Robin Batterham provides advice to the Federal Government on science and innovation matters. He plays a major role in promoting linkages between science, industry and government and helps to ensure public investment in science and technology is properly focused on issues of national priority. He is the Executive Officer of the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. At its eighth meeting on 31 May 2002 members will be considering the sustainability of our natural systems and biodiversity; Australian industry's sustainable competitiveness; and sustainable aquaculture.

He is a member of the Australian Research Council, the Cooperative Research Centres Committee, and the Advisory Panel for the Australian Institute for Commercialisation.

The science vision of sustainability: What is the role of science?
by Dr Robin Batterham

Sustainability is about trade-offs
Climate change
Time scales
The role of science
The science vision of sustainability
Vision for Australia
Questions/discussion

Sustainability is about trade-offs

One of the great challenges with sustainability and the debates that we are having, and the engagement that we seek to have, is one of language and of the framework in which we are focused. To understand sustainability I think you have to have some rather simple propositions.

The first is that sustainability really is about trade-offs – no more, no less. It is the trade-offs that occur between economics, the environment and the community. When you look at sustainability from that viewpoint, all sorts of things emerge: firstly, that it is a process of engagement; secondly, that it is not about particular absolutes – will this particular species disappear, for example. It might be about the interaction between species, and what comes from that either into economics or into our view of the environment. At all levels we are talking trade-offs. And that is the process of engagement as well.

Science happens to have a vital role to play in setting these frameworks, in providing the baselines, and of course in talking about time scales of development. So I look at sustainability and say, 'Fine, at each step of the way which trade-off are you talking about, and are you in fact engaging in trade-offs?'

What I want to cover is an aspect of the role of science in that business of trade-offs and the baseline data that is essential for rational discussion. We need such data in all sorts of areas. It can be rather complex when you look at those involved in establishing baselines and discussing them.

Climate change

Let me begin with climate change, because that is a key of sustainability. Climate change provides a good example of looking at how science, and engineering and technology, can provide a portfolio of options. Such a portfolio can move us beyond Kyoto. I have been quoted as saying that Kyoto is irrelevant, and I would have to put that in context to say it is irrelevant in the long run, in terms of where we might end up, because we are looking at far more significant reductions than those foreseen in Kyoto. Kyoto is highly relevant in the more immediate discussions such as 'What form will carbon trading take?', 'How will we trade with our partners and with our competitors?' and so on. There are all sorts of valid reasons why Australia might want to consider being within rather than without the Kyoto accord. But in the long run I would hope that we as a nation can be positioned in a manner that takes us way past Kyoto.

There is no reason why, in the long run, artificial photosynthesis, ultra-cheap photovoltaics and a string of other options can't happen here. There is some really excellent work now underway in Australia. Let's concentrate on them. And there is no reason why, in the fairly near future, we couldn't see the next block of power coming on in Australia with no CO₂ being emitted to the atmosphere. That block of power would probably be from conventional fuels at the moment, but with combustion with oxygen rather than with air so that the capture of the CO₂ is economic at about $4 a tonne instead of $40 a tonne. Sequestration is a possibility in perhaps 30 years because that gives us as a country the time scales to bring through a larger portfolio.

So there are good reasons why we could soon position ourselves to be seen to be world leaders, with all the market advantage that brings with it, to apply our science – fairly soon – to an emissions-free power generation. It is science, and the engineering and technology associated with it, that allows us to have that sort of portfolio.

Time scales

Let me talk about time scales, because the trade-off that I encourage as the key element of sustainability does have associated time scales. You can start with some rather worthwhile activities. Some companies, when talking sustainability, are putting clear time scales on some of the changes they intend to make. Some companies are even prepared to talk about the time scales for their incremental improvements as well as their breakthroughs.

Those who try to develop frameworks in which to have the sustainability debate are actually working on geological time scales. I would point out, however, that the realities of the framework that I am suggesting, where we are trading off between the environment, the community and the economics, are that one has to recognise capital-intensive industries for what they are, and the opportunities for change that might only come along every 30 years or thereabouts. If we were talking power generation, for example, some technologies when developed, might sweep the world in a matter of months while other things take much longer. One indication of a new technology penetration rate happens to be the amount of electricity consumed in the US. I find the figure rather hard to believe, that approaching 20 per cent of all electricity usage in the US relates to computer usage.

