Join the Cities & Urban Communities Hub for two presentations followed by a Q&A session
Presentation 1 - Experimentation to accelerate decarbonisation
Experimentation through urban living labs brings together academic, government, civil society and private sector actors to trial alternative city futures, transition governance approaches and new modes of sustainable urban development.
Net Zero Precincts is a 4-year ARC Linkage project that is leveraging Monash University's Clayton Campus and the Monash Technology Precinct as a living lab to undertake experiments in net zero energy, mobility and the built environment to accelerate precinct-scale decarbonisation.
In this presentation Dr Darren Sharp will provide an overview of the Net Zero Precincts project, and discuss some emerging opportunities and challenges of net zero transformation at precinct scale.
See Net-Zero Precincts presentation slides here
Speaker Bio
Dr Darren Sharp is a Research Fellow at Monash Sustainable Development Institute where he is Research Coordinator of the ARC Linkage project Net Zero Precincts: an interdisciplinary approach to decarbonising cities. Darren is a sustainability transitions researcher interested in urban experimentation, living labs, multi-stakeholder governance, grassroots innovations, and the sharing economy. His research speaks to the possibilities of social learning, institutional arrangements, community agency, and new urban imaginaries to drive the transformation of cities towards sustainability.
Presentation 2 - The example of Circular Economy Villages
Circular Economy Villages (CEVs) seek to illustrate how a zero waste and zero carbon precinct could be designed for new developments in rural areas, aiming to move beyond zero and have a net positive impact on the land.
Each village is being planned to house a diverse community of up to 200 people, integrating affordable co-working and co-living spaces with water and energy micro-grids and a regenerative agricultural system. A network of CEVs would strive towards self-sufficiency by collaborating and localising the economy within a bioregion.
Steven Liaros' presentation will outline this development model and provide the current implementation status.
See Circular Economy Villages presentation slides here
Speaker Bio
Steven Liaros is a strategic town planner and author of ‘Rethinking the City’. He is interested in how the internet and other new technologies, together with circular economy and sharing economy business models, are reshaping cities. Steven has qualifications in Civil Engineering, Town Planning and Environmental Law.