An Honours year in Innovation powers smarter sustainability solutions

Published: 2 October 2026

As businesses face growing pressure to reduce waste and operate more sustainably, Southern Cross University Honours student Emily Yee is exploring how artificial intelligence could provide a practical solution. Her research uses AI to predict waste streams from existing business data, creating a low-cost approach that could help businesses save money, divert materials from landfill and support the transition to a circular economy without expensive audits or new infrastructure.

A graduate of Southern Cross University’s Bachelor of Innovation with Honours, Emily worked with an industry partner to investigate how businesses can move towards a more circular economy. By combining tax invoice data with an AI-assisted tool, her project explored whether waste streams could be predicted before materials ever reached landfill.

“The goal was to find a way to keep materials in use for longer rather than following a linear pathway straight to landfill,” Emily said.

“Using information businesses already have, such as invoices, we were able to investigate whether AI could predict how much waste was leaving a business without requiring intrusive audits or costly new systems.”

The approach could offer a practical and affordable way for small businesses and communities to better understand their waste streams and identify opportunities to reduce environmental impact.

What excites Emily most is the potential to expand the idea beyond a single business.

“If it can work for one café, it might work for a collection of businesses, a university campus or even a whole town,” she said.

“If we can replicate these systems at that level, there’s potential to support regional communities that may not have access to the same technology and resources as major cities.”

Bringing science, creativity and innovation together

Emily’s path to innovation began with a desire to combine seemingly different passions.

After completing a Bachelor of Science, she enrolled in the Bachelor of Innovation with Honours to explore how data, creativity and problem-solving could work together.

“I’ve always loved science, but I also love art, writing and storytelling,” she said.

“I wanted to find a way to bring those interests together and discover how innovation could help solve real-world problems.”

Learn more about the Bachelor of Innovation with Honours

Hi, my name is Lara Morrison and I'm studying a Bachelor of Innovation with Honours. Studying a Bachelor of Innovation with Honours was a really good pathway for me to future industry jobs or into higher research. It looks at things like innovation ecosystems,

how to become a researcher and how to write a thesis, which are key parts of being an Honours student. My chosen field for my research within the Bachelor of Innovation with Honours is queer diversity in film. That comes from the fact that I myself am

a queer woman and I have worked in the film and television industry and as a teenager I found it really difficult to find a representation of my queer identity in characters on screen. The Bachelor of Innovation with Honours presented me with a really good steppingstone and a foundation of learning academic skills so that I can build the confidence to step into higher research and I can really tackle my passion project which is making sure that there is good diverse representation in film. While doing the Bachelor of Innovation with Honours I have had the fortune of working with a huge range of different students from things such as medicine, speech pathology, music. It's not just the students that have been really interesting in our course but the lecturers as well come to the classes with a great wealth of industry knowledge and they come from so many different fields such as nursing or app development or working with banks and marketing and business. The diverse background of our lecturers but also the peers develops a really interesting conversation around our assignments and our topics and our industry because it gives us a a contrasting perspective to look at the own problems that we're looking at in our specific fields. We've been able to have really fascinating conversations across

disciplines where I'm studying queer diversity in film, other people have studied nursing, and you're able to have really genuine conversations and pick apart each other's ideas and assignments and kind of fields and world views to be able to see where you can make change in that industry and how you can think about things differently. And that is the whole idea of innovation is to bring different minds together to be able to create growth and change for your particular industry. Throughout this course, I have really been able to hone in on my passion for my particular research topic, queer diversity in film, and I can see my future as an academic researcher now that I have the skills and the and the confidence to be able to really tackle my topic. My goal is to be able to

impact the creators who are developing queer film, the policy surrounding it, and the representation that we're shown on screen to make progressive change so that other queer youth who were just like me as a teenager will be able to see their identity represented on screen. And that's really important to me to be able to be the change that I wanted to see in the media that I was looking for as a teenager.

That multidisciplinary approach became one of the biggest lessons of the degree.

“For a long time, I thought science and art were separate worlds,” she said.

“This course helped me realise they aren’t. The problems we face today are complex and require people from different backgrounds to work together and see things from different perspectives.”

Working alongside classmates from disciplines including accounting, health and media studies reinforced the value of diverse thinking.

“When people are passionate about their field, you naturally become interested too. It was inspiring to learn from so many different perspectives and see how everyone approached problem-solving in their own way.”

Building the skills to solve complex problems

Beyond her research project, Emily credits the degree with helping her develop a broad range of professional skills.

She learned design thinking techniques to better understand user needs, project management skills to keep a complex research project on track, and presentation skills through regularly sharing ideas with academics and fellow students.

“Design thinking taught me to stop making assumptions and really consider how different people experience technology and services,” she said.

“It’s about creating solutions that are intuitive and accessible for everyone.”

Taking the next step into research

Emily is now refining her Honours project for journal submission, with the goal of becoming a published researcher.

The prospect of publication represents more than a career milestone. For Emily, it is the next step towards a future in academia.

“Being published would be an exciting step towards further study through a Masters degree or a PhD,” Emily said.

Her long-term goal is to combine research and teaching as an academic.

“I’d love to be able to do both,” she said. “I’m passionate about research, but I’m equally passionate about sharing knowledge and helping other people develop their skills and confidence.

“If I can contribute new knowledge while also helping students discover what they’re passionate about, that would be incredibly rewarding.”

For Emily, innovation is ultimately about turning ideas into meaningful outcomes that improve lives.

“It’s not just about coming up with something new,” she said. “It’s about creating something that can genuinely help people, communities and the world around us.”

Learn more about studying the Bachelor of Innovation with Honours.