University of Technology Sydney last week launched its new Green Infrastructure Lab, and it was a welcome surprise.
Instead of what you might expect from academics and researchers – serious, conservative deliveries full of dry statistics and data – it was a lively event packed with relevant and urgently needed insights.
As the climate heats, so that the term climate boiling is no longer a surprise, it’s to nature and urban greening that many people are turning to at least mitigate the rising threats.
The nature positive movement might be slowed by the federal government’s delays on new environmental laws but the people who deal in the science and the data and their collaborators in industry are pushing forward at full pelt.
Led by Jua Cilliers head of the School of the Built Environment the launch event last week was designed to be a “dynamic hub where innovation meets sustainability to create greener, more resilient cities” that would bring the various disciplines in the university together along with the external stakeholders, as UTS vice chancellor Andrew Parfitt put it on socials later.
On stage were policy experts from planning, landscape infrastructure NSW state government, community volunteers and those working at the front line of resilience at disaster zones at flood affected Northern Rivers of NSW.
Form the academic and research side there was a range of exciting cut throughs on what the evidence said and why it mattered.
But what was different? Some of these research results and innovations we’d heard of before. There was the “wall bot” or robot that can crawl up green walls to monitor their health and maintenance needs from Sara Wilkinson. There were the green walls covering a car park at Manly Vale in Sydney that slashed pollution. And there was the experiment at Barangaroo that showed mixing green plants and solar panels lifted productivity.
But each of these discoveries or innovations somehow failed to properly land.
Seeing the visuals up on a screen and hearing the lively, fast paced deliveries of people who are clearly passionate about their work, made the difference.
The effect on this media rep (who may or may not have a short attention span) was an instantly desire to share the messages – but also the deep dive learnings. (More on that soon.)
For now it looked like Fraser Torpy who leads the Plants and Environmental Quality Research Group in the Faculties of Science, Engineering and IT and Design, Architecture and Building at the University of Technology Sydney had become one our new favourites.
Here’s just taste of his presentation on air pollution.
“EVS release new and novel forms of air pollution, concrete releases air pollution, every synthetic item around us releases air pollution. There’s no getting away from the fact that no matter what we do, the cities of the future are going to be polluted polluted air is the world’s number one environmental health risk. According to United Nations, seven million people a year are dying from poor air quality that’s equal to the total number of people who died from COVID every year.”
And then what plants could do about it.
The idea of clean air outdoors? It’s a myth, Torpy said. The systems we used for air filtration mainly cut out 60-70 per cent of dust – that’s all.
Even the HEPA filter he dragged theatrically in for demonstration did not cut out “all the gases, all the carbon monoxide, all the ozone all the nitrogen oxides” that come straight indoors.
What’s worse is the outdoors contaminants are “augmented with indoor sources like the chair you’re sitting on now, every synthetic material we’ve ever made releases often low, but constant quantities of volatile organic compounds, many of which are carcinogenic.”
But the big surprise is how much plants can rid us of that pollution. Nothing else can, he says.
Some mechanical system do some of this work but they are highly energy intensive and nowhere near as efficient as plants that in sufficient quantities can remove all of the pollutants.
Why? Because they use them as food sources. The bacteria that does the work live within the plants.
“Nothing else does it. Just plants do it. We can do some physical chemical effects, but they’re always short term, they’re always highly energy intensive. They require massive maintenance, they’re just not effective plans to do a great job.”
But there were others that impressed. Peter Igra of UTS who shared the findings at Daramu House at Barangaroo where he proved that solar panels don’t work to peak efficiency above 25 degrees Centigrade which is why a “biosolar” roof is ideal – where solar panels are mixed with a green roof.
There was also the Sebastian Pfautsch of Western Sydney University, who’s quickly become the go-to expert on urban heat islands. And there was Mohammed Makki and Linda Matthews of UTS Architecture who showed how artificial intelligence can be used in design to create places that people like.
Guess what strikes home for the people they surveyed? Yes, it was places replete with green infrastructure that the preferred. But the fun part is that AI can help us get there.
Clearly the team at GI Lab is on a winner – now for the funding to give it the muscle it needs to cut through.