“Australia can do anything. Absolutely anything.”
These were the words that recently headed up Martijn Wilder’s sparse social media feed. It was no more than a repost from industry minister Ed Husic who had appointed him as chair of the National Reconstruction Fund. But you can imagine the sentiment was irresistible to Wilder and that he applies it to his own career as well as to Pollination, the company he founded that has ballooned from 12 staff to 200 in just five years.
- Book your ticket to hear Martijn Wilder of Pollination and Matt Kean, chair of the Climate Change Authority in conversation with Rachel Alembakis. Bring your questions.
From an initial 20 years as a lawyer with Baker McKenzie, Wilder has moved across a huge range of climate and nature related businesses. There’s been the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, WWF as governor, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientist and amidst it all he’s notched up a reputation as a leading global expert on climate and carbon markets.
Then there’s the NRF.
If he sounds busy, try interviewing him, as finance and climate journalist Blair Palese and I both did a while back. One way to describe it is a constant competition for his attention as he ranged from phone, to in-person chat to email and then back to us again. It’s possible the Zoom format didn’t help. But what was clear is that here was someone far more comfortable with doing five things at once, than one.
Wilder has taken all that energy and clearly applied it to all that he does. And thankfully the nature and climate industries are the main beneficiaries – but there’s more.
In recent times he dipped into the AI debate as the NRF announced it had invested $32 million of its $15 billion stash into Harrison.ai which is involved in healthcare diagnostics.
The move was criticised (government picking winners etc). Other savvy investors such as Blackbird Ventures, and Scott Farquhar and Kim Jackson’s Skip Capital had already jumped in with a stake and there was a fear that the technology would be lost to another country, as has happened so much in the past.
But it was a new and to some people obviously challenging move.
One media report on the deal said Husic had picked Wilder for the NRF job precisely because the job involved forging new paths. The fund’s strategy, according to Husic, was not to invest in companies but “entire value chains and the supply chains around them”.
And if they don’t exist it’s the NRF and massive Future Made In Australia’s job to create them.
Wilder said, “We’re actually trying to build investments and build industries that basically don’t exist [in Australia] at the moment.”
We need to do different
Anyone involved in the fast evolving climate change industries knows that is exactly what we need to do. We haven’t been here before. Fighting climate change and creating sustainability in everything that must nearly always be invented from scratch.
Another article, in The AFR, said, “Love or hate Labor’s Future Made in Australia vision – and there are plenty of people in both camps with strong views based on politics and economics – Labor is embarking on a project of enormous proportions that, if the government can pull it off, will reshape the structure of the Australian economy”
But right now, there’s much that seems to hang in the balance.
In the US Donald Trump is busy blowing up the US’s climate commitments. And in Australia, we may well lean the same way if the conservative coalition wins the upcoming federal election.
But with big challenges and shocks come equally big reactions.
There’s more countries than the US
A growing number of people are looking to the world beyond the US to take up the fight and to invest in.
One giant, China, may well seize the opportunity to thrive with its recent vast advances on clean energy, batteries, electric vehicles and of course AI. Picking up where the US leaves off.
And China is not alone. There are many other countries keen to accelerate their net zero transition because they know that the Earth’s climate will pay no heed to politics. Neither for that matter will investors.
And that’s where Pollination will come in.
It’s already got a well rounded set of targets and strategies focused around advisory, especially its nature positive work, investments, and clean energy and related projects, spanning Australia, Singapore, the UK and the US.
In a recent conversation Wilder told The Fifth Estate that the big ructions promised by Trump won’t be so easy to bring about; the big cumbersome US legal system will kick in and change will be much slower than threatened.
In recent weeks, that reading seems to be playing out. The legal profession and institutions seem to be finally awakening to their obligations and the states are expected to flex their own muscles.
Raw financial realities won’t help Trump either because there’s not a lot of rewards these days for launching into more fossil fuels.
Pollination’s work so far
Pollination meanwhile continues on its own trajectory.
It’s shored up clients such as Woolmark, the A2 Milk Company and Woolworths to whom the state of nature will have a material impact.
And in recent months the company has entered into a partnership with Japanese bank Mizuho, with a $20 million investment and plans for climate positive investments in the South East Asian region, “supporting their clients with transition nature and climate transition”, according to a company spokesperson, “but also looking at how we can flow finance better into climate and nature solutions.”
Other work includes decarbonisation strategies and “broader climate transition”.
In the UK the company has a solid base working with an early partner HSBC on a climate asset management business that invests in natural capital such as sustainable forestry and regenerative agriculture.
Overall the company has managed to notch up $1 billion in funds under management so it’s got a pot of funds ready to deploy on the right projects. They might be a macadamia or almond farm, a carbon fund or green hydrogen such as the one it has in The Kimberley in partnership with Indigenous Traditional Owners.
In the US there’s a green lithium energy project that the company is looking at, with the work likely to consist of preparing the early work push through with the feasibility until it’s ready for serious investment” the spokesperson said.
But regardless of how the US pans out Wilder and Pollination have their eyes on a broader and more important picture.