If you’re a bit over the old Melbourne Sydney rivalry, how about we switch to that other competitive game with our cousins across the ditch – Australia versus New Zealand?
Take a look at the recent survey from thinkstep-ANZ on trends in both countries to see how 266 organisations are dealing with materiality issues.
A glance at the key findings suggest the Kiwis have prioritised climate risk more than the Aussies. Oops.
Here are the key highlights:
- Different priorities. Health, safety and wellbeing are ranked first in Australia and second in New Zealand. Climate-related business risk ranked first in New Zealand but fourth in Australia
- Australian organisations more often identified people and conduct issues, including workforce capability, community engagement, cybersecurity, diversity, ethical conduct and responsible procurement
- In New Zealand the focus is on future business risks, including carbon emissions, sustainable financial performance, changing customer preferences, innovation and business continuity
Overall, there was agreement on safety, which “topped the overall list of individual issues”, thinkstep said in releasing the report.
“Among organisations whose topics we could compare, 75 per cent identified health, safety and wellbeing, 68 per cent climate-related business risk and 63 per cent workforce capability and development.”
Awareness of climate risk was widespread with nearly all (90 per cent) identifying climate, carbon or energy-related issues as needing to be grappled with.
As you’d expect, larger organisations are better prepared, at least in the sense of “formally assessed” priorities. And of course falling behind are the smaller outfits – with 49 per cent of micro, small and medium organisations thinking about preparing for their future challenges.
Check out the full report called Beyond climate – what matters most to business in Australia and New Zealand
There’s no shortage of need to pay attention to what’s now galloping over the horizon. And it’s not just worthy environmental groups that are concerned.
Business and finance leaders are starting to realise this is about them too; their future prospects, if not survival.
The hope is that the clarion call of the mighty dollar might do what millions of concerned citizens fail to get cut through with. Or is it?
Certainly there is rising awareness and concern. Frankie Muskovic at Transition Risk Sydney told the audience about the trillions of dollars represented by the advocacy group she helped lead to Canberra to argue for a better Safeguard Mechanism.
But is the government listening? The feds seem ever more distracted and disappointing. The government might have done the previously unthinkable and changed the tax rules on housing so the young, the old and the dispossessed have hope of finally get a leg up in their own security, but on climate it’s looking more like an observer in the bleachers than down on the pitch smashing the spin bowling for six.
Let’s hope its own spin is to distract from big plans they have for later in the term, or another term. That they aim to create a false sense of security for the lads and ladettes in jack boots hoping to bring the entire country with them on the road back to a past that never existed.
Smashing the environment these days has been conflated with the cost of living and housing crisis (rather than the much smarter opportunity to connect the dots to see that the former will lead to ever more crises in the food, housing and oxygen – all those things that are vital and fun and depend almost entirely on faltering natural resources.)
How else to explain the permission given by the NSW Independent Planning Commission to allow a massive beast of a coal project to proceed, producing around 800 million tonnes of C02 over its lifetime (which, if hyperscalers plonk down next door will be quite short).
Interestingly, Tim Hollo, former adviser to former Green Leader Christine Milne, said on his website this week that the assessment process for the coal mine could not be faulted.
He pointed to analysis by Georgina Woods National Coordinator of Lock the Gate, who said the decision came under
“the best decision-making process of its kind in the country in a statutory framework that requires consideration of the public interest, intergenerational equity, downstream greenhouse gas emissions and the local impacts of climate change.”
And yet the decision was to let destruction rip (our words).
Woods declared it was a “catastrophic failure“ of the system.
Hollo said this was the “real earthquake”, that “a major Australian climate and environment organisation has today very publicly called this a catastrophic failure of our institutions. And they set out systematically exactly why that is. The process was clear. The context was clear. Everything was set up for the decision to be made to protect life. But the decision was made to protect profits instead, and screw life.”
As the new Greens leadership takes over – David Shoebridge and deputy Steph Hodgins-May – Hollo wishes them well but wonders if the structure of the party can deal with the immensity of the task of trying to save this planet when the entire system is set up to protect the “coercive, extractive power” that closes ranks to protect and prolong itself.
“Our executive governments, our parliaments, our media, our ‘independent’ planning bodies, our police – have absolutely no capacity to actually face up to the reality of the climate crisis.”
Now you’d think that this existential threat extends to businesses too.
And clearly we see from the survey above that it’s starting to penetrate the list of issues on the agenda.
Big, well funded companies that have a 10 or 20 year investment horizon know that their ability to survive and maintain a viable upstream and downstream supply chain will come crashing head onto climate and are busy with transition risk scenario planning as Miguel Oyarbide from SLR told us in recent weeks.
Other smaller and mid size businesses are far less aware, less well funded and less prepared.
Whatever their scale and distribution throughout the economy the opportunity is work with these businesses closely and seek to influence their decision-making.
They are the makers of the economy, we are their enablers. If they can’t make a buck neither can we make it or spend it.
Clear communication is key – whether that be through science and facts or emotion.
If “climate change” and “sustainability” no longer make an impact, as we increasingly hear, let’s talk floods, fires, polluted air and water, food security, cheap energy and insurance risk. And then the flipside of how to avoid the worst and turn adversity into opportunity.
Maybe even knock on the doors of Tim Hollo and Georgina Woods and ask how we can help to shift the fabric of what made this mess in the first place.
Whatever it takes!
