New approach to business cases a vital element of 202020 vision
While significantly expanding green urban spaces around Australia is an admirable goal, creating lasting change will require unprecedented cooperation across all levels of government, according to CRC for Water Sensitive Cities CEO Professor Tony Wong.
Professor Wong was interviewed in The Australian on May 29 in a feature article on the 202020 Vision project, which champions collaboration and knowledge sharing across industry and the public sector. The ambitious project, a partnership of more than 260 Australian organisations, aims to create 20% more green space in urban areas by 2020.
In order to solve water management problems in cities, Professor Wong said, researchers, government and industry need to collaborate across many disciplines, “from social science, behavioural science, land-use planning, urban ecology, micro climates, peri-urban planning, right down to technologies for water recycling, water housing, resource recovery and so on”.
Professor Wong discussed the issue of restrictive traditional business case models, which don’t often take into account multiple sectors and stakeholders as a foundation to deliver large-scale public infrastructure improvements.
“A business case for local government may be about increasing property values, or increasing social cohesion and community wellbeing, which is a lot more difficult to monetise and quantify. We need to develop a more robust economic valuation framework, that captures the benefits across institutions and sectors, as the foundation to delivering a whole-of-government approach,” he said.
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