The inaugural EEC Industrial Decarbonisation Summit. A wrap.

On Tuesday night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down a new federal Budget. In it, significant funding for renewable manufacturing and commercialisation affirmed the Government's ambition to make good on Australia's promise as a renewable energy superpower.

While the budget did not include similarly significant mention of energy use and the demand side of the transition,?for those who'd spent the day at?the first Industrial Decarbonisation Summit, this was merely a footnote.

Leading policy makers such as Clare McLaughlin , Gill Goldsmith and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Industry's Science and Technology Group Helen Wilson, industry leaders like 博思格 Head of Technology Chris Page , AGL 's Jane Butler , 施耐德电气 's Lisa Zembrodt and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners ' Scott Edwards , and CEOs Anthea Middleton , Jonathan Jutsen , Andrew Richards and Jarrod Leak were all aligned on one thing: energy management is an unmissably urgent part of Australia's net zero story, and change is coming. Fast.

"There's been a lot of focus on the 200 large emitters that sit within the safeguard," began EEC CEO Luke Menzel. "But much less focus on all those Australian businesses that sit outside it, and there needs to be a story for them in this transition."

As Climateworks Centre CEO Anna Skarbek remarked in her opening keynote, "We've committed to net zero, but we haven't finished the job of planning for that goal. Every time the science is updated, dates come forward. Ecosystem tipping points chop decades off our decarbonisation paths."

At the other end of the day, Lisa Zembrodt put it in agriculture terms. "There's only six harvests until 2030."

This urgency was underscored by RACE for 2030 CEO Jon Jutsen reminding us that for the huge majority of businesses, carbon mitigation is simply not core business, and support and innovation is crucial.

"There's probably 10,000 boilers in use in Australia that we need to get off fossil fuels. We've barely started this task," Jon said. "We need a war effort, because the pace we're doing them won't get us there. Not even close."

"We've been talking about 'hard to abate sectors', but I'm not calling them that, because the more we know, the less it's true," said Anna in the first panel of the day, pointing out that we already have most of the tools we need. As she put it, “hard to abate is out of date. Now, we're 'late to abate'."

Anna recalled the Australian Industry Energy Transitions Initiative , which over four years, charted a pathway to decarbonisation for heavy industrial sectors including steel and iron, aluminium, chemicals manufacturing and LNG production, finding that:

"Emissions can be decreased while ramping up productivity in all heavy industry sectors except the one where fossil fuel is the core product."

"Industrial decarbonisation is possible and aligned with prosperity, but will only be aligned if government, finance and industry all align," Anna said.

Tennant Reed took the room through a whirlwind tour of existing and recent policies and their impacts, noting particularly that for all the incentives to create new products, "industry can't create demand itself."

"If we don't know how fast demand will grow for green steel, you're taking a flyer if you're investing in infrastructure," he said.

This was a recurring theme, with Luke Menzel mentioning the importance of concentrating grants on 'first movers.'

"Government can't fund everything. But if they fund the businesses prepared to stick their chin out and go first, it makes it easier for the ones who come 20th."

Later, AGL 's Jane Butler reminded the room that support doesn't have to be financial. In a session on the business measures which really drive action, Jane spoke to the fact that SMEs often do not have in-house expertise, and must seek help from outside. This can be as straightforward –?and as useful –?as case studies, tangible examples from comparable businesses, and site visits such as Australian Alliance for Energy Productivity (A2EP) 's heat pump tours.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water 's Head of Energy Performance and Security Clare McLaughlin discussed efforts to remove barriers between industry and government collaboration. This includes an Energy Performance Advisory Group launching next week, which will give government "direct, ongoing advice without you having to write submissions."

It's a tribute to the day's stacked program that we're this far into a summary and we still haven't mentioned Amory Lovins.

The Summit's august international guest did not disappoint, raining ideas and leftfield inspiration down on an audience who were most definitely leaning in.

Amory began with a word of caution that for all the talk of sector plans, these plans were at risk of simply being outrun by events, as the pace of change is now so fast.

From dampening down concerns about the energy load of data centres to mistaken assumptions that efficient technologies cost more; the enormous savings that can be made through integrated design and simply asking different questions; Amory was a well of inspiration thanks to his "beginner's mind", his eye for perverse incentives and his hard data, careful research and countless real-world examples.

Amory's contributions to the day deserve their own wrap, and we're grateful that RACE for 2030 captured it all, so keep an eye out for video to come from the summit.

In the afternoon, it was time to put Australian businesses to work, with the 200 participants responding to a series of panel discussions ending in open questions.

In a panel on scaling solutions, 施耐德电气 's Hakeem Haseeb aseeb and A2EP's Jarrod Leak spoke to the crucial role of metering and monitoring, and the need for both a shift in thinking around how data is used, and tools showing the value of leveraging it.

From industry, Coca-Cola Sustainability Lead Scott Edwards spoke on how to make metrics relatable across a business.

"We make Coke and measure it by output of cases, then measure costs per case of drink," he explained. "That's the metric that operations teams already understand, not megawatt hours of power or gigalitres of water. What's the unit cost for whatever you're making –?the object or service? How can you translate efficiency efforts to that?"

Powering Skills Organisation CEO Anthea Middleton laid out the state of workforce development, explaining the vocational education system is at capacity, with the need for tens of thousands more skilled electricians and mechanics, more apprentices and long lead times to create that workforce.

Powering Skills is alive to the challenges, Anthea explained, and working through how these roles can be not just visible to more people, but fit for purpose so they actually want to apply.

Bluescope's Chris Page provided valuable insight into managing emissions alongside production, while balancing those needs in a trade exposed competitive industry.

Chris acknowledged investors would like Bluescope to move faster, but the company understands the journey for them will be a long one, and will require them to break down their decarbonisation vision into digestible actions to make sure it's achieved.

CEO of the Energy Users Association of Australia Andrew Richards took this a step further, explaining that some EUAA members aren't making their net zero commitments public, as "if they don't know how to get there, they don't want to say it."

But as Luke Menzel said while summing up the day, one of the benefits of ambition "is in making the task easier. If we try to do this incrementally in bits and pieces, we won't get there."

As Anna Skarbek explained at the beginning of the day, her 11 year old daughter will still be in high school in 2030, and still won't have had an opportunity to vote for governments or boards.

Which, for the task right now, translates to: "Please aim high."