ABSTRACT
Government has a huge role to play in sustainability. Administrations use a large amount of resources and employ a lot of people, but more importantly they are also responsible for protecting the ‘commons’: air-sheds, watersheds, fisheries and huge tracts of publicly owned land. Through infrastructure and incentives, they set the stage upon which the rest of civilization acts. Their decisions determine to a large extent the liveability of our communities and the environmental impacts of our lifestyles. For example, China has been heralded as having dramatic economic growth, but the World Bank recently estimated that they are losing 8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in environmental costs. Governments must see their communities as a whole system and make decisions that simultaneously improve the health of the community, the economy and the environment.
