local parks when COVID came along, no matter where you were on the planet. But the other side to your answer there was to let us in on the idea, and this is the challenge, I suppose, that it's a different conversation in different cultures and it has to be. So the common ground we're looking for, maybe that just doesn't exist. No, it does. It does actually. Just give you an example. Who would not like to have some form of green, some, some, I don't know, plants? We, I think Rob had mentioned some energy efficiency, managing your waste differently, or managing your water differently, having a bit of a veggie garden, got something that you have grown and you could actually eat or enjoy and see that grow. So that type of habit exists everywhere, so there are some commonalities in actually taking action. Locally, of course, if you live in an ecologically unique space, it could be a desert or another environment that might be different, but it must still have native plants and a native environment. Because greening is not only about having plants, you know, you can still create the ambiance.  

I saw a business, we have Germain here, he can pick some of these ideas where they were actually trying to create, you know, we know the digital twins and try to create environments that mimic nature just to keep our mind and culture closer to nature. It might be artificial; we are quite familiar these days with artificial plants or artificial things. But just bringing that type of element of nature back into our living environment, even artificially, is a step towards that. So I believe that ecologically they might adapt, but they might still be very, very relevant. Nature exists everywhere regardless; culture varies, always, always important. I'm going to say from policy then to product Germain, this is you now because you're the innovator and the bridge builder, right? You're the one who's responsible for, in some way, landing these grandiose ideas literally in the city. So where do you see the problems and where do you see the opportunities? Yeah, thanks. I couldn't help myself so much when you were talking there. I think the problem starts here.  

There's that great quote from that American anthropologist called Gregory Bateson that says most of the problems we see in the world today come from the difference between the way people think and the way nature works. Nature works in ecosystems; we work in silos. Nature brings so many benefits to our cities, which is great, but in the way we currently work, it is also an issue because different people are responsible for different outcomes in our cities. Yet, when you're talking about a solution that is all-encompassing, you end up with a problem because who's going to look after that? Oh no, it's your thing. Well no, I thought it was your thing. No, we're not going to do that, it's too complicated because it's holistic. Because it's going to mean the landscape architect is going to talk to the architects, it's going to need to talk to the planners, it's going to need to talk to the bicycle people and everybody in between. You've got social groups or ethnic groups in Australia, you know, huge diversity in our cities. Some ethnic groups don't like nature so much. There's even people, if ever you guys have heard that word, it's called dendrophobia. Dendrophobia means fear of trees. Some people are scared of trees; they run in the other direction. That exists. Rob just told us they get in your drains, right? So we've got to be aware of moral types of fear. But the point is, nature is complex and it works in ecosystems.  

We work in silos, and for as long as we're not going to learn to do that, and that's so pertinent in the context of local and state government, where I see it in my work every day when I try to talk about bringing nature. The people who work in the sustainability department don't talk to the urban planner, don't talk to the placemakers, don't talk to the landscape architects. They're all doing their things in their own corners, and so that's not going to work. So until that happens... now to your point about being cultural, for sure. But this dates way back, you know, the colonials, the British coming. That's Newtonian science that makes the world easier to understand for us humans; we make it more simple, we put it into boxes. And even in academia, in academia you've got different faculties and a PhD is so narrowly focused on one point, where it could so much benefit from being in partnership with other parts of the university. When this type of thinking starts being applied at university... I'm so glad he's saying this because I'll have a moment to market the green infrastructure lab that's very transdisciplinary. That's right, but no, I'm talking to you because I know you understand. I know he, the Vice Chancellor, is listening, just so you know. Of course, that's right. We both know. But the risk with this as well... and I'm talking about university models in general, obviously not pointing fingers... but the risk with that as well is, the more complex the more knowledge we get, the even more focused on little things, and the more likely we are to miss the bigger picture because our knowledge is getting more and more granular. So it's a real challenge. We need to embrace complexity.

Alright, but let's get to the part where you've got all green lights and all those planners and policymakers, and everyone's green lights intended... you like that? I just worked that one in there. What is it exactly that you are putting into our cities? I mean, from a product point of view, what is this infrastructure that we're literally talking about? Yes, we're talking about trees, but you know, we're talking about businesses and we're talking about a whole kind of raft of perhaps a new industry that's emerging to do this sort of work. What exactly does that mean to you?  

