Climate Investor Forum
On Thursday March 23, our Managing Director Matthew Williams attended the inaugural Climate Investor Forum at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 22 March. With sessions on topics including Climate Tech, Nature Based Solutions, Food and Agriculture, and Buildings and Infrastructure the Forum provided much to think about and a positive and achievable roadmap forward in sustainable solutions and sustainable finance.
Here Matt reflects on this important event and how it will advance decarbonisation and sustainability:
“Great day at the MCG yesterday for the Climate Investor Forum and great to catch up with some old friends. Also, as one of the speakers noted, nice to see lots of new faces as well.
It was also an improvement on my last visit to the G, to watch my team get belted in last year's AFL Grand Final.
It was also nice to see a focus away from the staples of gatherings in this sector; wind, solar and batteries with the net being cast wider to cover nature-based solutions, food and agriculture, and technologies being developed to address wider sustainability issues in the circular economy; not purely climate-related.
It was pleasing to hear from businesses that have successfully completed early VC funding rounds and been able to apply that funding to scaling of their operations, to the extent that they are likely to be seeking further funding rounds in the near future. I am looking forward to being able to assist with that.
Also interesting was the recognition of the need for transitional technologies, particularly in the area of liquid fuels. We are seeing a number of projects in this area, in addition to those discussed at the Forum.
The panel discussion between representatives of three of Australia’s largest corporations, with large exposures throughout their supply chains, and their approach to management of these issues highlighted the level of serious attention that sustainability issues are getting at Board level.
A highlight of the day was Alan Schwarz’s (Trawalla Group) announcement during his keynote address of “Transition Accelerator”, an initiative (initially funded by philanthropy) to bring together industry and climate related NGO’s to jointly work to apply pressure to Government for the removal of obstacles to investment in the sector; leveraging the “moral credibility and political skills” of the NGO’s.”
Congratulations to Climate Zeitgeist and all the sponsors for organising such a thought provoking day."
Matt Williams
Managing Director
Tennant Burnett Corporate Advisory