The role of science

Of the three elements – economics, which is the concern of so many of us, environment, and community – it is the third element, community, that is the ultimate driving force in the sustainability trade-off discussion. It is one where we must remember that there is a very proactive role for science, and engineering and technology, in targeting education and literacy. One could look at a few horror stories – or good-news stories – in terms of broad public understanding of science, or of how science is taught in schools. I refer you here to only some of the figures which were published last year in the Goodrum report on science literacy in Australian secondary schools.

I saw the figures for general science literacy based on a survey in California, and it had a series of multiple-choice answers, such as: Does the Earth go round the sun, or the sun around the Earth? And when you've sorted that one out: How long does it take? Is it roughly a day? – because it comes up and goes down. Is it roughly three months? – because we have seasonal change. Is it about once a year? – because we clock the calendar over once a year, and what have you. And one can reduce it rather quickly to absurdity. But the result was that 49 per cent of adult Californians, of a rather large survey, got it wrong. Think about that in terms of literacy of the population with which you are dealing.

You can say, 'Well, we should have schooled them better,' and the answer is, 'Yes, in part, but remember that the corpus of knowledge is always changing. It is always increasing; we never seem to drop much off.' So there is a consequence for scientists and the science itself to be very active in the teaching process, seeing that it is current, that it is relevant, and that literacy as a means of understanding science is taught. When we engage in the trade-offs and the debates through frameworks that we have carefully constructed, we realise a key point, that not all participants in the discussions have the same understanding.

Science certainly has a role in education and literacy. It has a role for greater involvement with government, rather than less, to create a very vibrant scene. And it must be well connected with industry, without it a three-cornered trade-off dialogue is impossible.

The science vision of sustainability

Let me now move to the topic that I think I was meant to be speaking on, which is the science vision of sustainability. What I have really talked about is that sustainability is trade-offs and it is debate, and science has a vital role in setting that debate in a proper direction. We also have a role to deliver a lot of the results that are going to help improve the condition. And to do that we need a vibrant science scene. We are a 2 per cent country, roughly 2 per cent of the world's intellectual effort. It behoves us, therefore, in my opinion, to focus that effort – not all of it, but some portion of it – in a concentrated way. That is why I am fairly keen on thematic priorities. There are some that come to my mind, as yet without wide consultation, as to the sort of priorities that might be of interest for Australian science, all of them one way or another having a longer term contribution to sustainability:

• bushfire research;
• dryland salinity;
• plant genomics;
• biotechnology;
• child health;
• moving beyond Kyoto;
• biodiversity;
• information communications technology

I do suggest that ultimately one can do no science that is targeting change without also having the contributions from the social sciences and humanities. All things that are asking people to change involve social processes. It is well to remember that innovation is actually a personal thing, at the end of the day: change the products that we use and we change the way we go about making them. So it is fairly important that as we concentrate our science, we also concentrate the mind as to how we engage social sciences and humanities.

Vision for Australia

Finally, might I offer a personal vision for Australia. I see Australian science and technology as vibrant and well connected, and that we can and should be world leaders in many fields, and in their application. In the long run I am not particularly interested in seeing our science isolated from application. In terms of education and literacy, I think we should have a population that is excited by the concept of change – and that goes right back to how we teach in the schools. We should have a population that is demanding engagement in the transition to sustainability, and demands that engagement of us, because we have earned the right to have that engagement, by helping to create the frameworks and by proactively being involved in the dialogue.

Questions/discussion

Question: You talked about trade-offs in the first instance – trade-offs between economy and environment, for example. But then you go on to later discuss the challenge, or rather to embrace change. There would be many who would argue that a trade-off between the economy and the environment is not necessary, or not always necessary, if we are prepared to embrace change rather than stick with the way we are, business as usual. Is that a strong point that you would also agree with, or not?

RB: Well, there is a proposition that says you can have a better environment and at the same time improve the bottom line of a company, for example, and that proposition has a lot of substance to it. But you can't take it through to absurdity. I will give you some examples. You can argue that the 2 per cent of Australia's landmass that is used for mining is a trade-off and ask why you can't do the mining without disturbing the landmass at all. And the answer is, 'Well, for most metals and industrial minerals you probably can do the mining with a lot less than 2 per cent, but you can't do it economically.' So there is a point where environmental interaction and the community's expectations, and the economics of operations, simply diverge. The example I have given you is to say that you can't get away with saying, 'Instead of 2 per cent of the environment used while mining is happening, we want it to be .02 per cent.' You can equally look at it and say, 'Two per cent of the environment is roughly the amount of area of football fields in Australia, so environmentally why don't we trade those off?' So my point would be to agree wholeheartedly that there is so much that you can do that works for the environment and works equally well for the economic side.

