{"id":{"repo_id":"unsw","oai_identifier":"oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/105355"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/unsw/oai:unsworks.library.unsw.edu.au:1959.4/105355","repository":{"repo_id":"unsw","name":"University of New South Wales","base_url":"https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/oai/provider"},"display":{"title":"Absolute Sustainability of Australian Cities","abstract":"Australia is a highly urbanised country, with over 85% of people living in city environments. Therefore, the lifestyles of city dwellers and infrastructure of cities are critical to addressing sustainability issues. Australian cities are regularly named amongst the most liveable cities in the world, but with high consumption levels and long supply chains impacting hinterlands. This thesis aims to assess the sustainability of Australian cities and regions. Research questions include: To what extent do current sustainability assessment methods assess the absolute sustainability of cities? How can the ‘safe and just space’ concept be operationalised for cities from a consumption perspective? What do ‘safe and just space’ assessment results mean for sustainability goals at a city level? The thesis finds that current city sustainability assessment largely consists of indicator frameworks, measuring local outcomes only, and footprint assessments, that overlook social outcomes. Both approaches generally overlook environmental impacts on biodiversity, biogeochemical flows, and chemical pollution, and food adequacy. The safe and just space concept was operationalized using a globally nested subnational multiregional input-output table to assess the footprints of at risk planetary boundaries and employment, materials and energy use, combined with local social indicators benchmarked against “Doughnut economics” criteria. The assessment enabled analysis of planetary boundary drivers across 15 Australian and all seven World Bank regions, examining the relative impact of production-based and consumption-based measures, impacts of expenditure and impact intensity, and relationship with wealth, across 51 economic sectors. A novel analysis of similarities between indicators and sectors showed that two broad sectors “Food and Textiles” and “Built Environment” are responsible for most global impacts, with distinct indicator clusters for each. The calculation of Australian urban and regional footprints across all planetary boundaries for the first time identifies that Australia has a significant impact across all boundaries, with especially outsized contribution to biodiversity loss. Results challenge expectations of higher urban than regional footprints and find that Australia has a very high level of impacts embodied in exports. Social sustainability criteria are largely exceeded except for inequality and within regional communities with high indigenous populations. Ultimately this thesis finds that Australia is not living within the safe and just space and explores the economic drivers underlying this result.","abstract_html":"Australia is a highly urbanised country, with over 85% of people living in city environments. Therefore, the lifestyles of city dwellers and infrastructure of cities are critical to addressing sustainability issues. Australian cities are regularly named amongst the most liveable cities in the world, but with high consumption levels and long supply chains impacting hinterlands. This thesis aims to assess the sustainability of Australian cities and regions. Research questions include: To what extent do current sustainability assessment methods assess the absolute sustainability of cities? How can the ‘safe and just space’ concept be operationalised for cities from a consumption perspective? What do ‘safe and just space’ assessment results mean for sustainability goals at a city level? The thesis finds that current city sustainability assessment largely consists of indicator frameworks, measuring local outcomes only, and footprint assessments, that overlook social outcomes. Both approaches generally overlook environmental impacts on biodiversity, biogeochemical flows, and chemical pollution, and food adequacy. The safe and just space concept was operationalized using a globally nested subnational multiregional input-output table to assess the footprints of at risk planetary boundaries and employment, materials and energy use, combined with local social indicators benchmarked against “Doughnut economics” criteria. The assessment enabled analysis of planetary boundary drivers across 15 Australian and all seven World Bank regions, examining the relative impact of production-based and consumption-based measures, impacts of expenditure and impact intensity, and relationship with wealth, across 51 economic sectors. A novel analysis of similarities between indicators and sectors showed that two broad sectors “Food and Textiles” and “Built Environment” are responsible for most global impacts, with distinct indicator clusters for each. The calculation of Australian urban and regional footprints across all planetary boundaries for the first time identifies that Australia has a significant impact across all boundaries, with especially outsized contribution to biodiversity loss. Results challenge expectations of higher urban than regional footprints and find that Australia has a very high level of impacts embodied in exports. Social sustainability criteria are largely exceeded except for inequality and within regional communities with high indigenous populations. Ultimately this thesis finds that Australia is not living within the safe and just space and explores the economic drivers underlying this result.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Goodwin, Kylie ; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5169-8937"],"institution":"UNSW, Sydney","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025","date_published":"2025","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:31:47Z","subjects":["Environmentally-extended input-output analysis","City Sustainability Assessment","Australian Cities","Doughnut Economics","Absolute Sustainability","Environmental Footprints","Social Sustainability","Planetary Boundaries","Sustainable Production and Consumption","anzsrc-for: 401105 Life cycle assessment and industrial ecology"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["open access","CC BY 4.0","free_to_read"],"rights_urls":["https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2","https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31306"],"render_values":[{"text":"https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31306","href":"https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31306","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/105355","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Goodwin, Kylie ; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5169-8937"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2025"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["UNSW, Sydney"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["doctoral thesis","http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Environmentally-extended input-output analysis","City Sustainability Assessment","Australian