‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

Box 39 Closing Loops between Sectors
Environmental management focused initially on reducing flows (air and water pollution) by 
pollution regulations and standards. It did not close loops or address causes:
The next stage was closing loops within sectors through recycling and eco-efficiency mea
-
sures. This is generally labelled ‘best practice’. It did not make connections between different 
sectors:
Efforts are now moving towards symbiotic relationships in resource flows between sectors:
Farms
Nature
Factories
Cities/buildings
Land
Water
Food
Products
Materials
Landfill
Pollution
Waste
Industrial 
ecology
Organic 
farming
Household 
recycling
Methane,
Recycling 
Farms
Nature
Factories
Cities/buildings
Land
Water
Food
Products
Materials
Landfill
Pollution
Waste
Industrial 
ecology
Organic 
farming
Methane,
Recycling 
Farms
Nature
Factories
Cities/buildings
Land
Water
Food
Products
Materials
Landfill
Pollution
Waste
Nutrients
‘Techno-
nutrients’
Resource 
reduction
Restoration 
ecology
‘Organo-
nutrients’
Household 
recycling

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325
Boxes
Box 40 Linking Policies to Outcomes
Ian Swain
The world’s cities take up less than 2 per cent of the Earth’s surface, yet now account for 
roughly 78 per cent of the carbon emissions from human activities. This suggests that signifi
-
cant environmental gains are possible by improving the way in which cities use the resources 
available to them. So just how effective has government strategy been in improving the 
‘metabolism’ of fundamental urban resource flows such as energy and water? Analysing the 
effectiveness of common policy approaches on specific resource flows can provide insight 
into this issue.
The effectiveness of government sustainability initiatives is made clearer by examining trends 
in resource metabolism in chronological relation to the implementation of key policy initia-
tives. Through the processing and conversion of existing data from a range of government 
and industry sources, it is possible to derive standardized time-series trends for the consump
-
tion of various forms of energy. A ‘smoothed’ line graph display of these trends can then be 
superimposed with vertical axes representing the temporal distribution of specific policies.
In this way, a clear graphical display of the relative effect of a range of sustainability policies 
can be produced. Sustainability policy applying to the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) 
over the last ten years typifies common contemporary approaches to resource management,