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Professor Anna Bowden

Program Leader - Mine Life Cyc

Sustainable Minerals Institute
a.littleboy@uq.edu.au

Overview

Anna Littleboy focusses on delivering sustainable development outcomes through the resources sector. Anna has led large portfolios of research at the University of Queensland, at CSIRO and the Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies (CRC TiME). She works towards a minerals sector that enables a global response to climate change, supports equitable human development and delivers resilient ecosystems and livelihoods through the mine lifecycle and beyond.

Through her career, Anna has delivered systems and processes to share value through business innovation, environmental technology and enhanced social performance in the minerals and energy sectors. Anna helped found a multi-million public-private investment (a CRC) into transforming mining economies facing mine closure. She is a Fellow of the Minerals Institute, a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a member of the Global Agenda Council on Responsible Minerals Development. She is a recipient of a CSIRO medal and a Strategic Award for Business Excellence and has authored several book chapters and articles in the field of global sustainability and mineral futures. Anna chairs the board of a profit for purpose business and has worked with various organisations from the resources sector, the Mining Equipment and Services Sector and all levels of Government.

Research Interests

  • Value, values and competing interests
    The resources and energy sector drives global business and is funded through major investment. It delivers economic value into the global economy and drives livelihoods and jobs. Yet it can also destroy things that are valuable as well as providing additional valuable benefits. These cannot all be measured in a single system - they can be incommensurable, intangible and variable depending on stakeholder perspectives.
  • Sustainable Development
    What does it mean to deliver sustainable development. What are we trying to sustain and for whom?
  • responsible resource development
    what does it mean to develop resources responsibly? who wins, who loses and what is owed to local communities and ecosystems affected by resource development?
  • Complex System Studies and risk
    Working mainly in the resources sector, I analyse the interactions of resource extraction, societal needs, business, society and policy as a complex system
  • climate change, energy transitions and population
    the existential crisis of our time.

Research Impacts

My research works towards social change in the way the resources sector acts, reacts and is positioned to support many dimensions of sustainable development. My work brings people with different backgrounds together in different ways to discuss the social ystem that is the mining sector from different viewpoints. The Theory of Change identifies impactful outcomes as 1) short term changes in knowlege, skills and motivations; 2) medium term changes in behaviours and practices; and 3) longer term changes in conditions and institutions. Examples of these outcomes that have occurred because of my work include:

Changes in knowledge, skills and motivation

The Cooperative Research Centre for Transformations in Mining Economies (CRC TiME) brings together a unique collaboration of partners and has shifted the closure conversation to one of transition. As a result of this, new knowledge is being developed, motiviations shared between companies. governments and communities and a broad range pf skills can be applied to forward research. I was one of the two key architects of the bid that secured commitments in excess of $100k for this public:private partnership and am the author of its research strategy.

Changes in behaviour and practices

Social license to operate, social performance and the concepts of ESG have matured signficantly over the past ten years to one of the top three issues facing the sector. My research and efforts over that period have bought together teams that would not necessarily work with each other, and concepts that are not ncessariy considered together. As a result, social scientists in CSIRO have contributed to technical innovation and there are a number of initiatives embedding the concepts of social performance within leadership and training modules for mining companies. Ways of operationalising social performance now exist as a result of my work, in particular the incubation of the successful spin out company Voconiq.

Changes in conditions and institutions

In 2012, shortly after the publicationof "Our Future World" which I co authored with Stefan Hajkowich, I was appointed as the inaugural director of CSIRO Futures to grow a unit providing strategic foresight based on CSIRO's substantial expertise across multiple discipplines and sectors. With a small team, motiiated by shared interest, I deveoped and deliver the first four projects and appointed deputy who would be my successor. CSIRO Futures is now a highly respected and influential unit within CSIRO, still led by my appointee.

Qualifications

  • Master of Philosophy, University of London

Publications

  • Conference Publication: Transformation for positive post mine futures

    Boggs, G., Measham, T., Littleboy, A. and Haslam McKenzie, F. (2022). Transformation for positive post mine futures. Mine Closure 2022: 15th International Conference on Mine Closure, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 4-6 October 2022. Crawley, WA, Australia: Australian Centre for Geomechanics. doi: 10.36487/ACG_repo/2215_0.04

  • Conference Publication: Keynote to the conference of the International Materials Research Society

    Littleboy, Anna and Plint, Neville (2021). Keynote to the conference of the International Materials Research Society. 9th International Conference on Materials Engineering for Resources , Akita, Japan, 21-23 October 2021.

