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© 2018, © 2018 Editorial Board, Urban Policy and Research. A range of regulatory instruments can be used to modify development-control frameworks for the purposes of adapting urban areas to climate change-induced coastal erosion and inundation. This article investigates the approach of three local governments across Australia. It finds that local governments are modifying development-control frameworks to ensure the appropriate development of vulnerable coastal lands. However, the article also demonstrates the limitations in relying on development control to achieve adaptation objectives such as preserving public beach amenity, and highlights the need for legislative reform or the emergence of incentive-based instruments to complement development control.

Waste policy is increasingly moving on from the 'prevention of waste' to a 'sustainable materials policy' focused agenda recognising individual wastes as a resource. In order to comparatively analyse policy developments in enhanced waste management, three case studies were selected; San Francisco's . Zero Waste Program, Flanders's . Sustainable Materials Management Initiative and Japan's . Sound Material-Cycle Society Plan. These case studies were chosen as an opportunity to investigate the variety of leading approaches, governance structures, and enhanced waste policy outcomes, emerging globally. This paper concludes that the current transitional state of waste management across the world, is only in the first leg of the journey towards Circular Economy closed loop production models of waste as a resource material. It is suggested that further development in government policy, planning and behaviour change is required. A focus on material policy and incorporating multiple front runners across industry and knowledge institutions are offered as potential directions in the movement away from end-pipe land-fill solutions.

© Janette Hartz-Karp and Dora Marinova 2017. All rights reserved. This chapter highlights the power of volunteerism as a method for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. It emphasizes the importance of a relational approach in helping to energize and sustain locally appropriate strategies. Using case studies from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Western Australia and the Philippines, it analyses methods to facilitate voluntary action that makes practical contributions. The case studies demonstrate that the nature and quality of relationships are key to successful voluntary action for sustainability. Volunteerism is shown to have increased the respective community’s capacity to tackle sustainability issues itself strengthening reciprocity, relationships, capacity and ownership. The four methodological principles highlighted for successful voluntary action embed mutual learning and accountability, reciprocal benefit, and foster synergies over trade-offs.

© 2016. The last decade has seen a new wave of ambitious policies in order to address the mounting ecological damage caused by high levels of consumerism and the depletion of resources to manufacture short life-cycle products. In this paper 'Zero Waste' and 'Sustainable Materials Management' are examined as prominent labels of an evolving waste policy discourse towards waste prevention and reduction and material cycles. Using discourse analysis key documents are comparatively assessed, presenting the origins of these two concepts and how they entered the waste policy domain. The different framing tactics and governance models are then presented. The findings demonstrate that the different discourse paradigms around the concept of 'waste' and 'materials', influences what policy initiatives, measurement tools and outcomes are pursued. Although Zero Waste and Sustainable Materials Management are gaining popularity as indicators of shifting waste policy towards Sustainable Production and Consumption Policy, particularly with increasing discussion and application of Circular Economy governance models in Europe and China, a distinction still exists between the conceptualisation and implementation within and across the two concepts. It is in this transition towards a Circular Economy that it is valuable to review the role of policy labels, keywords and framing context in waste policy and the ability of enhanced waste management to assist in the development of more sustainable and environmentally acceptable economic and social behaviour models.

In 2005 and 2006 a group of five Western Australian independent schools embarked on a journey to explore not only their own values but also how to respect the values of others. Students from Lance Holt School in Fremantle, Strelley Community Schools in the Pilbara, Kerry Street Hamilton Hill, Moerlina School in Mt Claremont and Nyindamurra Family School in the southwest joined forces to form the Children and Place Mapping Group to examine how children value and in turn are sustained by their local places.

In this paper we analyse the role of coastal stewardship as educational praxis for sustainability, using the ‘Adopt a Beach’ programme as an example. Marine and coastal stewardship has become a popular practice among coast-dwelling Australians, for many of whom the beach is a defining feature in their identity. The coast forms a legal and biophysical commons so it offers a portal into an ethical framework for caring for our shared environmental heritage and legacy. We suggest that stewardship is an ethical framework which models environmental citizenship in terms of responsibility for place and accountability to future generations for our current actions. The scope, scale and aims of ‘Adopt a Beach’ programmes in their various forms are examined and we present two detailed case studies which show their potential for developing capacity for environmental stewardship.

