Director's welcome

Our mission is to create change towards sustainable futures. In 2019 we excelled in this goal, strengthening existing partnerships and developing new ones, completing and promoting research for clients and funders that directly informs and influences policy, investment and behaviour.

With increasing global recognition of the importance of the circular economy, our resource futures research area grew in 2019, addressing the nexus between a renewable energy future and the resource use implications, and how to mitigate them, as well as tackling wicked problems such as preventing the release of microplastics.

In 2019, we continued applying our expertise in futures research, including for one of our long-term partners, the City of Sydney, working with Kinesis on the City’s Sustainable 2050 megatrends and scenarios.

We have made major advances in our work on sustainable finance, supporting the finance sector directly with a strong partnership with Stewart Investors, on a range of current topics, including gender equality in the workplace and the sustainable performance of palm oil producers, and providing research that directly impacts the flow of investment. ISF and UTS also continued its strong partnership with Climate-KIC Australia, with the development of the Business Renewables Centre Australia, and research on unlocking sustainable finance potential. ISF and UTS staff have also been actively supporting the development of a roadmap by the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative.

In 2019, we continued to investigate and promote a promising solution for affordable housing in the form of collaborative housing, supported by NSW Government agencies and featuring stories from residents.

Our international development team continues to build strong partnerships in governments, NGOs and communities across our region, including work on the impacts of climate change on urban sanitation, in an enduring partnership with the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) as well as pioneering and strategic work on the fate of faecal pathogens from urban sanitation systems and the impact on the disease burden.

The book Achieving the Paris Climate Agreement Goals: Global and Regional 100% Renewable Energy Scenarios with Non-energy GHG Pathways for +1.5°C and +2°C, with many ISF contributors, was published by Springer in 2019. It presents detailed pathways to achieve the Paris Climate Agreement to remain under +1.5C global warming via 100 percent renewable energy by 2050, globally and across 10 geographical regions. It has been downloaded more than 180,000 times.

In 2019 ISF led the efforts at UTS to support the school strike for climate in September, with a range of activities and showcasing UTS research in climate change mitigation and adaptation, now incorporated in the website UTS4Climate. Professor Bob Carr, appointed as UTS Industry Professor of Business and Climate Change, across ISF and the School of Business, has featured in several influential events and panels conducted under the banner of #uts4climate.

Last year, we continued to implement the UTS2027 strategy elements of lifetime learning and connected research. Our higher degree by research program had another award with Katelyn Bywaters winning the UTS 3 Minute Thesis final and representing UTS at the 2019 Asia-Pacific leg of the competition. In addition, UTS-ISF PhD candidates Jess Macarthur Wellstein and Melanie Lewis were selected as University Innovation Fellows at Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute for Design.

In 2020, the social, environmental and economic impacts of devastating bushfires and a global pandemic has only reaffirmed our focus on conducting research with impact and purpose through enduring partnerships. And, even as these immediate challenges persist, our breadth and depth of expertise across many sectors remains as important and valuable as ever to ensure that many of the more enduring challenges affecting communities here and abroad can be met by our mission to create change towards sustainable futures.