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Green Fix
Welcome to the Green Fix, the climate & sustainability podcast for Australian corporations and their ESG practitioners. We explore the top challenges and opportunities in the industry, how they are impacting your business and your work, so that you can keep your sanity.
Green Fix
S1 E5: Business Resilience through Sustainability with Luke Chalmers, Orica
Luke Chalmers, Principal for ESG Performance and Reporting at Orica, shares his journey from a surfer concerned about water pollution to a sustainability leader navigating global reporting requirements for a multinational mining services company.
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Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez
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It's important to tie back the conversation of business operations, impacts on production, supply chain, etc. So climate risk as a topic can be viewed in the same way as other items in the business may be. At the end of the day, yes, we're talking about sustainability or climate, but ensuring you've got the right language and you're really addressing the room appropriately to talk about what is another business topic.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Green Fix, the climate and sustainability podcast for Australian corporations and their ESG practitioners. We explore the top challenges and opportunities in the industry and how it impacts your business and your work. So that you can keep your sanity. I'm Dan Leverington.
Speaker 2:And I'm Loretta Gutierrez, and today we are joined by Luke Chalmers. Luke is the principal for ESG performance and reporting at Orica. He has spent over 12 years in sustainability both in Australia and Tokyo for EY, before moving to Orica two and a half years ago. Luke's focus has been embedding sustainability and, specifically, the governance process required to navigate the evolving global mandatory and voluntary reporting landscape. Most recently, he has been focused on the convergence of financial and non-financial information in relation to climate, nature and biodiversity, which is an area that we'll be delving into today. Having worked within industries ranging from manufacturing to health, consumer products to government, he's well-positioned to discuss how organizations are leveraging climate reporting for commercial risk mitigation and opportunity generation. First and foremost, though, luke is a father of three living on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. So, luke, tell us about the path from being a grom on a surfboard to now focusing on multi-regional climate reporting standards, and why did you initially choose to work in sustainability?
Speaker 1:Sure thing. Thanks, great to be here with you both. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Initially, I think my interest in sustainability and the environment probably stemmed from my youth.
Speaker 1:I was born in the Blue Mountains and then moved down to the peninsula at a young age and was kind of thrown into the beach and the wilderness down here to certain points and I feel as though just growing up in that environment, friends and family, that really kind of made me aware, or at least probably subconsciously aware, of those surroundings At a young age.
Speaker 1:I kind of took up surfing in kind of my early teens and then, as you kind of progress, you explore different surf breaks and so on, and I think the thing that triggered it was there was actually an outfall or a poop pipe at the back beach at Gunna Matter and that was releasing you you know over 100 billion liters of effluent each year. So a lot of uh sewage untreated or said to be treated at the time. But when you were surfing and it was onshore, it definitely didn't seem like it was treated at that point in time. If you're looking at the things floating around in the water and the color of it, that's since been cleaned up and actually the water quality is really good at the moment. But that just raised an awareness, physically being in the elements and in an environment like that and thinking that hey, maybe something's not right here, what's going on, and got involved with that through high school and then studied at university and kind of sparked an interest in sustainability more broadly. And here we are today.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Luke, Tell us a little bit about your current role at Orica.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure so, in the sustainability team at Orica. I've been there for a little over two years now and prior to that, as you mentioned, was at EY in the climate change and sustainability team for about 11-12 years. So both have been fantastic experiences. The former was advising large organizations on all things sustainability and working with them on their sustainability reporting and auditing that as well, and then over into Orica doing the work that I was advising clients on, so working on sustainability strategy. And then, as you mentioned and probably pertinent to this discussion, is navigating the mandatory reporting landscape at the moment both in Australia and internationally as well.
Speaker 3:I had no idea that Orica was started during the Victorian gold rush. Yeah, yeah, can you give us an overview of the company? What do they do? How do they make money?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yes. They are an old organization, over 150 years old, so there's not many listed organizations that have been around or even last that long. I think the average age of the company nowadays is much shorter than that. In short, they're the largest provider of commercial explosives and blasting systems in the world and, due to some recent M&A activity over the last couple of years, we're a leading supplier of sodium cyanide. That's all a bit technical, but what that means is we make products and services to be used in the mining industry for the extraction of resources, and there's a large focus on digital as well to support our customers, optimize their operations throughout their entire value chains, from exploration through to processing basically, the mind to mill, the whole suite.
Speaker 2:And in regards to your role, what does being the principal for ESG performance and reporting involve when working for a multinational that is, a group, one company under the ASRS or the Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards?
