This year’s National Conference featured presentations from a high-profile panel of speakers. Following each presentation was a short Q&A session with a conversation at the conclusion of the presentations.
Join us at the RACV City Club for an exclusive lunch with Dr Paul Fisher. He will discuss the impact of climate change risks on the financial sector. How those risks might materialise and how risk management might address them. What are the future risks and opportunities, especially the impact of regulatory action?
Building resilience.
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, provided a short pre-recorded video to introduce the issues addressed at the conference. He spoke about how the finance market is addressing the risks presented by climate change and how the same approach can be used in other industries.
Please join us for an intimate dinner in the Private Dining Room at the RACV City Club in Melbourne.
You will have the opportunity to wine and dine with other like minded senior executives and participate in conversations with our conference speakers.
Sean Hanley, Toyota’s VP, Tony Battaglene, CEO of Australian Grape and Wine Inc. Susie Wood, Principal Climate Change at BHP and Professor Fran Sheldon, Griffith University will be at the dinner ahead of their participation in the Climate Alliance National Conference on Tuesday 19th November.
This event is proudly sponsored by
Green and Sustainable finance is not only a leading topic of discussion in financial centres as countries pledge their willingness to meet global sustainable development and climate objectives, it now offers an attractive investment opportunity for international and Australian companies.
This year's conference focused on three areas:
Leading edge insights into EU public policy changes that may soon impact Australian businesses.
Power generators’ insights into navigating the changes in markets and regulations.
The challenges equities investors face in managing their portfolios, in the face of these changes.
Our Keynote Speaker, Dr Paul Fisher (a former executive of the Bank of England) was joined by Theo Comino, AGL's Manager of Greenhouse and Sustainability and Judith Fox, CEO of the Australian Shareholders’ Association.
MC and panel moderator was Mr Adrian King, Partner in Charge, Sustainability Services, KPMG Australia.
Please join us for an evening with Dr Paul Fisher in the Private Dining Room of the RACV club in Melbourne.
You will have the opportunity to meet other like-minded senior executives and participate in a thought provoking conversation with Dr Paul Fisher, former executive director at the Bank of England. Since Paul visited our shores last year, so much has been achieved in the EU, we felt it essential to ask him back to share how the business world is changing.
He will summarise changes in financial reporting, sustainable growth of the finance industry, mainstreaming financial sustainability and the work towards more transparent climate risk reporting. Dr Fisher has been heavily involved in these developments in the EU.
We believe that our regulators will be adopting many of these new EU initiatives.
The evening includes a two course meal and a selection of fine wines.
Dinner will be served at 7.00 pm.
Tickets are $220 Inc GST
The event is proudly sponsored by
The Australian Building Codes Board have released their proposed changes for the National Construction Code 2019.
Join us to hear Alan Pears, Tony Isaacs and Eli Court discuss what these proposed changes mean for residential building
Doors open at 5:30 PM, presentations will commence at 5:45 PM
Light refreshments provided.
This event is organised by: Sustainable Building Innovation Laboratory (SBiLab), School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University
Alan Pears, RMIT University
Alan is one of Australia’s best regarded sustainability experts. He is a Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University, advises a number of industry and community organisations and works as a consultant.
Tony Isaacs, Tony Isaacs Consulting
Tony helped to set up the NatHERS scheme, developed the FirstRate software and oversaw the development of the 5 star RIS as a public servant. Now a consultant, Tony has been involved with the development of a number of RISs for building energy efficiency regulations, helped develop some of the DtS elemental provisions and is currently the lead technical consultant for the Victorian Residential Energy Scorecard tool.
Eli Court, Climate Works
Eli is Implementation Manager at ClimateWorks Australia, leading ClimateWorks’ work on delivering low energy, high performance, zero emissions buildings. Eli has led several major projects for ClimateWorks including an industry roadmap to zero carbon buildings, and a current research/industry collaboration to set new construction standards on a trajectory to zero emissions. Prior to ClimateWorks, Eli worked in public policy and law, and is a graduate of the Centre for Sustainability Leadership’s Fellowship Program.
This year's conference focused on the assessment and disclosure of climate-related risk.
