By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

SO MANY COMPANIES have endorsed the Federal Government’s Net Zero policy and have ostensibly committed themselves to reducing carbon emissions from their businesses.

But so many of those companies are also lobbying against these policies. They’re either doing it themselves or through their associations.

The Climate Integrity Report released at the end of May has revealed that these companies that claim to be behind Net Zero – yet are lobbying against climate action – include Coles and Woolworths, Qantas, Rio Tinto, BHP and other big organisations. 

“It’s what we refer to as greenwashing,” Lucy Piper, a director of WorkforClimate told Talking Business. “On the one hand we’re saying we’re going to do something and on the other hand, lobbying behind the scene to try to prevent regulation from allowing those changes to happen.

“My understanding is the organisations, that were leading the research, wanted to look into the biggest household names and companies in Australia to get a clear picture of what they are saying versus what they are doing behind the scenes to take action on climate. 

“And we can see that, despite making commitments around emissions reduction – because those companies all have Net Zero targets – what they’re doing behind the scenes is using their influence to try to shape government policy in a way that’s going to prevent any meaningful action happening in the short term.”

Net Zero has a cost

Ms Piper said it was acknowledged that it would cost companies a great deal of money, in the short term, to prevent “catastrophic climate change and global warming from happening”.

“It’s going to cost us money in the short-term but we need to take action in order to prevent long-term bad things happening in our economy and society,” Ms Piper said.

“Unfortunately, the way businesses and the economy are set up are such that quarterly profit targets and quarterly reporting are what our businesses and corporate sector orient towards.”

Ms Piper said these businesses and directors faced the prospect of costly legal action if they continued to lobby against climate policies.

“Another thing highlighted in the Climate Integrity Report is … a future legal risk to organisations and company directors if they’re not aware of the lobbying activity that their company is either supporting – as part of a trade association – or is directly doing,” she said.

“That is creating that gap between ‘Here’s our climate commitments’ and ‘Here’s how we’re preventing action from taking place’.

“There is potential for them to be open to legal risk down the track.

“The legal risk to company directors,  if they are not across what their corporate lobbying and corporate affairs teams are doing – either directly or indirectly via trade associations who are lobbying on their behalf – will open them up to that integrity gap between what they’re saying and what they’re doing.”

Ms Piper said regulatory bodies such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) were now “cracking down” on greenwashing.

“Companies cannot say: ‘We’re going to do all these things’ and then act completely differently,” she said.

“It is not what consumers want, it is not what employees want. It is not what shareholders and investors want, because it means that funds can be allocated in the wrong places.” 

www.workforclimate.org

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-30-interview-with-lucy-piper-from-workforcl

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AUSTRALIA’S AQUAWATCH system – a mission to develop a ‘weather service’ for water quality – will be established in the UK, following bilateral support and co-funding from the two countries’ space agencies.

CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, launched AquaWatch Australia in 2023 with foundational partner SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) and a network of collaborators. The collaborators developed a national system for monitoring water quality, including early warning forecasts.

Since launching, AquaWatch has established multiple test sites with the ability to monitor bays, coastal wetlands, rivers, dams, lakes, aquaculture farming and coral reefs, including the Southern Great Barrier Reef. 

The creation of AquaWatch UK is the first time the initiative will be rolled out by another country on a national scale, expanding on a test site at Plymouth Sound.

AquaWatch was announced as a supported project under the UK Space Agency’s International Bilateral Fund, with co-funding from the Australian Space Agency, as part of the longstanding UK-Australia Space Bridge initiative. 

Under the UK-Australia Space Bridge, partners will receive funding to advance the AquaWatch system in Australia and establish AquaWatch in the UK, leveraging expertise and technology across both countries.

Sensors are space and water based

AquaWatch Australia mission lead, Alex Held, said AquaWatch integrated data from both a network of water-based sensors and satellite sensors.

“It’s a system we’re developing for Australia, but that can be adapted for other countries in need of national near-real time updates and forecasts,” Dr Held said.

“The importance of high-quality satellite data for AquaWatch means that global collaborations such as this help to enhance the system for everyone.”

Head of the Australian Space Agency, Enrico Palermo said this funding buildt on the collaboration fostered through the UK-Australia Space Bridge.