Speaker 1:My title is probably a little bit misleading. To an extent, I feel like a bit of a jack of all trades in there, supporting the head of sustainability and working closely with other members of our team as well. But you are right, there is a focus on performance and reporting. So, beyond kind of supporting the development and execution of our broader sustainability strategy, there's a lot of stakeholder engagement kind of internally and externally, which we'll probably talk to a little bit later. And then in relation to reporting, here in Australia, I'm currently co-leading a working group with finance and navigating our path forward on all of our mandatory reporting requirements. So both here in Australia and internationally, at the end of the day, my role is to really uplift the governance procedures around sustainability and provide insights to the business to help support informed decision making, which in turn will support the long-term business resilience of the organization.
Speaker 3:This is a short question with what could be a very long answer. If people hear an explosives company that has sustainability function, why is the role that the company plays in the industry going to be so important going forward, particularly from a decarbonization perspective?
Speaker 1:In terms of the sustainability team. Oric is a large emitter. We're resource intensive and energy intensive. We have a large carbon footprint in terms of electricity, gas, water and so on. Our impact is significant and that also means that as we enhance our performance or reduce our consumption, that means we can also have quite a significant impact as well. So we've got our sustainability strategy. We have our climate-related targets, but our purpose is really to sustainably mobilize the Earth's resources and support our customers on their journey to doing that as well. So you know we operate in many communities around the world. We have large footprints here in Australia, north America, canada, batam, africa as well, so we're out at customer sites. The better we can do means that the better our customers can do as well in what is an intensive process on our natural environment as well in what is an intensive process on our natural environment.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you bring up the international footprint because I'm fascinated based on your role. Specifically, you have so many different regulatory landscapes that you need to be across. How do you see those regulations comparing between Australia, the US, latin America, europe, the UK and Asia? Good question, it's a tricky one.
Speaker 1:So at Orica, more broadly, there's entire UK and Asia. Good question, it's a tricky one. So at Orica, more broadly, there's entire teams dedicated to that in their spaces. If we just look at what's happening in sustainability, again we've got multiple people in the team who deal with that. If we then drill down and look at sustainability reporting as well, we're captured by different regimes. So here in Australia you mentioned ASRS we're a Group 1 reporter, which is obviously climate focused. We're also captured by what's likely to come in in California, which is also a climate related reporting regime over there, again focused on climate. So the two crossover and, as it currently stands, captured in Europe, specifically in a couple of countries over there and with the CSRD. So we trigger thresholds for group two level reporting, which also means that reporting in a couple of years time.
Speaker 1:There's obviously been the announcement of the Omnibus proposal last week, which all of my LinkedIn feeds been feeding me for the last seven days and trying to get some positives out of that. But the interesting point to note on that one, and even here in Australia, is that despite the fact that there's some political uncertainty with elections coming up and even with the Omnibus proposal, a lot of these reporting requirements are in law and for us to report in FY26. So until a law changes, which can obviously take some time, there may be challenges to that. The law may not change because a certain country in Europe may not choose to adopt a certain proposal. The requirements still stand. So the risk there is to be non-compliant if no action is taken, but also striking the balance between risk tolerance and cost and when to make that call. So it's an interesting time in the sustainability reporting space.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit more about Omnibus in particular. How would it impact a global organization? Is this something that Australian corporations need to be mindful of going into the future?
Speaker 1:In terms of the Omnibus more generally, it seems like the aim was to reduce the burden on business and simplify, and that's been driven probably by many different agendas in certain countries. Looking at countries based in Australia that may have operations in Europe or are listed over there as well, and I think for those really need to be aware of what those proposed changes are, what that might mean to their reporting. But, as I mentioned earlier, the CSRD has been transposed into over a dozen countries at the moment, so it is a law exposed into over a dozen countries at the moment. So it is a law so identifying over the coming months hopefully over the coming months what those countries view, what their country view is on adopting some of those changes and if they will make changes to the law and, furthermore, again, the timeframes on that too. So it's a bit of a messy process.
Speaker 1:But for us, you know, reporting kicks off on the 1st of October 2025, so this year. So what's that? In about half a year's time? So that's when we're meant to be collecting data. So we'll need to make sure that all our system, processes, governance and so on are set up for that point in time, if reporting is still required for FY26 for us. So we're 30 September year end as the 1st of October date just referred to. 26 for us. So we're at 30 September year end as the 1st of October date just referred to.
