Business must be in on the action

Published in this week's Australian Financial Review (Wednesday, October 6)

The world’s climate isn’t about to change … it is has already changed.

Our collective actions in the coming years will determine just how ‘locked in’ those changes become, how we adapt to them and what may be around the corner.

These are not new Morrison Government positions, they are the challenges that focus us on new technologies, climate research, climate adaptation, on reducing the waste that is choking our oceans and landfill, and on protecting our water resources and precious biodiversity.

And with the race to net zero emissions gathering pace, they focus debate on when that position can really be reached and how to get ‘there’.

It is around this point, that the fingers usually start pointing – people demanding the government ‘do something’, governments demanding that other governments ‘do something else’, and business demanding certainty at a time when ‘disruption’ has become the ultimate corporate by-word.

Shakespeare’s - “all the world’s a stage” - is no longer a metaphor, it is a global reality in which we have all have roles.

The Morrison Government is investing $20 billion through the Technology Roadmap to 2030 with international clean hydrogen partnerships, local hydrogen hubs and emerging technologies such as green steel, carbon capture and soil carbon.

We are investing in climate and environmental science - $1.2 billion alone to improve Australia’s capability to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from extreme weather events, $149 million in the next phase of our National Environmental Science Program.

We are transforming our waste and recycling capacity in ways that create healthier soils and cleaner waterways, banning exports of unprocessed plastics, glass, paper and tyres, and we are investing in our native landscapes, oceans, native species, and heritage places.

The role of the Commonwealth is to represent the broad range of communities including those that can’t be ‘closed-down’ or ‘sold off’ along the way, it needs to bring everyone on the journey ahead.

Corporate Governance on today’s stage demands that emissions, environment, and sustainability are at the heart of every boardroom discussion.

The extent to which those discussions actually drive the technologies we adopt, the buildings we develop, the products we design, and the reusability that we factor into each and every component that is manufactured or sourced will be among the keys to true success for our economy and our environment. There can be no question about the lead role business will play in the years ahead.

Among the business champions in my portfolio are the companies that stepped up when we held the nation’s first plastics summit, those that took steps to remove single use plastic products from their inventory, those who brought forward practical ways of turning plastics into new products from railway sleepers to park benches, those who are now investing in new recycling plant and equipment, and others who are pioneering new ways to turn disused tyres into roads, building waste into road base, and food and organic wase into precious farming soil.

Meaningful action relies less on the promotion of cute and cuddly campaigns, and public declarations about the environment, and more on the things businesses actually do.

It is sobering along the way to also remember that emissions are not the reason many of our oceans and marine life are choking on plastic. They are not the only reason our biodiversity is under threat after centuries of introduced predators and expanding urbanisation.

Emissions do represent the universal tipping point we must all strive to avoid, but it is also important to look at how we arrived here, and how we can reduce the wider pressures on our environment going forward.

The ways we adapt to the changes that are already here and the resilience we can build into our environment are critical.

More than $500 million has been committed to programs and projects dedicated to advancing climate and adaptation science from the way we build our homes, to the way we cool our cities and the way we grow our crops.

These are just some of the adaptation actions that must go hand in hand with practical action on emissions.

We need to do so knowing that we will still need mining and resources, we will still need steel, industry, agriculture, and we will still need places to live and devices to hold.

In this era of innovation and disruption, the prize will inevitably go to those who can make business sustainability and environmental sustainability one and the same.

The extent to which the business sector can work with government to leverage science and innovation, and to practically scale up the great ideas that are emerging, will be the measure of our ability to create new jobs, new markets, and a better environment for us all.