Frasers Property selling Real Utilities
Frasers Property hopes that growth in the apartment market and alongside that, demand for more embedded energy networks, will attract a buyer for its Real Utilities business that it established in 2017.
The business has around 15,000 connections across 27 sites and expects to make around $19 million in recurring revenue by 2030, according to a note in The AFR. Its product offerings include the delivery of embedded power, hot water networks, solar and batteries, with most sites in NSW and some in Victoria and Queensland.
South Australian based Chapman Capital Partners is handling the sale. Other market activity in the sector includes Adamantem buying into Microgrid Power and Palisade Impact buying Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners’ Energy Locals.
REMONDIS in buying mode
The organic recycling market continues to evolve as an alternative destination to landfill with REMONDIS Australia recently buying a majority stake in Western Australia’s JD Organics, which processes organic material such as food, garden and organic liquid wastes through various composting methods.
The composted material is supplied to retail, commercial businesses, local government and farmers.
Founder of JD Organics, Donovan Farrell will retain a minority shareholding in the company, which will be rebranded as REMONDIS GO Organics, and be based at Boonanarring, 110 kilometres north of Perth. All employees will be retained, the company’s WA general manager Chris Gusenzow said, and the business expects to soon double processing capacity to around 124,000 tonnes a year.
Stickybeak protects wild creatures
Private landholders can now upload tag and share camera trap images to protect wildlife thanks to an AI tool known as WildTracker. The tool is being used by The Tasmanian Land Conservancy has teamed up with Ionata Digital.
Dr Glen Bain, Conservation Ecologist, Tasmanian Land Conservancy said “By automating image analysis, we can spend more time on the ground working with other landholders, implementing conservation efforts for threatened species and studying their habitats. One long-term goal is for AI to advance to the point where it can identify individual animals within a species, much like recognising faces in a crowd.
The University of Tasmania is one of the collaborators in the project.
Second hand market keeps growing
eBay Australia says the global secondhand market keeps expanding and is projected to hit sales figures of $387 billion by 2029.
The company’s Recommerce Report shows that 92 per cent of Australian buyers says that sustainability is important to them when it comes to buying pre-loved goods.
According to Seamless more than 222,000 tonnes of clothing were sent to Australian landfills in 2023 alone.
Here’s some fun facts:
- A pre-loved dress is sold every 60 seconds and a pre-loved shirt every 90 seconds on eBay Australia
- Australian brands like Aje, Country Road, and Zimmermann are searched for every 20 seconds on eBay Australia
- There will be “pre-loved” Runway Sho as part of Fashion Week scheduled for this week
Clean airline fuels just pie in the sky
Replacing airline fuels with corn and soybeans are not a solution according to the World Resources Institute with its assessments reported in US green business publication Trellis.
A report from the US on how biomass can be used to decarbonise the US economy researchers said that as global demand for food grows, dedicating land for this purpose leads to forests and other native ecosystems being converted to agriculture, releasing additional emissions in the process.