Speaker 1:At the moment, for other organisations it's probably not a pens down or a throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's probably just assessing what's going to happen over the next couple of months. We're still early on and for sure it's going to be squeezing the timeframe. So really we would have started preparing for this or we have started preparing for this late last year. Preparing for this, or we did. We have started preparing for this late last year. It just meant that things that don't have been on hold and we'll have to really allocate intensive resource time the closer we get to the end of our financial year.
Speaker 2:On that. I found really interesting what you mentioned before about the working group with finance. Is that something that came after the announcement or the formalization of the ASRS? Are there any learnings that you can share from that working group as it stands now?
Speaker 1:which was getting around to the point you'll hear me refer to many times around business resilience, and we did a workshop actually on risks with the supply teams. That was really getting to the crux of what are our climate risks. We're revisiting those and we're getting now inputs from various teams in Orica around validating those risks and seeing how they've changed. To answer your question, this group was formed and we report directly into the CFO because at the end of the day, it's an accounting standard. Yes, the topic is climate or sustainability, but it is just like any other new accounting standard.
Speaker 1:So the finance team was on board and they're leading that, which I think is the right decision, at least for Orica. We formed the working group to make sure that we've got the right people in the room to begin with, given that the disclosure requirements will be going in the annual report as well. So you need to align with all the governance structures that align with the annual reporting cycle. And then also we've got other people from different functions who sit in too and then there's an entire kind of governance structure around the project. More broadly, we're looking at developing steer co and then establishing more formal lines of reporting as we work our way through things over the next couple of months.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you brought up the workshops because we want to speak with you about stakeholder engagement more broadly. I know that you're someone who creates strong analogies with everyday activities based on the people that you're interacting with. Why is it important for you to approach it like that when you're often dealing with stakeholders who don't have the same depth of knowledge as you do in the sustainability space?
Speaker 1:I feel as though putting sustainability in the context of the corporate environment is important. So, depending on your audience, analogies can be a really useful way to demonstrate business relevance of sustainability. So tying conversations back to business resilience is again really useful and you can then talk to whether it's supply or finance. You can then talk to exactly how business resilience may apply in their instance and using words around things like risks and opportunities, that really resonates with the audience that I've spoken to over the last couple of years, because you then bring it back to that kind of everyday business language. So take climate-related physical risks, for example.
Speaker 1:If I was having a conversation with someone in business about that or any business, you might want to set the scene around what physical risks or climate risks are, how they occur, before their eyes glaze over and think that maybe you're a bit of a greenie or a tree-hugging hippie. It's important to tie it back to the conversation business operations, impacts on production, supply chain, et cetera. So climate risk as a topic can be viewed in the same way as other items in the business may be. So at the end of the day, yes, we're talking about sustainability of climate, but ensuring you've got the right language and you're really addressing the room appropriately to talk about what is another business topic.
Speaker 2:On that similar vein, we like to talk about expectations, right? How do you manage the delivery of very difficult messages sometimes, and taking into account the different expectations of your stakeholders? For example, you mentioned talking to your supply chain teams about potential risks, right, and do you have any strategies that you use to manage all of this messaging?
Speaker 1:I think a lot of my skills probably came from my time at EY, where you're dealing with 15, 20 clients a year and you're on the phone or face-to-face meetings with lots of different people.
Speaker 1:So, coming back to that point, there's a strong need to understand who your stakeholders are, learning to speak their language and tuning up your emotional intelligence Because, like in your own teams or your own workplaces, you're different, dealing with different personalities who have different working styles, and if you can better understand those going into a room, then that definitely helps, especially when you need to be delivering more difficult messages or challenging the status quo, so or pitching an idea or something like that. So, further than my point before, it's probably important to maintain a balanced approach to those conversations, and you can obviously articulate your passion, or the organization's passion, for sustainability or climate change, but that shouldn't particularly be the driver. Similar to other corporate conversations, logical reasoning is probably key to influence and negotiating with stakeholders, and to me it probably shouldn't be any different when it comes to sustainability, and to me it probably shouldn't be any different when it comes to sustainability.
Speaker 3:Across your sustainability career, which has been in Australia, been in Japan, been on the consulting side, been in-house what are some of the collaborative approaches you've seen for decarbonisation with competitors or unlikely bedfellows?
Speaker 1:Good question. So outside our industry, and more recently Blue Scope Rio and BHP joined forces in the hope to fast track the production of green steel. What that involves is the development of electric smelting furnaces for iron making. Basically, it's early days and there's obviously many challenges that lie ahead Technology, gas supply in the current environment of talking about energy shortages and energy security and so on, obviously what happened overseas affecting gas supply? But in this example, given I think it's around 70 or 80% of steel is produced from using blast furnaces, it's quite commendable to see those large organizations come together as they kind of seek to decarbonize production of raw materials such as steel. So in the long term as well, it's likely to support the economy as we move to a lower carbon world, create jobs for the future and so on. So I think that was a good example of an emissions intensive industry looking and collaborating and coming together for the greater good, Also couched really well in your point.