Well, there's new challenges now with climate change. We've got a challenge of how our city is warming up. This didn't exist before. Oh, okay, so you know, when cities were designed, nature was a nice ornamental thing we just put there because it looked nice and we know that people like nature. You know, we'll touch on biophilia, but this was the sole purpose of nature. Now we're like, oh, that actually is the best air conditioner and it's natural, and it has so many other benefits. Yet, our cities were not designed to plant more trees. You know, our cities were designed with a lot of hard infrastructure and the challenge is when you're talking to engineers, we say that tree there doesn't behave like a brick wall, does it? Oh yeah, not too hard, you know, that grows and it grows this way and that way, and how do we deal with that? Too hard.

And so the key is to try to find solutions that bring nature into the city in a predictable way. So it's about finding the best of both worlds, yeah? Okay, right, in trying to bring nature in so it ticks most of those boxes that a tree would. Maybe not all, but it's easier to implement because it ticks the boxes of the people who design our cities. Alright, but at this point we started, I mean, I started off my bit up there at the beginning all positive. Yeah, green cities, that's a beautiful future. Who doesn't want that, right? I want to walk near a waterway with my dog, and now at this point you're all agreeing that this is too big a holistic problem for anyone to solve and it's kind of... I'm starting to get depressed. Is this, should I be feeling this way? I mean, give me some hope here.  

No, there's so much that has already happened. The question is, can it happen quickly enough? Right, you look for example, some people might be you know, in this audience might be old enough to remember when you could... I came when you could grow up on Sydney's Northern Beaches. I remember when you could actually smell the sewage coming out of North Head. It was just this, you know, and the water was filthy, and we solved that problem. I remember I used to surf at Queenscliff and I remember that exactly what you're saying, and with certain winds you just wouldn't go. There you'd get an ear infection, it just wasn't worth it. And although it would get you out of school, but, but, but, but, and equally, like, like petrol in our cars, you know, that, that was genuinely, I remember the, the smoke haze that was every day over Sydney. So, on some things, you know, we, we've demonstrated capacity to solve these problems if we act collectively. The problem is the things that are in everyone's interest collectively are often not in everyone's interests individually. And so, there'll always be particular stakeholders who will have a reason why, oh, that doesn't suit me. And so, it's so easy to, to, to stop change. And you do need a certain level of courage to continue. And sometimes you'll, you'll go, you know, two steps forward and one step back, but at least that's one step forward. And then you just got to keep, keep going. I mean, we, I remember when I was in government, we had an abortive attempt with a thing called the design and, and place State Environmental Planning Policy, which was basically we wanted to start the design principle. Like, our cities actually, when you look at it respectfully, aren't designed by architects. Architects come in right at the end. They're actually designed by land surveyors who have no design training whatsoever. And we just said, well, why don't we start with country? Because we'd listened to some Aboriginal planners who had told us there's incredible things, there's incredible knowledge that no one's actually bothered to ask many Aboriginal Elders about land, about song lines, about, about the country itself. And to start with an understanding of that knowledge, well, why wouldn't we? But that, that particular reform proved too difficult to get over the across the line, but there are some elements of that that, that did happen. And inevitably, it set a course that ultimately those changes will come to pass. But what one thing that we tried to do was ensure that in new subdivisions in Western Sydney, for example, where we know that a non-reflective roof will actually increase internal temperatures by about 10° in summer, like 10°. And so, in other words, it'll require really expensive mechanical ventilation to deal with that problem in households struggling with cost of living. So, if you just made the roofs a light colour, you would save a huge amount of energy. But the property developer stakeholders were, oh, no, we couldn't possibly do that because people don't want light coloured roofs. I'm like, well, that's just silly. But nevertheless, that change wasn't made.  

Back to the cultural question, it's a cultural thing. In Victoria, they've done it, so we can do it. Yeah, well, that's, I was going to come back to you because at this point you said leadership before, and I'm wondering in your mind then what unlocks us from this, I'm going to call it an impasse, but Rob's given me hope. So, what unlocks us from this moment where it's too big a problem, I can't do anything? What do you think? What is the research actually telling us?  

So, I think this, like, the, the amount of people signing up for these events tells you that people realise this is what we should be doing. We see interest from our PhD students coming in, saying, I want to do research in urban, sustainable urban development, green infrastructure, because the younger generation knows this is where it's going, this is what we should be doing. So, there's a big push coming. But I think collectively you have a stronger voice if we can all be saying the same stories, that leadership voice gets stronger. The research, I mean, you called out the benefits, I've got, I think, one of our science friends is here and he often says the research shows it's too good to be true. Like, if you know how good nature is, you would not believe it. Yeah, like, it's too good to be true. But we've, we've neglected that, so we need to be saying these stories more, piloting things, showing, and then pushing collectively for the policies and for the leadership to, to make the right decisions to do this. If we don't do it now, fast forward 10 years from here, nobody of us would want, want to live in Sydney or any city for that matter. Yeah, so there is a, a question of pace. We need to pick up the pace. We've got to find the structure to allow us to do that. That's what I'm sort of picking up from the conversation.  

