It’s been a relatively busy year for consultancy Point Advisory, with sustainability work and net zero announcements from large corporates coming thick and fast.
- See Covid-19 is making more companies declare net zero ambitions – but few have set concrete targets
Overall, the company’s NSW managing principal Alan Dayeh is very optimistic that businesses will continue to “do their part” to address climate change.
He’s also observing more action from the investment communities, with reporting on climate risk now serious business.
“The rubber is hitting the road in terms of companies starting to understand what the business risks are or how they may evolve.”
For property companies, questions are emerging around tenants that are connected to or heavily reliant on carbon intensive sectors and how this risk might affect rental streams and returns.
Dayeh expects the leaders to keep pushing into the tenant space to manage emissions profiles, which has traditionally been tricky to influence.
On a growth path
Dayeh says the team of over 30 people is poised to grow, with offices currently in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and the UK.
It recently recruited corporate sustainability and climate change expert Sue Lacey to climate change and energy principal in the Melbourne office.
Point Advisory provides the full gamut of professional sustainability services, while a sister company Point Bundle provides environmental offset services.
The company’s main competitors include the big four consultancies, as well as sustainability teams at the major engineering firms. It’s point of difference, Dayeh says, is its positioning as laser-focused on sustainability.
“This is all we do, our business units are effectively climate change, human rights, etcetera.”
Dayeh says that the company is looking to grow and “always looking for good quality people interested in joining a values-led organisation”.
As a successful commercial entity with B Corp certification, a rigorous standard for sustainable and ethical business, Point Advisory is “living proof that you can be values and impact led and still have a thriving business”, Dayeh says.
Where the work is now and expectations going forward
The company helps businesses, including property companies. to do more than create net zero strategies. It works on energy management, onsite renewable energy, NABERS and other environmental ratings and climate risk disclosure aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures.
There’s also the drive to align zero pathways with science-based targets and to improve the climate resilience of assets.
On the energy side, microgrids, virtual power plants and other community scale renewable energy infrastructure is becoming mainstream.
The company’s workload in social sustainability is also increasing, with reporting across modern slavery legislation driving a more sophisticated approach to human rights and responsible sourcing in general.
Yet Dayeh stresses that we’re only at the beginning.
“The massive thing that emerged this year was the shortcomings of protecting Indigenous rights.
“Juukan Gorge was a wake-up call. Companies need to do better to understand the impact on Aboriginal heritage.” And not just mining companies Dayeh: property companies too need to become more sensitive and mindful about Indigenous rights, especially when developing greenfield sites.
It’s about consulting and engaging more closely with Indigenous communities.
This study presents a different picture and a reason to revisit many of our assumptions about how businesses scale and create jobs.