Fiona Wild, VP Climate Change and Sustainability at BHP, outlined the work the TCFD has done to date, provided an overview of their recommendations, and a snapshot of what is coming.
Dr Paul Fisher spoke about the wider policy risks from the transition, in particular how the EU is developing a comprehensive policy agenda on Sustainable Finance.
Chloe Munro, former Chair of the Clean Energy Regulator and member of the Finkel Review panel, spoke about how the Australian energy market could tackle the transition risks to a lower-carbon economy.
Dr Karl Mallon, Director, Climate Risk, discussed hostile analytics: how the physical climate change risks to infrastructure and property can now be assessed by investors and competitors, with or without the disclosure of their corporate owners.
MC and panel moderator was Mr Adrian King, Partner in Charge, Sustainability Services, KPMG Australia.
We thank our event sponsor
Communications services provided by Holdfast Communications
Please join us for a private dinner with Dr Paul Fisher, former executive director at the Bank of England. Dr Fisher is in Australia to brief organisations on the recommendations made by the Task Force on Financial Disclosures and to consider how Australian firms may be impacted. The recommendations could have a considerable impact on the way companies report risk and assess their investments.
Dr Fisher will also provide an update on developments in Europe, where he is a member of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert group on Sustainable Finance, which is drawing up detailed policy proposals to be implemented in the EU. You can find the group’s interim recommendations in their first report here.
You will have the opportunity to meet other like-minded senior executives and participate in a conversation with Dr Paul Fisher.
The event is proudly sponsored by
Keynote speaker, Dr Paul Fisher, was joined by Ms Sarah Barker, Special Counsel at Minter Ellison (in Melbourne) and Mr Maged Girgis, Partner at Minter Ellison (in Sydney), Ms Pauline Vamos, former CEO of the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia and MC in Melbourne Mr Rob Gell AM, coastal geomorphologist, company director and environmental and communications consultant.
Communications services provided by Holdfast Communications
At the end of September 2015, Mark Carney (Governor of the Bank of England) made a speech at a Lloyd’s of London dinner. During this landmark speech, he elevated an issue to a new level. The issue is a consequence of the Paris Accord. In signing the Paris Accord, the world’s governments have agreed to limit global warming to 2oC. This decision may result in fossil fuel companies being unable to extract and sell all of their proven reserves of fuel.
In the recent past, there have been examples where changes in government policy have had a dramatic impact on the value of equity prices. The fortunes of the top five largest US listed coal companies are a salutary reminder of how quickly markets act. In the space of five years, the share prices of these companies were dramatically reduced - with some of the companies filing for Chapter 11.
Mr Carney was concerned that the investments of UK insurance companies would be placed at risk if the share prices of the fossil fuel companies suffered a downward correction. This is because insurance companies are heavily invested in fossil fuel company shares. Addressing this risk has now entered the mainstream of regulators, risk managers and asset managers.
As a result of this concern, an eminent task force, chaired by Mr Michael Bloomberg, was established earlier this year to address this issue. The Task force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) will develop voluntary, consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures for use by companies in providing information to investors, lenders, insurers, and other stakeholders.
In order to address the various aspects of this issue, Climate Alliance was very fortunate to secure the services of Dr Paul Fisher, until recently an Executive Director at the Bank of England. During a whirlwind tour in October, Dr Fisher addressed many organisations in Melbourne and Sydney. See here for details of the press coverage. His talks addressed the policy, transitional and physical risks facing organisations as a result of the agreements reached at the Paris Accord.
Climate Alliance hosted its conferences in Melbourne and Sydney. Dr Fisher was the Keynote at each event, with Mr Rob Gell the MC in Melbourne. Sarah Barker, of Minter Ellison addressed this issue from the perspective of directors’ fiduciary duties. She addressed their duties as required in the Corporations Act and suggested that their fiduciary duty is the sum of their actions taken in good faith and best interests of the corporation plus their competence – demonstrated by due care and diligence. In summary, Ms Barker said directors had little choice but to consider climate change risk in the same manner as any other business risk.
