I'm here in Melbourne for TEDx,
the city that thrives on innovation
and ideas.
So I heard about the work being done by Melbourne University around greening
roofs, greening buildings, and I was really fascinated to hear about that
work, it's just a wonderful solution to so many of the issues we're faced with.
So how do you describe what you do to somebody who doesn't know?
Using plants to make cities better places to live, basically. So a lot of science
underpinning that, getting the plant to tolerate the conditions and function as
well as it can, but ultimately it's just about putting more plants in.
So we're providing the evidence for local government, state government, to change
their policies, change their planting schemes, to encourage more greenery in the cities.
That touches on a really key point, doesn't it? Because by 2050, 75% of
us will live in cities. Do you see more demand for what you do then?
Yeah, it's increasing. It seems like every development application now has got a
green roof or a green wall on them.
And I think our research, you know,
the last 10 years, it's reduced risk
so people don't now look at green roofs, green walls and
go, "Oh, could we do it?" They go, "Yes we can, we know how so let's just do it."
What do you think the main driver is for people that want to install something?
It really depends on who you're talking to, so if we're talking to the
water authorities, it's about preventing flooding which will increase under
climate change scenarios. Whereas if we're talking to an employer, you know,
their employees will look at a green roof, they're innately
attracted to that and we've shown that they'll be more productive, and they
have better attention spans. So we can get benefits for the employer that way.
So it's about talking to what their drivers are.
And what's your main driver? Why do it?
Beauty.
Transforming cities.
What have you been up to lately, Tim?
I've been in Africa recently, climbing
Mount Kenya, looking at the melting glaciers trying to show climate change through
using a proxy of the glacial melt.
Took a group of World Bank people up there,
senior executive of the World Bank, and you know it's interesting, because they
work in the area of climate change communication, but showing a melting
glacier and then being able to attribute that to what we are doing
was still a very emotional experience for them.
They were really pretty affected by it, we tried to
capture some of that on camera
So how do you get your work out there to make it accessible to people?
It's about translation and easy to read guidelines.
So one example is the Growing Green Guide
which was a best practice guideline to green roofs, walls and facades for
Melbourne. But it's been translated and used internationally as a best practice
guide. So it's just really easy species lists, 'how to', nothing complicated. And the
science isn't explicit, it's just inherent in what we recommend people do.
So you're offering solutions? This is the other big picture
piece that I like, is that you're saying, okay well if you're concerned about
biodiversity loss and climate change and toxic shock of freshwater to marine
ecosystems near cities...
look at what we've got.
Some of those big impacts of climate change which
will be felt in our cities are that increased flooding and the increased
heat, and the green infrastructure makes a big difference to that.
And occasionally it's pretty.
The other thing we do is we're teaching, so we're teaching students and then
those grads, they're getting jobs now. They're getting jobs in local government,
in state government, in private practice, they now understand the benefits of
green infrastructure and how to implement it. And that's moving out
beyond the university to the wider world.
So Tim you went back to university while
you were having this successful career. Why did you do that?
I found I was dealing with lawyers a lot of the time, and lawyers were the ones
who were being tasked with trying to decide who did what, and who was responsible for
what in the context of cleaning up the planet.
So I found if you don't have the
background and the academic rigour, you can't you can't have a proper
dialogue with people.
You know more and more what we do, we've got to talk to
different audiences about what we're passionate about, and what we want to change
and if you don't know the language, like you're saying, you can't have those
conversations.
So were you able to fit your expeditions
in between semesters?
I had a very flexible supervisor.
Yeah and it's a hell of an excuse.
You know, "His essay's late, where is he?" and you go,
"Don't ask".
"I would have done it but I got frostbite, couldn't type".
Well thanks for the time to meet up guys, it's just been
fascinating to hear what you're doing.
Yeah great to catch up.
Yeah thank you, it was really interesting having a chat.