You could look at how copper is distributed through automobiles. It is quite essential for the function of cars, but when you come to recycle the whole car, about the last thing you want in the steel when you melt it down to turn it back into metal again is copper, because it's extremely difficult to get out. But if you design the car such that the loom topologically is one piece of string instead of a whole load, then you can at the end of the life of that vehicle open up the portal that says 'Copper strip here,' apply force and pull the whole lot out as one loom. You recycle the copper, and you then have steel with no copper in it. The economics of doing that involve hardly any penalties whatsoever, and yet the long-term environmental benefits of it are very considerable indeed.

There are plenty of examples where your proposal is right, but you can't take it through to the absurdity – and you weren't – of saying there is no trade-off between economics and environment. There is a trade-off and that has to be debated.

Question: I want to ask you a semantic question, which is really about your last recommendation on engagement with social science, and ask whether or not 'engagement' is the right word.

When I got engaged, 27 years ago, I didn't know where I was going. Engagement was a precursor to actually stepping into marriage in a total different way and a different future, where both of us expected to change. When you use the word 'engagement', do you mean social scientists learn the science language and science goes on doing the right thing because it is on the perfect track, or are we into an engagement game where the scientists are prepared to change what they do and we are going towards marriage? And will we have a diamond anniversary?

RB: I love the language, and I note that you are obviously far better at it than I, because when I am using 'engagement' – I am not trying to do a Lewis Carroll here and define it to be anything that I mean – that is shorthand for a lot more than just a casual engagement. It is in fact shorthand for involvement at all sorts of levels. I will just spell out a couple of them.

In science, at a very fundamental level, we tend to overlook the fact that coming up with a new hypothesis involves a creative leap. Then doing the observations and what have you involves a certain amount of creativity, but not in generating results, of course. They must be as per the measurements. The creativity involved in science – in mathematics, particularly, and in problem solving and the like – has a lot of parallels in design and in the creative arts, for example. Understanding the creativity process is something which it behoves us all to be involved in – and, I might add as an aside, make sure that we don't panelbeat it out of children too early in school, if ever. But then one can go on a lot further, and come at it from saying that having dialogue involves process – which scientists can have views about as members of the community, but they are not specialists to say how you engage, how you have dialogue, for example. You would expect that to come from other areas.

One can go on. My point is that looking at the speed of change with which people can cope – and remember the increasing rate of accumulation of new knowledge implies increasing the rate of change – it behoves us very much, I think, to look to those who are trying to understand how we cope with change, or want to cope with change, before we go pushing too far. So I see 'involvement' as perhaps a far better word than 'engagement', at all sorts of levels.

Question: You emphasised this triad, this trade-off between the economic, social and environmental dimensions, but right in the middle of that triangle I noticed the key item 'governance', that you perhaps did not emphasise so much. It seems to me that the Academies in general could actually provide very important input to the development of government policies, effectively as a think tank, an objective source of information for government. To what extent do you see this as a developmental path for producing the policies which will ultimately generate that sustainability?

RB: I think there is a lot in the governance side. At the moment, we are only just starting to have regular language in reporting, for example, economic and environmental performance from companies, from government bodies and the like. That is only just emerging; it is not yet standard, although there is some pleasing progress on it. We are a long way from seeing regular reporting. And the further you get towards the sustainability goal as being our normal way of operation, the more you realise the importance of understanding the risks associated with trade-offs, and of having procedures in place that allow these risks to surface and to be accepted and considered.

I will give you an example, say in the financial side, that says if you are a university and you are spending taxpayers' money, amongst other cash, and you invest in some exciting start-up or spin-off because that is the most logical way to commercialise it, woe betide you if that start-up or spin-off gets into strife one way or another. Perhaps it did not put its ASX return in on time, or whatever. All of a sudden the university finds itself with the Auditor-General breathing down its neck, essentially saying, 'How on earth could you use taxpayers' money on that wild venture?' And the answer is anything that involves change involves risk. So what is the framework for managing that risk?