Remy, I'm going to come to you. You're checking your emails. No, Remy, oh, you're making notes. Sorry. There you go. I, I knew you were. So, we're sort of talking about this from a, from, I guess, a culture meets politics and leadership point of view. From the UN's point of view, what is, what would you say was the biggest priority in the green infrastructure space? Just give me one that is probably top of the pile for the priorities from the UN's perspective.  

Well, from, from us, I think the word has been said, what we call nature-based solutions. So, whatever solutions we are bringing in cities, if they are nature-driven, nature-oriented, for instance, let's say we are, we are bringing some, because I would like to bring these elements of green, grey, and blue infrastructure, when you have this blend all the time, because when you look at the grey infrastructure, usually the, the green element is very, very sometimes insignificant. So, if you say in a tender in a city or something like that, that any infrastructure in a city should have at least 30%, at least 30%, because, you know, we use that in many of our standards and guidelines, of green, that would actually set up what we discussed earlier in terms of policy, regulations, and enforceable, because you have a threshold and that can be measured. The same way when you talk about, we mentioned the managing drainage or stormwater, because if permeable space, you know, pathways, or, you know, all these spaces had to be made more, create spaces for blending the blue and then the green, it's important. So, for us, nature-based solutions are key. And it's also one of the tools that you use for climate management. I'm saying management because we can talk about resilience, adaptation, and other measures. So, nature is really important. And as I mentioned earlier, when you look at the sustainable development goals, they have been prioritized. They are all over those 17 goals. So, it's very clear that for us there's no just one but several entry points that we use to actually bring that element of planet, people, and places together. And I have other Ps that I will be, you know, coming, you know, adding to these Ps to, to demonstrate how, what Germain was talking about, the ecosystem that we are working with. But don’t be depressed, there are many, many good examples out there.  

There are many possible solutions. There are many things we can do in our own capacity. Doesn't matter who you are, at city level, at, in our homes, you know, in our global engagement when we have a voice like this one, you can carry. So, there are so many things. I know we're going to get there, but let's not get depressed, let's get excited rather that there is a consciousness. Yeah, that is around. Applause for that. I think that's worth it. And can I just point out, Remy, that you are here wearing the SDG goals pin and Rob, which has all the colours there for the goals. So, I'm going to change the tone a little bit here for a second, because we've talked about policy, we've talked about some of the hurdles.  

I want to kind of just flip the script a bit, and one thing that you said, Rob, when we were speaking at some point earlier, you brought in the idea of beauty. Now, here's the poet-politician moment for you, okay? I'm setting you up here. I really want to understand why and how we should talk about beauty in this context. It's not something we tend to talk about. But it was only post-politics that I sort of reflected on the things that mattered to me, and I realised I care about beautiful things. I love trees. It's just something when I see a tree knocked over, I just don't like that, and I imagine that's something that many people identify with. But I think it's funny with beauty. It's very hard to measure; you know it when you see it. And I think it's harder to tell what it is than it is to say what it isn't. Beauty in architecture can be monumental, martial, magisterial, or modern. One of my favourite bits of architecture in the city is the mort. It can be quite morbid, but what they share is something that is organic. It is something that's warm, or there's fenestration, or there's something tangible or tactile. The opposite of that, inhuman or nonhuman, is very hard to be beautiful. And so I think there's something in that. Remember, it is one of those things we can measure everything except the things that matter.

There's a fellow called William Morris who was an architect and an interior designer in Britain. He was the sort of parent of the arts and craft style. He once said, "If you're looking for a golden rule, this is it: when you're acquiring anything, ask yourself, is it useful, and do you consider it beautiful?" If we're asking that question in modern Australia, the questions are probably, is it big, and is it cheap? And I'm as guilty as anyone. When my wife sends me to Aldi to get some milk, I'll come back with an air compressor, not because I need a compressor. I wouldn't know how to use it, and I don't know what I'd use it for anyway, but gosh, it was a good deal. So, we're all infected a bit by this materialism, seeing preciousness not in the beauty or the utility of things, but in the materialistic value.  

