IGCC Melbourne: Disruption and opportunity for over $1 trillion in Australian funds

09 Okt 2015 von Nadia Kahkonen in Aktuelles

Leading international experts and major institutions, managing over $1 trillion in funds, gathered in Melbourne, Australia on 6-7 October for a unique summit to address and accelerate the transition to low carbon economies.

The summit, organised by the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) brought together global expertise and high-level speakers to provide insight to major Australian investors with a focus on super funds, on the trends, risks and opportunities catalysed by a world in rapid transition. The emissions from the timely summit were offset by South Pole Group, who also attended the event and reiterated its cooperation with CAER on investment portfolio carbon footprinting services in the Australian and New Zealand market.

Driving decarbonisation was a prominent part of both international investor perspectives and Australian outlooks. Sessions discussed, among others, lessons learned and anticipated from France, a country that has recently passed a law requiring all institutional investors to disclose the carbon footprint of their assets as of 2016.

"There is an increasing interest among Australian investors about the climate change impact of their portfolios, and their ability to reduce related investment risk", confirmed Thomas Schroder, Director Marketing Communications South Pole Group, attending the event.

The need to adopt low-carbon technologies was another prime topic at the IGCC conference: "All sectors need to play their role when it comes to energy - we need to consider land use and agriculture, we need to electrify our transport system and shift it to 100% renewable energy", underlined Stephen Bygrave, CEO of Beyond Zero Emissions, a not-for-profit climate change solutions think-tank.

With the UN climate conference drawing closer, Greg Hunt, the Australian Minister of Environment, was positive about achieving the much debated 2°C goal and saw the voluntary carbon market growing in importance. Playing its part in international climate efforts, Minister Hunt underlined that Australia is pursuing a threefold effort as part of its climate strategy:

The Emissions Reduction Fund - a centrepiece of the Australian Government's policy suite to reduce emissions
The safeguard mechanism to put a limit on emissions
The country's revised renewable energy target, which aims to have Australia powered by 50% renewables by 2030

Looking ahead, Al Gore Former US Vice President, Chairman, Generation Investment summarised: "2015 is a critical year for solving the climate crisis. The investment and finance communities need to play a crucial role. Business is already leading the way in Australia and paving the way to building a global sustainable economy."

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