I think until we have a lot more debate, discussion and reporting on sustainability, then some of the issues of governance and the role for government are going to take a while to emerge. But they are certainly there.

Question: I have been grappling all day today with the word 'sustainability'. We haven't really had a definition of sustainability today, and you have added to this, Dr Batterham, in saying it is a matter of trade-offs.

I want to bring in the question of population. I find it strange we are talking about sustainability without mentioning science's role in analysing how much effect population increase – not just in Australia, but in the rest of the world – is having on non-sustainability. I know people say, 'Well, the answer is to educate people, educate people in Africa so that there will be a control in population.' I wonder, in your trade-off situation, what you would do about trading off the rights of people in the very fast-populating world not to fast-populate, in order that there be a sustainable future.

RB: That is not a short one to answer, but it is a very worthy topic. I will just drop a couple of quick pointers without trying to answer it comprehensively, but I would be very happy to discuss it. The population and population pressures on sustainability clearly play a key role. We could define sustainability, and define it in terms of options for future generations – the Brundtland definition – and I have avoided doing that, intentionally, by taking the focus that is actually about trade-offs that we are making now and in the future.

The trade-offs that one makes about what population you have comes down, in most states of the world these days, to individual choices rather than state-run choice, although clearly governments are able to influence that to some extent. My good-news and optimistic side of it would be to say that when you look at fertility rates versus economic development, all countries one way or another follow the same trend line. Namely, as the standard of living goes up, so the fertility rates goes down. That is now starting to become fairly well established, and if you therefore assume that most of our efforts on sustainability should be about talking trade-offs and should be about, to the extent that we can help it, bringing the economic development of poorer people and poorer nations up, then you will see what appears to be thus far a natural process of fertility reduction coming in. And that probably is a more realistic way, I think personally, of saying how we are going to handle twice the population that we have on the Earth now, because that is where we are heading.

Question: One of the things that characterise people who work in the business we are talking about is being driven by problems. We view community groups and people in the community as the solution to a lot of those problems, therefore we spend a lot of time talking to them. One interesting thing that comes out of that is that they don't see clear distinctions between phenomena in the way that we do in setting lists of priorities that look as if they are disconnected. How would you respond to that view of the world, in a list of priorities?

RB: Firstly, in wider dialogue on sustainability I think it behoves all of us to have a bit of a scale in our mind, that says, 'If I am talking with a group, and that group is involved in my backyard and directly with what I am doing, then they are direct participants,' and it behoves you then to have a certain level of debate about trade-offs with them. If they are interested because from the other side of the globe they decide to take an interest in whatever it is that you are doing, that is also a class of participant, but it is not one, ergo – it follows, because of the number of them – that in any of our own particular actions, or even up to government level, we can take on board. So I would argue the Australian Government cannot take on a world climate change response alone, to take my argument through to the point. We need a scale of involvement that recognises the level of participation of people in the trade-off.

The next one, and the last comment I would make about priorities, is that I think it is perhaps a bit too much to expect that if we prioritise some of our efforts in science, engineering and technology so that we get more focus, because we are targeting more outcomes in the long run, each priority will be better interconnected – other than the fact that they all rest on fundamentals of physics, chemistry, maths and so on. I think far more important would be that if we go ahead with the next round of priorities in the way that I would like to see it happen, then in a year or so's time there would be widespread understanding in Australia – not just amongst the R&D community – of what the priority areas were, not to be able to necessarily recite the scientific terms involved in it but broadly; secondly, that we were taking these areas seriously, which meant we were resourcing them appropriately and we had excellent people working in them, and that that was generally known; and, thirdly, that we had an expectation of significant outcomes from these particular areas.

So it would not worry me if the only connection between the priority areas did end up being, at the one hand, this expectation of knowledge about them and outcome, and, at the other hand, that they are all linked through the fundamentals of science in any case. But we will probably see some additional linkages which are in between those two points.

Comment: I would just like to add that I think the trade-off contribution is an important one for this debate, and in the notion of complex systems and self-organisation perhaps one encouraging way forward that we should bear in mind is that – in my understanding – the fastest-growing sector in the market, overseas at least, is socially responsible investments, where ordinary people are making the choice about what kind of a trade-off they want to see happen. And with education and enlightenment, I think, that might push the debate faster than the scientists will.