Speaker 3:They're not doing that other than the fact that it is going to be the financially most astute move in the long term. Right yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We are living through some very interesting times. Are there any particular current events in the sustainability space that you find that are significant?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's all over the place at the moment. Sustainability definitely has its ebbs and flows and hopefully we're on a trajectory up. You've got to run with the punches sometimes, but for me, something that's a personal interest, but also just more broadly in the sustainability space probably is around nature and biodiversity. With the coming Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework released and then a really close intersection between climate and nature, that's an area that is obviously gaining traction and is extremely important Internally as well. There's a large focus on water, for example.
Speaker 1:That's obviously a natural resource, but, as I mentioned, it's been really interesting to look at the link between climate and nature and I think there's some stretched targets of that framework, for example, to protect 30% of the world's land and oceans by 2030. So they're big targets and 2030 is not that far away. Really. If we're looking to move towards those, the nature and biodiversity space will probably evolve potentially quicker than climate Only issue is that when you talk about nature and biodiversity, space will probably evolve potentially quicker than climate Only issue is that when you talk about nature and biodiversity more broadly, again, people's eyes might glaze over.
Speaker 1:It's even just knowing the difference between nature and biodiversity itself. You need to be able to articulate that. So it seems a little less tangible than climate change sometimes to me when you're explaining it to certain people or when you're having conversations about it. There's also not a single metric for measuring that. So you know we've got tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. There's no one metric that measures nature and biodiversity. We've obviously got indicators and so on, but it is a little messy compared to climate. It's been interesting to see that evolve and come onto the radar. And then also the organizations that are kind of looking to report on their nature-related risks and opportunities. And obviously there's things like the TNFND. That's an emerging space and one that is picking up pace, as you mentioned. That was just interesting at certain points in the cycle where those topics may either be facing a headwind or get a tailwind and a bit of a boost. Yeah, Enjoying watching that develop.
Speaker 2:And I'm thinking about our listeners and their ESG practitioners would you say there are some steps that they can take to get prepared for natural reporting in the future? Are there any kind of overarching themes that they should start to prepare for?
Speaker 1:In terms of natural reporting from what I understand, at least at the IWSB level, that'd be one of the next couple of standards.
Speaker 1:It might not be the next one everything that's happening in the EU.
Speaker 1:So, as we see that an organization start to embed the governance principles and the structures and the systems and the processes around climate, you should be able to begin to coverage some of those for any future reporting requirements, be it on human capital or nature and biodiversity or whatever that is.
Speaker 1:One of the things that we've been focusing on is making sure that anything we're setting up at the moment in terms of miniature reporting is flexible and can adapt to future requirements as well, so that it's not just all about climate, and that's just taking a more holistic approach, lifting your head up from the desk and looking long term. So, in terms of nature's reporting specifically, there's organisations that are already doing early reporting on TNFD and there's some really interesting reports out there on organisations that are articulating how nature impacts their strategy and what risks and opportunities that presents for that organisation, and, again, the ties back to climate to go hand in hand In terms of other things, just keeping your finger on the pulse. There's so much happening in the sustainability space so often, so really needing to be on top of it and making sure that you're having those informed conversations internally as well.
Speaker 3:It's very interesting. I want to come back to the ebbs and flows that you mentioned. Firstly, there's often a saying when someone starts a new job that it's like drinking through a fire hose for the first few weeks, few months, and then you can kind of sip out of the glass. But this space really does feel like that fire hose is going 24-7. There is just so much happening across so many different regions.
Speaker 1:There is, which is a good and bad thing. I think it's a good thing because you can get that momentum and there's lots happening, and so on. I think it's a good thing because you can get that momentum and there's lots happening, and so on. But I think that one of the downsides of that is it can sometimes cause confusion or potentially as well. It might seem as though there's a bit of ambulance chasing, so to speak. So focusing on what's material for the organization where you can have the biggest impact and opportunities, and sometimes that blurs that a little bit. So what?