Beauty is still something that's innate to us and drives us. Interestingly, you look at environments that attract people, and they're beautiful places. The secret of placemaking seems to me to be creating something beautiful, and people will be attracted to it. That's the secret sauce. If you can find that kind of beauty that you're describing, people will love it, come to it, and feel responsible for it, which breeds sustainability and longevity. When we think about spending money at the front of a project on something which might make it more attractive, both metaphorically and literally, there's a long sort of ripple effect that includes ownership and long-term engagement. The poet John Ruskin once said that to be beautiful, something has to be true. This idea of authenticity is crucial. There's beauty in something that is not pretending to be something other than what it is. That humanity and the ideas of something organic hold beauty because it seems to be living in some sense. Let's throw to Jermaine. I know you're going to answer the organic question and tell us how gorgeous it is. In one of our previous conversations, you brought up the idea of love. I signed up for this panel thinking it's all about sustainability and infrastructure.  

Now we've got this whole sort of poetry coming out of the panel here, which I'm really enjoying. But love, what do you mean? How does that figure? Dostoyevsky said beauty will save the world. In Sydney, there's a beautiful example of that called the Sydney Opera House. It cost seven times the intended budget but has now paid for itself many times over. If you put beauty, authenticity, and natural design into something, that's what you get. Now talking about love, because it's just you and me here, go for it. I must say you look very nice tonight. Thank you, you look lovely too. Okay, so this is the essence of why I do what I do. It is my belief that we see so much destruction out there of nature, which is really destruction of ourselves, because we don't love nature enough, and arguably we don't love ourselves enough either. So, there's two big problems here. But hang on, hang on, what does the audience think about that? Do we love ourselves enough? Do we love nature enough? In your minds, you're asking the question, which is the obvious follow-on: how can I find a way to love nature more and therefore love myself more? Is this the kind of logic we're talking about? Is this where we're going? Yeah, yeah. I'm just smiling because you know the job. There's that growing conversation about the fact that we humans are too many on this planet and we're cancerous. That's bad. I mean, there's no sports team that has won any type of tournament by starting by saying, we're a bunch of losers. It doesn't work this way, right?  

So, now back to love. Why we see so much destruction of nature in the world is because we don't love it enough. We don't love it enough because we don't value it enough, because we don't understand it enough, because we don't experience it enough, and therefore we are disconnected from that web of life. Why do we do all the crazy things that we do for our families? Because all those boxes are ticked. Now, the rest of the living world is just extended family, just a few more generations ago. So that's why I bring nature into the city, because I want people to experience nature more where they are. Not everybody is attuned to going outdoors and reconnecting. That's important. Can I throw to Remy at this point? I love where this is going. Remy, with your UN and community hat on, can you think of an example of the kind of thing that Germain's talking about, where a commitment to something at a community level has led to something beautiful? Yeah, well, there are several around us.

I think this issue of experiencing and maybe appreciating what is there and doing a bit more of that in several places might be one way. But if you just look at Botanic Gardens, for instance, you have a few in some cities, but you need more, you know, in a city like Sydney. I don't know if there's a plan to create more Botanic Gardens as the city grows, or you know, at that level. So these are some of the places where we can reconnect and people who visit. And we do that in schools. We take kids to Botanic Gardens, to the zoo, to these places to get them to reconnect because they start appreciating. So the idea here is to get the younger generation, the most younger ones, to get interested because they are the future. So that would be my suggestion: how do we get the kids to start learning the importance of green in the environment where they will be living, where they live, so that it becomes part of their habit, their behavior to break out that the issue we started with, the culture, so that we don't discover we don't try to unlearn and relearn later so that it becomes part of our behavior that this is just normal, we have to be able to bring nature anytime, every time, all the time.

Perfect. I mean, I think I was going to ask all of you. I'm going to ask all of you just, we're starting to run out of time. Actually, I know we're only really getting going, but that sounds to me like a perfect, the question was what's the one thing you would ask the audience to leave the room and do today or tomorrow to bring on the green infrastructure Revolution that we're talking about. So I'm hearing from Remy that I'm pointing down here to the monitor that Greening School Playgrounds and places like that for our Juniors is the right place to start. Let education start to play that role from a very young age.

