It’s been a tough year for the sustainability industry, but signs of new growth defy the odds with innovation and enormous talent.
News of sustainability’s demise has indeed been greatly exaggerated.
Sure, for the first six months of this year, there was barely any proof of life. This exciting, vibrant industry seemed stripped to the core – of its vigour, optimism, policy certainty, sense of purpose, and jobs. Not to mention funding, that ever-critical fuel that keeps all living economic organisms anchored to the real world.
Like so many other people, we prodded and poked the bear, hoping it was merely hibernating and not already a victim of global warming.
For the world had indeed warmed in so many ways – none pleasant.
But the bear stirs. As a growing number of people have told us over recent weeks things are looking up. Call it the existential imperative. If you want your business or organisation to live you need to move. Eventually, movement creates energy, then momentum.
People are hiring again, spending, investing again.
In an article we’ll bring you next week there’s news of a new boom underway. While commercial property is still flailing there’s a new breed of property investors digging deep into the life sciences sector. It’s exploding. Or would explode if the developers could get their hands on the incredibly expensive equipment and robotics that the science, medical and other nerdy people need for their fitouts so they can do whatever amazing things they’re working on for our collective wellbeing. (We’ll ignore the eternal life vibe that’s driving at least some of this impetus, powerful though it be.)
The story comes via an interview with Graeme Spencer who is principal science and education at HDR, the staff owned architectural firm with 14,000 employees worldwide; 250 or so in Australia.
The trouble, we’ll share in this tiny little spoiler, is that prices for this equipment are skyrocketing globally. Everyone wants a piece of the action, which is coming out of mainly Germany, Italy and France. The Aussie government must stand in line.
But what’s exciting is the level of sophistication that Australia’s medical, science and technology is clearly scaling.
NRMA Insurance picking winners for resilience
Another bright note of clever happened on Wednesday at Machine Hall in Sydney, Built’s funky downstairs space, recovered/restored from an old industrial building.
It was an event that celebrated five climate tech initiatives aimed at accelerating resilience. And it came just weeks after the sobering confirmation of how badly these initiatives are needed, with the release of the National Climate Risk Assessment.
NRMA Insurance’s new Help Fund awarded $100,000 to each of five contestants.
It made fascinating theatre to glimpse the talent to bring these ideas to life – and to imagine them in the first place. In each vignette, we were presented with solutions to some of the brutal challenges emerging in our either dry or flooding country.
Collaborating on the work was Climate Salad and its founder Mick Liubinskas (who will be a Shark Tank judge in our next event, the Circular Disruption Forum on 14 November).
The company’s chief executive Julie Batch said the funding would help scale each contestant’s solutions, fund their community-based projects and support potential future scalability.
“We need innovative, advanced technologies capable of making significant and lasting impacts to fight extreme weather,” she said in a media statement celebrating the program.
“As a nation, we must collaborate and innovate to build climate resilience and protect communities.
“Climate risk is complex and far-reaching, so we’re taking a multi-faceted approach – investing in people and ideas with the potential to create meaningful, lasting change.”
Liubinskas said Australia might be the most climate exposed country in the world but this also meant it had developed unique insights into resilience, and in fact “world leading technology.
“Despite this, we have underinvested in the implementation of these technologies to help communities adapt, withstand and recover from extreme weather.”
Jennifer Cobley, executive manager, social impact, introduced the winners on stage. The program was a real “labour of love” from her team and its partners, she said.
“We know that climate resilience isn’t something that happens overnight. It takes care. It takes leadership, innovation and bravery. This initiative was designed to support bold ideas that help communities prepare for a changing climate.”
But clever was not enough for the judges. What was also needed Cobley said, was for the projects to be “practical, scalable and deeply rooted in community impact.”
Increasingly we hear the same call for distributed resilience. The community understands its own vulnerabilities and its strengths. It’s a topic that frequently arises in discussions of resilience strategy.
And here without further ado, are the winners:
DNA Energy – an energy solutions company that focuses on helping residential aged care facilities keep the lights and cooling on during extreme heat events.
Daniel Barber, co-founder and chief executive, said the company had worked with Uniting Care and St Vincents in regional and metro areas, where energy grids could “go offline” during periods of extreme heat. This creates extreme heat risk to vulnerable residents and patients, with the potential for diesel-powered generator to be fired up, creating significant emissions.
The company’s technology prevents airconditioning systems from being affected by the grid and also lowers the power they use without impacting internal comfort.
FloodMapp Aus – a software company that provides real time operational flood forecasting, allowing geographic information system (GIS) to access localised forecasting of when, where and how deep the flooding is before their peak.
CEO Juliet Murphy said the funding helped the program launch in Queensland, and was already being used by police, fire and emergency services in areas prone to flooding, such as Cairns, Calvert, Innisfail and Noosa.
Localised alerts with actionable intelligence helps emergency managers and residents prepare before the flood hits, understand risk, evacuate to safety, protect valuables, turn off electricity, gas and water, and keep drivers safe on the roads.
GeoNadir – is an advanced drone mapping data collection service that allows environmental professionals to quantify ecosystems and changes, allowing faster decisions on climate impacts.
Co-founder and product lead Dr Karen Joyce said the software helps quantify things that were previously unmeasurable. This might be how many corals live in the Great Barrier Reef, or how to quantify, care for and measure change to ecosystems communities care about. Or how to measure the impact of events such as savannas burning, glaciers retreating, and coasts eroding.
Joyce said her system was a improvement on other softeware that was “really complex”, and “certainly not easy to use for communities.”
Rainstick – an electricity-based seed treatment inspired by traditional Maiawali practices that emulates the natural effects of lightning to help crops grow quicker, bigger, faster, more sustainably and become more climate resilient.
Co-founder, chief rainmaker and Maiawali man, Darryl Lyons, said the need for agriculture tech can be seen in an Australian Vegetable Association survey where 35 per cent of vegetable producers are expecting to “walk off farm” and 65 per cent are unprofitable. Lyons himself experienced his family losing the farm to drought and firmly believes in using local indigenous knowledge to create new science and technology.
Around $200 million worth of seed planted doesn’t establish, he said. With this new electric field technology, a kilo of seed can be treated for five minutes using the power of one LED light, equating to around five cents, to increase germination. According to Lyons, his first crops achieved a 15 per cent increase in establishment, and leafy greens were 10 to 20 per cent quicker to grow.
VALAI – a program delivered for Home Efficiency Australia that delivers an energy and now water efficiency score to households and businesses, and provides users with information on how to upgrade their efficiency, savings and where to find suppliers. The tool can be accessed through Commonwealth Bank, RACV, developers and businesses.
Executive director and founder Allys Todd said thousands of litres of water are wasted every day in leaky properties and new Airbnbs. South Australia, where the technology is focused, is the driest state in the nation, Todd said. The company will partner with South Australia Water to enable a minimum of 5000 homes and households with water upgrades, which will save an estimated 50,000 litres in the first year.