In Sydney, Pauline Vamos (until recently CEO of Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia) addressed the Conference audience and spoke about this issue from the perspective of an investor. Mr Maged Girgis, Partner at Minter Ellison addressed directors’ fiduciary duties.
CAL encountered considerable interest from a broad section of the business community. The two primary areas of interest were investment risk and directors' fiduciary duties.
Investors have ample information to enable them to thoroughly assess the risks associated with climate change and the resulting policy changes that may ensue.
Directors of entities that invest funds on behalf of their shareholders or customer have a duty to take this risk seriously and are no longer able to claim that climate change is not real; or that they were unaware of the risk.
As Dr Fisher was quoted in The Saturday Paper: “This is a financial risk if you’ve got a long-term asset portfolio. Forget the ideology, do the risk analysis, otherwise you’re not meeting your responsibilities. We need to sweep the politics to one side and say this is just a commercial business risk, like any other, that we need to take into account. It’s coming, and ignoring it or pretending it isn’t there is not going to help.”
For non-subscribers you can apply here for a 24-hour free pass which begins from the moment your registration is accepted. You then have access to the entire website for 24 hours. To hear the podcast, head to this link once the 24-hour free pass has been activated.
Dr John Hewson, former politician and businessman will be the Keynote speaker. He will address the implications of this issue on the Australian investment industry.
Sarah Barker, Special Counsel at Minter Ellison will address the potential liability for company directors.
Tim Buckley is an experienced industry analyst and he will speak about the outlook for the first potential victim of this issue - Australian coal exports.
Alex Frankel, experienced communications strategist will address the coming transition to clean energy.
In addition, Climate Alliance will also announce the winners of the 2015 Leadership Awards. The awards recognise Australian business leaders and organisations that have demonstrated leadership by addressing the opportunities or risks presented by climate change. Four categories of business leadership awards are available:
The 2014 National Conference featured presentations from a high-profile panel of speakers, including:
In addition, Climate Alliance announced the winners of the 2014 Business Leadership Awards. The awards recognise Australian business leaders and organisations that have demonstrated leadership by addressing the opportunities or risks presented by climate change.
The 2013 National Conference featured both presentations from a high-profile panel of speakers, including:
In addition, Climate Alliance announced the winners of the 2013 Business Leadership Awards. The awards recognise Australian business leaders and organisations that have demonstrated leadership by addressing the opportunities or risks presented by climate change.
Liz Bossley, author, carbon trader and expert witness in the UK will talk about the state of the EU carbon market, outlook for the Durban talks and the background to the registry thefts in the EU.
Rosemary Bissett, Head of Sustainability at the NAB will talk about why the NAB decided to go carbon neutral and the impact this decision had on staff engagement. Climate Alliance will be releasing this fascinating story on the day. This is mandatory reading for anyone interested in mobilising staff engagement.
The 2011 National Conference featured both stirring and startling presentations from a high-profile panel of speakers, including:
In addition, Climate Alliance announced the winners of the 2011 Leadership Awards. The awards recognise Australian business leaders and organisations that have demonstrated leadership by addressing the opportunities or risks presented by climate change.
On May 5, 2011 Climate Alliance hosted a very successful seminar that considered the risks from sea-level rise to businesses with assets located near Port Phillip Bay. Dr John Church was the Keynote speaker and he provided an overview of the state of the science that supports the current projections. Representatives from the legal, insurance, mapping and transport industries contributed to a very informative and insightful afternoon.
The conference included the presentation of the inaugural 2010 Climate Alliance Leadership Awards.
The theme of the conference was Climate Change – the Upside of Action.
The Round Table is being organised by Climate Alliance Limited, a not-for-profit, membership based company that engages with Australia’s company directors and communicates the opportunities and risks of climate change. Our goal is to make it easier for Australian directors to inform themselves about this important issue.
Four presenters will speak about the challenges Sustainability Managers face in large companies.
Climate Alliance Limited was formally launched in November, 2009. On the 17th November, Mr Ivan Deveson AO was the keynote speaker in Melbourne. On the 18th November, General Peter Cosgrove AC MC (Retd) was the keynote speaker at the launch in Sydney. Both events included a video message from Mr Andrew Liveris, Chairman and CEO of The Dow Chemical Company.