Yeah, so the conversation starts early, yes. Start schools at home, getting them involved, appreciating the plants, especially native plants, the ones that and also the ones that have benefits like the ones that absorb more CO2, for instance, these are the things that we should be aware of and be able to plant them because we know that type of benefit. The ones that bring some elements of health that have medicinal values, that have some fruits or some element, all those things we have that element of culture awareness and knowing and earlier enough the better. Getting your hands in the dirt. Rob, what's your one suggestion for people, the one thing that you would like people to do when they leave the room tonight, the literally first thing comes to my head: go for a walk or you get a Mobility Scooter, just go and just go and have a have a bit of a walk. 88% of our health budget, which is about 30% of the overall budget, is spent treating non-communicable diseases, of which the biggest single one is type two diabetes. There are more than 2 and a half million Australians with that condition, and for most people, it's preventable if we just had environments where it was easier for people to just be a bit more active.  

I'd like to bounce off what you were saying, Remy. I think everyone in this room, and I think everyone at some stage in their life – for most of us, I think it was when we were kids – we've experienced the wonder and awe of nature. It's like, "Wow!" To tie back to what you were saying, it's beautiful and transcends our rational mind, connecting directly to our hearts. To me, this is why urban greening is so important: it allows people to experience that fundamental shift we need to operate as a species and live in harmony on this planet. We often talk about needing to save the planet, but the planet doesn't need to be saved – it needs to be loved.

I love this question because I once made my students do this. So, here's a challenge to everybody: if you leave here, please go hug a tree. Love the tree, hug the tree, and even better, take a selfie while you hug the tree. Post it and tag us. If people ask you why, you can explain why nature is so valuable and important, why this tree is keeping us all alive, and help spread the message. Be a leader in that way.

We've got time for just maybe two, possibly three, questions from our beautiful audience here. We've got some roaming mics – one there and one over there. Oh my goodness, hands are shooting up all over the place. Let's go to this person here with the beautiful headscarf on. If I could just ask you to keep the question brief.

I loved what you said, Remy, and I agree with you. Community gardens in suburbs for children, herbs, and fruit trees are great. Also, when children see the Balmoral trees being poisoned, they should get a bit more punishment than they do.

Great comment. Let's go. You had your hand up very quickly there in the second row, with the dark black shirt. Here comes a microphone.  

Designing cities around water – twice the amount of rain falls on Sydney than we actually draw out of Warragamba. If we didn't have Warragamba and needed to drink our own rain, what would that look like? What does a city look like that's designed around water?

I'll start. We had to look at this question while considering the new city around the new Western Sydney airport and how to deal with water flow around South Creek, which is that big corridor. The best advice was to re-establish a chain of ponds, recognizing what was there before and seeking to recreate that. We also need to start properly recycling water rather than just generating it. We're going to have to get used to the idea that yes, we're going to drink our pee – we do it every day anyway, because ultimately, we've got the same amount of water in this biosphere as we've always had. It's all recycled. Piping sewer and wastewater from far western Sydney out to the ocean is just a silly idea now.

Does anyone else want to tackle that question? Jay?

Yes, I was going to answer from a theoretical perspective. It doesn't work ideally. A city should operate in the same way an ecosystem works, dealing with the amount of rain that falls there and not trying to do things beyond what sunlight and rain afford. A city in itself isn't a sustainable model, but there are ways to make it better. It's hard, but there are plenty of good initiatives to try to make buildings water-positive, for example. It's a tough task, but doable in bits.

Right, so it's a double-edged answer: it's really hard, but we can do parts of it. Let's go to the back of the room, the gentleman with his hand up and the puffy vest.

I have a housing question. Urban sprawl in Western Sydney isn't sustainable or desirable in combating the housing crisis, with low canopy cover, dark roofs, and car dependency. The state government is moving towards more infill development and increasing density, as we've seen with the new TODP. Greening cities isn't a new concept; we have Canberra from the Garden City movement of the 20th century. One downfall of it is its lack of density, seen as undesirable. How do we manage density in green cities?

First, is green infrastructure a new idea? Short answer: no.

Everyone shaking their heads, so no, it's not a new idea. The Garden City movement was one of the early examples. The Griffins did it in Castlecrag, wanting everyone to live in the bush. The mid-century moderns on the lower North Shore did the nuts-and-berries architecture, living with the bush without digging it up. We do have precedents, but clearly, we haven't been listening to them. The second part of the question is the density question. How do we reconcile green with density? These are both necessary.

I'll take a shot. Super high density is never ultimately sustainable due to too many challenges and too much energy use over time. Strata titling works well with a 1960s-style six-pack of six apartments, but once you have 500 or 1,000 apartments, it becomes a new form of governance entirely. I worry about what will happen in 50 years when some of these super-dense places need to be rebuilt. Of course, we've got a housing crisis and need a supply-side solution, but we can't ignore demand. We're not looking at the tax incentives that turn housing into a commodity. We need to stop incentivizing people who already have houses to buy more until everyone who wants a house has one. Then we can incentivize buying more houses.