Cities","Doughnut Economics","Absolute Sustainability","Environmental Footprints","Social Sustainability","Planetary Boundaries","Sustainable Production and Consumption","anzsrc-for: 401105 Life cycle assessment and industrial ecology"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["open access","https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2","CC BY 4.0","https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","free_to_read"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/105355","https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/bitstreams/5cab5049-07c9-406c-a529-c838d526dc76/download","https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31306"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Australia is a highly urbanised country, with over 85% of people living in city environments. Therefore, the lifestyles of city dwellers and infrastructure of cities are critical to addressing sustainability issues. Australian cities are regularly named amongst the most liveable cities in the world, but with high consumption levels and long supply chains impacting hinterlands. This thesis aims to assess the sustainability of Australian cities and regions. Research questions include: To what extent do current sustainability assessment methods assess the absolute sustainability of cities? How can the ‘safe and just space’ concept be operationalised for cities from a consumption perspective? What do ‘safe and just space’ assessment results mean for sustainability goals at a city level? The thesis finds that current city sustainability assessment largely consists of indicator frameworks, measuring local outcomes only, and footprint assessments, that overlook social outcomes. Both approaches generally overlook environmental impacts on biodiversity, biogeochemical flows, and chemical pollution, and food adequacy. The safe and just space concept was operationalized using a globally nested subnational multiregional input-output table to assess the footprints of at risk planetary boundaries and employment, materials and energy use, combined with local social indicators benchmarked against “Doughnut economics” criteria. The assessment enabled analysis of planetary boundary drivers across 15 Australian and all seven World Bank regions, examining the relative impact of production-based and consumption-based measures, impacts of expenditure and impact intensity, and relationship with wealth, across 51 economic sectors. A novel analysis of similarities between indicators and sectors showed that two broad sectors “Food and Textiles” and “Built Environment” are responsible for most global impacts, with distinct indicator clusters for each. The calculation of Australian urban and regional footprints across all planetary boundaries for the first time identifies that Australia has a significant impact across all boundaries, with especially outsized contribution to biodiversity loss. Results challenge expectations of higher urban than regional footprints and find that Australia has a very high level of impacts embodied in exports. Social sustainability criteria are largely exceeded except for inequality and within regional communities with high indigenous populations. Ultimately this thesis finds that Australia is not living within the safe and just space and explores the economic drivers underlying this result."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Absolute Sustainability of Australian Cities"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Goodwin, Kylie ; https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5169-8937"],"dc:date":["2025"],"dc:description":["Australia is a highly urbanised country, with over 85% of people living in city environments. Therefore, the lifestyles of city dwellers and infrastructure of cities are critical to addressing sustainability issues. Australian cities are regularly named amongst the most liveable cities in the world, but with high consumption levels and long supply chains impacting hinterlands. This thesis aims to assess the sustainability of Australian cities and regions. Research questions include: To what extent do current sustainability assessment methods assess the absolute sustainability of cities? How can the ‘safe and just space’ concept be operationalised for cities from a consumption perspective? What do ‘safe and just space’ assessment results mean for sustainability goals at a city level? The thesis finds that current city sustainability assessment largely consists of indicator frameworks, measuring local outcomes only, and footprint assessments, that overlook social outcomes. Both approaches generally overlook environmental impacts on biodiversity, biogeochemical flows, and chemical pollution, and food adequacy. The safe and just space concept was operationalized using a globally nested subnational multiregional input-output table to assess the footprints of at risk planetary boundaries and employment, materials and energy use, combined with local social indicators benchmarked against “Doughnut economics” criteria. The assessment enabled analysis of planetary boundary drivers across 15 Australian and all seven World Bank regions, examining the relative impact of production-based and consumption-based measures, impacts of expenditure and impact intensity, and relationship with wealth, across 51 economic sectors. A novel analysis of similarities between indicators and sectors showed that two broad sectors “Food and Textiles” and “Built Environment” are responsible for most global impacts, with distinct indicator clusters for each. The calculation of Australian urban and regional footprints across all planetary boundaries for the first time identifies that Australia has a significant impact across all boundaries, with especially outsized contribution to biodiversity loss. Results challenge expectations of higher urban than regional footprints and find that Australia has a very high level of impacts embodied in exports. Social sustainability criteria are largely exceeded except for inequality and within regional communities with high indigenous populations. Ultimately this thesis finds that Australia is not living within the safe and just space and explores the economic drivers underlying this result."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/105355","https://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/bitstreams/5cab5049-07c9-406c-a529-c838d526dc76/download","https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/31306"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:publisher":["UNSW, Sydney"],"dc:rights":["open access","https://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2","CC BY 4.0","https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","free_to_read"],"dc:subject":["Environmentally-extended input-output analysis","City Sustainability Assessment","Australian Cities","Doughnut Economics","Absolute Sustainability","Environmental Footprints","Social Sustainability","Planetary Boundaries","Sustainable Production and Consumption","anzsrc-for: 401105 Life cycle assessment and industrial ecology"],"dc:title":["Absolute Sustainability of Australian Cities"],"dc:type":["doctoral thesis","http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:31:47Z"}