Once viewed as the whim of environmentalists, biodiversity has become ingrained in the way the Australian National University approaches the sustainability of its campus

When I was five we moved to a house on the fringe of the city. Our new backyard was the Australian bush and our neighbours were kangaroos and kookaburras, frogs croaking in the little creek running through the gully and the occasional snake that snoozed on the concrete path leading to the clothes line. I’d never been a nature lover — too much time spent in the city for that — but in the short period we lived in this house, I understood the delicate balance that existed in the natural environment.

A state-of-the-art £300m energy recovery centre will be built in Darwen, Lancashire, after Blackburn and Darwen Council gave the green light to SUEZ to start building yesterday (August 15).