“By working with our international partners like the UK, we can continue to grow the Australian space sector while delivering outcomes that benefit communities in both of our nations,” Mr Palermo said.

“Projects like AquaWatch reiterate how space technology, like Earth observation, can help address the biggest global challenges we are facing, as well as the power of working together to solve a common problem.”

SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre CEO, Professor Andy Koronios, said SmartSat established strong ties with the UK space industry with the first UK Space Bridge initiative, funding five outstanding joint research initiatives in 2021.

“The AquaWatch UK project further underscores SmartSat’s commitment to delivering next-generation technologies and innovative projects that will accelerate the space sector in both Australia and the UK,” Prof Koronios said.

Space Bridge partner takes the UK lead

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has been named as the leading partner for delivering AquaWatch in the UK.

Head of SSTL Australia, Clive Oates said the collaborative AquaWatch AUK project would build on SSTL’s strong commitment to the UK-Australia Space Bridge to “help unleash the potential of disruptive space technologies”  and develop a “world class integrated water quality monitoring and forecasting system” for implementation across Australia, UK and beyond.  

“Working with CSIRO and SmartSat CRC on a comprehensive spacecraft platform study will also help accelerate Australia’s capability in the design, manufacture and test of Earth observation capabilities across both academia and industry,” Mr Oates said.

The collaboration will expand on test sites already established across Australia and with Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) in the UK, where AquaWatch is being tested to monitor water quality from the Tamar Bridge in Plymouth, Southwest England.

Earth observation scientist at PML, Elizbeth C Atwood said the test site in Plymouth was monitoring run-off from the Tamar and Plym rivers to the estuary and coast, which can transport sewage, agricultural run-off, heavy metals from mine waste and range of other human-caused pollutants.

“Given these challenges, Plymouth Sound, which hosts the UK's first National Marine Park and a Marine Social and Natural Capital Laboratory initiative, is an ideal testbed for CSIRO’s AquaWatch system through the EO4Agriclimate Vis4Sea project,” Dr Atwood said.

Merit scientist at PML and principal investigator of Vis4Sea, Gavin Tilstone said as the planet “heats up from global warming, we see increased flooding events”.

“Using the AquaWatch infrastructure for Plymouth Sound, Vis4Sea is building a system to monitor the impacts of flooding on water quality, mud flats and sea grass beds, which play an important role in capturing CO2 from the atmosphere,” Dr Tilstone said.

Living Coasts program dovetails AquaWatch

Another EO4Agriclimate project, Living Coasts, is advancing the use of satellite observations to map land and water environments and their dynamics.

Living Coasts researcher, Richard Lucas of Aberystwyth University said this allowed AquaWatch users to gain a more complete picture and understanding of changes driving water quality.

“Working with Australian and UK partners, we are implementing our approach through data cubes of satellite data for both countries, but also in other regions including Southeast Asia, with this contributing to efforts focused on improving environments for people and nature,” Professor Lucas said.

The AquaWatch AUK project highlights the important role space technology has to play for sustainable development and environmental stewardship in both countries.

In addition to CSIRO, SmartSat CRC and SSTL, AquaWatch AUK is supported by Assimila, RAL Space, Pixalytics and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS).

www.csiro.au

Click here for more information about AquaWatch Australia.

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By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

THE SHIFT to lower emissions under the Federal Labor Government’s legislation will be the biggest step change for businesses.

According to Ndever Environmental founder Matt Drum it will create a number of issues. It will create complexity, capital requirements, operations and market impact.

It will also create costs.

But Mr Drum said, potentially, that could also deliver savings because of reduced energy. 

He said the legislation created by the Federal Government covers 217 of the largest emitters in the country. These are big mining, big industrial processing and big manufacturing companies.

“It turns this cohort of 217 into carbon accountants,” Mr Drum told Talking Business. “What we’ve been doing for the last 15 years is we’ve been quite good at accounting our carbon but we’ve never had to reduce it except for that brief period where there was a carbon price in 2012.” 

‘Massive step change’ for emissions

Mr Drum said, as a result, businesses now needed to understand that this was a massive step change with the majority of businesses required to reduce their emissions by 4.9 percent per annum.

