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At UCT, a number of researchers across the university are engaged in various inter-
and multidisciplinary research projects, with the aim of contributing substantially to
a greener economy, and thereby improving the well-being of all South Africans. A
number of these projects extend into Africa, broadening the reach and increasing the
impact. The research being undertaken in the Faculties of Science and Engineering
& the Built Environment has been particularly ground-breaking, and promises to
make fundamental contributions to this area, and to inspire and train the next
generation of scholars.
The Green Economy
C
lean technology and cleaner production have
been research themes in UCT’s Department of
Chemical Engineering since the time of the 1992
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Initially viewed as
newcomers to academic research, such themes have
steadily gained in importance as the magnitude of
local and global environmental degradation became
clearer. The 2011 ‘Green Economy’ report of the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
signalled a new globally concerted effort to address
the Millennium Development Goal 7 (ensuring
environmental sustainability). This concept of a
green economy was readily taken up in South Africa,
to realise its economic development potential.
Green economy desks or programmes have since
been established in national, provincial and many
local governments.
But is more research needed? Is it not enough to simply
deploy tried and tested wind turbines and photovoltaics so
as to start greening South Africa’s electricity supply?
The large-scale use of renewable energy for electricity
generation undoubtedly is a necessary condition for
sustainable development. In this regard, the recent global
green economy push is making significant gains on
earlier programmes. But, according to UCT researchers,
a programme only focused on green energy is unlikely
to be sufficient, as it does not link strongly enough
to development concerns, or address environmental
problems related to the material rather than the energetic
dimension of our consumption-based economy.
Globally, this material dimension of sustainable
development has been receiving concerted new
attention through the work of the International Resource
Panel established by UNEP in 2011. UCT scholars have
made contributions to its work on urban material flows
and on metals.
National research capacity in these fields remains thin. The
“resource efficiency” concern has been formally branded
into the work of the National Cleaner Production Centre
hosted by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
but scholarly work has remained isolated to no more than
a handful of studies, an important one in 2012 having
been a DST-commissioned study on the higher-education
dimension of modernised waste management.
Most importantly, outside the realm of natural resource
management, very little scholarly work in South Africa
appears to be tackling the difficult linkages between
environmental sustainability and social development:
conditions such as extreme inequality, poor basic education
and extreme violence are likely to hinder green-economy
efforts as much as they obstruct the struggle of our
generation for a better quality of life for all. It is in this
difficult crossover area that UCT researchers have located
some of their research projects.
A major critique emerging in the sustainability sciences
is that traditional academic work entrenches the division
of knowledge into discipline silos and thus hinders
complete solutions to development challenges in the
real world. Piecemeal solutions leave behind legacies
for future generations. As a response, inter- and
transdisciplinary approaches to knowledge generation
are increasingly being considered an essential
component of sustainability research.
UCT has started to recognise this imperative formally with
the formation of the African Climate and Development
Initiative. In the work of the Department of Chemical
Engineering, this process has been more organic, and
internal collaboration spans a diverse network of university-
accredited research groupings, Signature Themes, and
DST/NRF SARChI Research Chairs.
But is more research needed? Is it
not enough to simply deploy tried
and tested wind turbines and photo-
voltaics so as to start greening South
Africa’s electricity supply?