Green infrastructure is a network, an interconnected system. Like how we plan freeways and highways, green should be throughout cities. The denser we go, the more we need green infrastructure to sustain human life. It's not just about housing; it's about rethinking the entire process from materials, construction, architecture, and planning.

Round of applause for that. Remy, what do you think about reconciling density with green infrastructure?

It's not one or the other; they can be done together. There's no fixed threshold for density; it's context-specific. For us, city or urban development should follow principles like compactness, connectivity, and integration. Cities should be compact, connected through green or blue infrastructure, and integrated. Singapore is a great example – highly dense yet highly green. So, they are not in competition; it's doable.

On the housing question, of course, affordability is a perennial issue in Australia. We need to make housing greener, considering elements like the roof that Rob mentioned. Greening has a cost, but the cost-benefit is in favor of nature.

Great, that last bit was for the accountants in the room. Cost-benefit analysis looks really good. Everyone else is saying we can do it together. Density and green don't have to fight each other. They are a companion piece. They work in harmony if we're clever about bringing those things together at the outset. That's what I'm summarizing here. From an innovation perspective, there are plenty of solutions out there that add a lot of nature to the city without impacting housing or density. There are plenty of opportunities to make it happen if we allow it to happen.

When I talk about sustainability to students, I often say the science was in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. The science of sustainability was in the technology and engineering of sustainability – that was in the '90s and 2000s. So that leaves us back to the very beginning with the issue about sustainability that we haven't solved yet, which is the cultural side. And that's exactly where the panel went this evening. When you all opened up to that question, we had love, poetry, and all those very human responses. Rather than a technical conversation, we've ended up with a very human conversation, and that seems to be where the problems lie, but also where the opportunities are.

With that, we're going to draw this evening's proceedings to a close. I hope you leave the room thinking about your next action. Hopefully, outside at the bar, you can have a conversation with like-minded people, and maybe something will spark out of that. Wouldn't that be amazing? We'll be at the bar later on, so come and tap us on the shoulder if you want to chat. Thank you very much for joining us this evening. [Applause]

I would like to invite you up to the podium to say some thank yous. Then you can go, I will sit down. Thank you, Anthony. I've got the wonderful task of thanking some incredible people. This event has been in the making for quite some time. A lot of hours went into it. When we started, we asked the panel members to share something about themselves. Remember those questions? Something about yourself, your perspectives, how you think about things. We said it would be confidential, but I'm going to blabber it all out now. I fed this information to ChatGPT, like any responsible academic would, and asked ChatGPT to summarize the superpowers of our panelists.

So, a huge thank you and appreciation to our panelists for sharing their superpowers.  

Firstly, Rob, our Harmony Hero, who works his magic to create amazing cities where everything and everyone fits together perfectly. That can be a new LinkedIn status. Germain, our Nature Ninja, who brings nature back to the city, making urban life fresh and exciting. Remy, our Global City Wizard, who transforms cities all over the world, making them better places for everyone. Thanks, Remy. And our host, Anthony, the Design Guru, who puts the grand into architecture, turning his passion into wonderful city-changing designs. Thank you very much. A small gift for all of you. [Applause]

Remy, watch out for a package coming your way soon. Everybody is curious to know what's in your bags. It's really special, designed by students from the Faculty of Design, Architecture, and Building. I believe Rob has a matching gift on. A huge thank you to Jo Bosben, Dena Fam, and the incredible UTS team running at the back, who are keeping this event live and covering it globally. It's an honor to be part of this Global Game Changer series, and a salute to UTS management for investing in these conversations and global engagements. This is wonderful.  

To our audience, our enablers of the visions we shared tonight, thank you for turning up and engaging with 1,700 registrations. It gives us confidence that this is an important topic, and we need to take it forward. Green infrastructure matters. A special shout-out to our UTS friends in China, who gathered a crowd to watch the live stream. Thank you.  

In closing, I learned something from one of my students that turned out to be my favorite quote: "You should never underestimate the power of a small change." I challenge you all tonight to be part of this change, part of the Green Revolution. Every small act by every one of us can have a huge collective impact. Never underestimate the power of a small change. To bring it back to Anthony's first question, "Why are we not already greening our cities?" This is a call to all of you as well. Let's do better, and let's do it together. Thank you, UTS, thank you to the panel and our host, and thank you to the audience. Let the Green Revolution begin. Thank you.