Global warming consequences and impacts of sea level rise characterise the recent evolution of the coastal environment. All of these resulted from ‘greenhouse gases’ caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels. It is important therefore to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and increase the use of renewable energy. Bangladesh is not a significant ‘greenhouse gas’ contributor, but is the victim of potential threats of sea level rise from global warming because of its natural physical setting in a coastal environment. It is projected that by 2050 the mean sea level may rise as much as 1.8 metres. This may result in the loss of up to 16% of the land that supports 13% of the country’s GDP. This impact will change the present coastal water current and movement, precipitation and run-off, and also the tidal range of coastal Bangladesh. Some recent studies suggest that the tidal range in some parts of coastal Bangladesh has a good potential for producing tidal energy (an important source of renewable energy) by utilising the existent costly infrastructure of coastal embankment and sluice gates. Once this tidal energy is adapted in coastal Bangladesh, the future global warming will increase its further potentiality. Coastal Bangladesh is extremely resourceful and very important for the economic, environmental and cultural activities of the local as well as national and international community. Until now, most of the potential resources of this area have not been used properly, mainly due to lack of electricity and integrated coastal management practices. Thus the discusses the global warming threats to coastal Bangladesh and how utilising the potentiality of tidal energy could mitigate these threats. The paper also presents a framework how tidal energy could be integrated with various potential coastal resources for the sustainable development of coastal Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has the highest density of population among all countries of the world and is the worst victim of environmental degradation. Poor people are dying of arsenic contamination in Bangladesh’s villages and poor urban dwellers are most exposed to the poisonous air. Protection of the environment is therefore necessary even from the view of social justice. In particular, as Bangladesh proceeds towards industrialization it needs to be careful about environmental impacts. There are several reasons why Bangladesh needs to be extra careful and gain more knowledge of the environment. The country now relies greatly on foreign capital, which is more likely to be guided by immediate profit concerns and lead to many environmentally risky and damaging decisions. Environmental education (EE) can help people become aware of the consequences of their actions, provide information to help solve environmental problems, and build the human capacity necessary to solve and prevent environmental problems. In this sense, Bangladesh can save itself from environmental disasters by having a strong, broad‐based, and united environment movement through educating its population environmentally and developing career paths in fields related to sustainable development. A balance between environmental stewardship and economic development can guarantee this sustainable future, which in turn needs sound environmental knowledge among both experts and the population at large. The paper discusses the present environmental situation in Bangladesh; EE needs, practices and future potentialities for sustainable development; and a job market of EE graduates in Bangladesh and around the world. Finally, the paper recommends a sustainable policy framework of EE and its future in Bangladesh to the national policy makers for sustainability of this country.

In the last decade, Australia's marine and coastal policy-makers have sought to involve both the broad community and specific stakeholders in the development of policy for the marine and coastal environments, and in the stewardship of these environments. Such community involvement can lead to capacity-building within agencies, stakeholder groups and the community at large. In this paper we review the recent history of marine and coastal policies in Australia and, using specific examples, show that five elements of capacity-building, namely integrative place-making, collaborative policy-making, inclusive stakeholder involvement, and building relational resources, have emerged to some extent in Australian coastal and marine policies of the 1990s. We suggest that opportunities exist for developing these elements further, and that the process of collaborative learning is one way to help achieve this.

Sustainability projects initiated by community groups can be significant in their contribution to the overall process of Local Agenda 21 planning and in their substantive contribution to sustainable communities. Community gardens differ from public gardens in that they are managed by community members rather than by local governments, although they may be located on council land. Community gardens vary in type from collections of individual plots to large-scale collaborative projects for the benefit of the wider community. Their roles include the production of fresh organic food; the creation of community places; and the use and dissemination of community science and innovative technologies. This paper reviews the types and roles of community gardens, and provides a case study of a community garden in Western Australia. It analyses the lessons learned from this particular case and the potential contribution of community gardens to Local Agenda 21 planning and to physical, ecological, sociocultural and economic Sustainability.

Many residents in the South Fremantle area have spoken of the need to enhance their under-utilised vacant land and treeless street verges by having intensive native planting, community gardens and groves of fruit and nut trees. Consequently some 50 residents came together to form Fremantle Inner City Agriculture (FINCA) for the development of a vacant block in South Fremantle into' an organic community vegetable garden with appropriate technologies for water management and pest control. It involves close collaboration among community members, Murdoch University and Fremantle City Council (FCC). Through participation in training workshops FINCA members have been developing skills and have completed the first demonstration plot- the Beaconsfield Out of School Care Centre. The themes implemented here are soft fruits for the children (including quandong), native species for nitrogen fixing, windbreaks and bird attraction, rainwater harvesting, earthworks for erosion control and heavy mulching for water conservation and soil building. A challenge for this project has been the collaboration of 'permaculture' advocates, unpopular for their use of 'environmental weeds', and 'purist' landscape ecologists who find useful exotic species hard to accept even in urban areas. The Beaconsfield Centre show how the two approaches can be combined in a sustainable manner in certain urban settings. The 'greening' of increasingly popular older suburbs will not only bring a rural feel to inner city areas but will facilitate sustainable use of land, productive use of stormwater and greywater, an improvement environment for birdlife, meaningful social interaction and an alternative means of complementing their food needs.