Board Director, Chair, Academic, Author, Researcher, Teacher, Mother, Learner, Thinker
I am the Chair of the board of Greenfleet, regenerative development thinker, educator, author and researcher. My research interests are identifying and filling the knowledge gaps in sustainability practice. Broadly, I question the efficiency based approach to sustainability and ask whether we have indeed become more sustainable in the 30 or so years of talking about it?
The answer is no, and why this is is partly that are trying to achieve sustainability from within a framework what created our unsustainable practices and the other is the definition of sustainability itself. In proposing the idea of contributive practice, this blog and its associated website is working to build a conceptual framework based on examples of people’s contributive practice. The main underlying idea behind contributive practice is: practice that approaches problems from an active, participatory, engaged and reflective mindset; a benefit mindset.
Contributive practice, in the context of sustainability, takes a whole/living systems worldview (hereafter referred to as the ecological worldview), and it is from this point of view that this blog describes through example how to practice contributively. Initially the work will focus on the built environment, but the base concepts are transferable to any practice.
Over the last 4 years (2017-2021) I have been looking at the intersection of Regenerative Development and Placemaking. Creating the visions and ways of understanding place, its capacity, its potential and testing what this could look like to support increased vitality and viability with on location with local stakeholders.
VIDEOS:
Bull Street Terraces – 2018
Building an Eco-City – 2017
RegenXPlace – 2019
Designing for Thrivability not liveability – 2016
Dutch TV Venny and surrounding suburb – 2014
WRITING:
Newport lakes Stories: Creating Regeneration Potential – Book 2024
Designing for Hope: Pathways to Regenerative Sustainability – book 2015
Placemaking Fundamentals for the Built Environment – book 2019
Enabling Eco-Cities: defining, planning and creating a thriving future – book 2020
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land and pay my djilbruk (respect) to them and their Elders, past and present. I am thankful to be able to learn from the oldest continuous culture on this planet and acknowledge their lands were never ceded and no treaty has been signed. I acknowledge the living water near me the Mirring-gnay-bir-nong, flowing into the Nearm (Port Philip Bay) and local mountain Wurdi Youang.
Newport Lakes Stories and Contributive Practice 