  • Other Outputs: Mining transitions and climate change: a research synthesis to inform CRC TiME strategy

    Maher, R., Buchan, R., Littleboy, A., MacLean, K., Molyneaux, L., Stringer, M. and Valenta, R. (2021). Mining transitions and climate change: a research synthesis to inform CRC TiME strategy. Perth, WA, Australia: CRC TiME.

View all Publications

Grants

View all Grants

Supervision

  • Integrated socio-physical modelling approaches to exploring post-mining adaptive land-uses

    Doctor Philosophy

View all Supervision

Publications

Book Chapter

  • Global research consortium on tailings

    Franks, Daniel M., Littleboy, Anna and Williams, David (2020). Global research consortium on tailings. Towards Zero Harm: A Compendium of Papers Prepared for the Global Tailings Review. (pp. 231-237) edited by Bruno Oberle, David Brereton and Antonia Mihaylova. London, United Kingdom: Global Tailings Review.

  • Turning the Heat On: Public Engagement in Australia's Energy Future

    Ashworth, Peta, Littleboy, Anna, Graham, Paul and Niemeyer, Simon (2011). Turning the Heat On: Public Engagement in Australia's Energy Future. Renewable Energy and the Public: From Nimby to Participation. (pp. 131-147) edited by Patrick Devine-Wright. London, United Kingdom: Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.4324/9781849776707

Journal Article

Conference Publication

  • Transformation for positive post mine futures

    Boggs, G., Measham, T., Littleboy, A. and Haslam McKenzie, F. (2022). Transformation for positive post mine futures. Mine Closure 2022: 15th International Conference on Mine Closure, Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 4-6 October 2022. Crawley, WA, Australia: Australian Centre for Geomechanics. doi: 10.36487/ACG_repo/2215_0.04

  • Keynote to the conference of the International Materials Research Society

    Littleboy, Anna and Plint, Neville (2021). Keynote to the conference of the International Materials Research Society. 9th International Conference on Materials Engineering for Resources , Akita, Japan, 21-23 October 2021.

  • Thinking beyond closure: why bother?

    Littleboy, Anna, Cor, Glen, Boggs, Guy, Haslem Mckensie, Fiona and Maybee, Bryan (2021). Thinking beyond closure: why bother?. Life of mINE, Brisbane, QLD Australia, 21 April 2021. Australian Institute of Minerals and Metals.

  • The multi-risk vulnerability of global coal regions in the context of mine closure

    Svobodova, K., Owen, J. R., Lebre, E., Edraki, M. and Littleboy, A. (2019). The multi-risk vulnerability of global coal regions in the context of mine closure. 13th International Conference on Mine Closure, Perth, WA Australia, 3-5 September 2019. Perth, WA Australia: Australian Centre for Geomechanics. doi: 10.36487/ACG_rep/1915_45_Svobodova

  • Thinking beyond closure: toward a mine closure database

    Svobodova, Kamila, Littleboy, Anna, Owen, John, Edraki, Mansour and Higgins, Roger (2019). Thinking beyond closure: toward a mine closure database. The 9th International Conference on Sustainable Development in the Minerals Industry, Sydney, Australia, 27-29 May 2019.

  • Social license in design: constructive technology assessment within a minerals research & development institution

    Franks, D. M., Cohen, T., Barnes, R., Brereton, D., Littleboy, A. and Moffat, K. (2011). Social license in design: constructive technology assessment within a minerals research & development institution. Fifth International Conference Sustainable Development in the Minerals Industry (SDIMI 2011), Aachen, Germany, 14-17 June 2011. Essen, Germany: VGE-Verl.

Other Outputs

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Integrated socio-physical modelling approaches to exploring post-mining adaptive land-uses

    Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

    Other advisors:

This staff member is a UQ Expert for media in the following fields:

sustainable development, resources, energy transitions, regional adaptation, just transitions, mining, impact from mining

They are happy to lend their expertise to your articles or broadcasts and share their research discoveries and insights with the community via media channels.

For additional assistance with story ideas, general advice and information or help with seeking further experts, please email the UQ Media Team or telephone (07) 3365 1120.

Links

ORCID: 0000-0002-1757-0339

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