As a result, he said, “transformational” projects will be required. If a business did not have the opportunity in the 2024 financial year to transform itself with, say, a fuel switch or a big energy efficiency project, they will be required to purchase carbon offsets or Australian carbon credit units.

This could potentially cost them millions in year one.

“So it’s not chicken feed,” Mr Drum said. “It’s an ongoing cost.

“Businesses will have a whole range of opportunities to reduce their emissions and each one of those opportunities will vary in scale in as much as how much they’ll be able to reduce their emissions and they’ll vary in cost to implement, operate and to acquire,” he said.

What businesses needed to do was to work out which opportunities were the cheapest and the most impactful to the most expensive.

“Theoretically, you work from the bottom of that curve up to the top of that curve, implementing the cheapest, most impactful activities first,” Mr Drum said.

“That’s what businesses need to understand because these projects will need finance. They’re going to need approvals, both financial approvals and potentially development approvals. They’re going to need hardware and equipment installed, purchased and commissioned.

“It’s a long-term play and this policy is a long-term policy.”

Costs balanced by savings?

Mr Drum said there would be costs – but potentially there would also be savings.

“We all know energy costs are going through the roof. If you’re implementing a project that saves a significant amount of energy, it might have a payback period of two or three or four years, that could be a cost negative opportunity,” he said.

“Factoring the cost of carbon, which we now have, some of them will have positive returns sooner than later.”

Mr Drum said once upon a time companies set a net zero target by 2050. Investors and stakeholders now felt it should be closer to 2035-2040

He said looking further out, some companies were relying on certain technologies like green hydrogen when the jury was still out on these innovations.

“Organisations need to start understanding the impact and the costs base and also, their ability to pass through those costs into their supply chain and to their clients,” Mr Drum said.

www.ndevr.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-9-interview-with-matt-drum-from-ndevr

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MORE THAN 800 ecosystem restoration experts from across the globe are gathering in Darwin for the 10th Society on Ecological Restoration (SER) conference from tomorrow through to Saturday (Septemer 26-30).

The SER Conference is the largest conference of its kind ever held in the Southern Hemisphere.

A large Australian contingent will attend the SER Conference, led by members of the Restoration Decade Alliance (RDA). The RDA incorporates 21 peak environment organisations active in restoring ecosystems. It is committed to the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030.

Over the past 200 years, Australia has lost 34 mammals to extinction – more than the rest of the world combined, according to the conference convenors – and since the Australian national environmental law was introduced in 1999, the list of threatened species and ecological communities has grown by more than a third.

“This type of loss occurs all around the world and has led to an international biodiversity crisis,” a conference spokesperson said. “Stopping biodiversity and habitat loss is necessary and relatively straightforward, but is insufficient alone.

“Restoring lost habitats is also essential to address these species losses and to make agriculture and fisheries more resilient to climate change, but this is far less straightforward.”

The Federal Government signed on to the international Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework earlier this year. In doing so, it committed Australia to restore 30 percent of its degraded ecosystems – on land and sea – by 2030.  

The RDA has held a series of workshops to outline an agreed path to a national restoration plan and restoration targets to help deliver on this commitment. A final workshop is to be held at the SER Conference, and with the advice of international delegates, named A Roadmap to Ecosystem Restoration Success will be released at the conference on Friday.

The Restoration Decade Alliance is a network of non-profit environmental restoration groups in Australia who have joined forces to support the goals of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Members so far include: the Australian Association of Bush Regenerators, the ABC Foundation, Australian Coastal Restoration Network, Australian Network for Plant Conservation Inc, Australian Seedbank Partnership, Bush Heritage Australia, Gondwana Link, Greening Australia, the Great Eastern Ranges, Invasive Species Council, Landcare Australia, National Landcare Network, EverGreening Global Alliance, SER Australasia, the Nature Conservancy Australia, WWF, OzFish, Landscape Foundation of Australia, Wetland Revival Trust, North East Bioregional Network and Threshold Environmental.

Apart from a range of field trips, the two major conference venues are the DoubleTree by Hilton Esplanade hotel and the Darwin Entertainment Centre.

https://ser2023.org/

https://restorationdecadealliance.org/

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