Speaker 1:As a sustainability person, my role is to digest all of that information which is quite tricky because, as you mentioned, there's a lot going on at the moment and really spit that out and say right, what does this mean for our organization and what are the potential impacts and how should we address it? People in general will have different views on that, and you need to be ready to answer those questions as well. So it makes for some great, great conversations and some really interesting debate. You definitely have to use your brain, which is good. It's an interesting part of this job. We're getting into fields that haven't been touched on before, and that's what I think makes it exciting too In terms of nature versus biodiversity.
Speaker 3:how do you define the difference?
Speaker 1:Good question, and that's one that I get asked a lot as well. So the difference between nature and biodiversity at least my interpretation of it, is that biodiversity is the part of nature that is alive and includes every living thing on earth, whereas nature is all of the systems and all the forces and processes, such as weather and sea and mountains and so on. So if you think about it, biodiversity is kind of the things that are breathing or do exist and are alive and will pass and will die, whereas nature is kind of the broader aspect of that. Even just explaining that to you now, it's kind of confusing as well, so you can understand people that might not have been, you know, informed about this or read a lot on it. It kind of sounds like the same thing and often the two are used interchangeably.
Speaker 2:You clearly are a great communicator. You have been very successful at working within your teams and with your leadership to push forward a lot of different initiatives, as well as the leadership that you've brought upon with the climate reporting and how you're going to be managing very complex systems into the future, one area that we would love to explore is how do you move beyond reporting. One area that we would love to explore is how do you move beyond reporting. How do you advise other organizations and other sustainability leaders to support their own organizations, to move beyond that minimal compliance and rather utilize this momentum of reporting to become leaders, both from a sustainability perspective, but also from a commercial perspective?
Speaker 1:Very relevant question. Of course, there's going to be those organizations with the appetite just to keep things at a minimum compliance level and just report on what is minimum. But at the end of the day, regardless of the view, I think it does go beyond reporting itself. My ex-head of used to say disclosure drives performance. So there's an end in sight, which is the disclosure. But if you want to be able to tell a story, it needs to be based on something, and often you're going to want to be disclosing something that's positive. In the age of greenwashing and so on, you definitely obviously can't pick that up and I'm not sure if that would pass into any public report anyway. But at the end of the day, if you are looking to disclose something, or if you are required to disclose something, then you're going to want to be talking about factual performance. It's a great way to start having conversations around what that performance is in terms of climate or sustainability, and the appetite is nine times out of 10 going to be that you're going to want to tell a transparent and factual but positive story on that subject matters.
Speaker 1:I think identifying what's material is really important where a business can have the largest impact is critical. Basically, you don't want to be boiling the ocean. I think we saw that in the early days of sustainability reporting with two 300 page sustainability reports where organizations were probably just trying their best but at the end of the day, they were casting the net quite wide and potentially not having the impact where they could have the largest impact. So identifying the business case, building the strategy, executing and being transparent about bumps in the road as well, and then going public and disclosing is the final piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 1:I think one really interesting example that I saw recently was from IKEA. Of the puzzles, I think one really interesting example that I saw recently was from IKEA. They had to scale back their emission reduction targets but actually released a neat little video which explained which was just being open about the challenges that they've faced along the way. That one came out or I saw it last week actually. So for anyone that's listening, go and have a quick look at that. What I'm trying to say is that there is value beyond the reporting side of things and that may be one of the drivers for kicking off or continuing the momentum from a sustainability or climate front.
Speaker 3:It's a really good point. So the first person that we interviewed, our first guest, was Beth Dow, who's executive director at the Climate Leaders Coalition, and she was saying that one of the characteristics that she admires so much in your sustainability peers is their resilience, because it is putting forward a business case 10 times and having it approved on the 11th, kind of thing. What are some of the key strategies that you've found to building the business cases for sustainability initiatives that get over the line, particularly when the key stakeholder is the CFO or the risk team, who don't necessarily speak of the sustainability lingo?
Speaker 1:Resilience is a key word there and I'm glad that was mentioned. I think everyone who works in sustainability could probably associate with that pretty heavily. It's further to what I said before around building a business case, whether it's on sustainability or another matter. The initial stakeholder engagement is obviously really important and making sure that you've got buy-in from across the organization, but also is a really good opportunity to understand the challenges that you may be faced with when it comes time to have the hard conversations. Preparing yourself for that, not thinking that you're going to go in there and not receive any curveball questions or challenges on your approach. Yeah, it's about having that stakeholder engagement in the first place, kind of building the consensus internally as well and there will be trade-offs that you might have to take and supporting that with kind of a factual evidence base as well to support what the business case is that you're promoting.
Speaker 1:Going back to what I said earlier too learning to speak the language the finance teams. They talk in dollars. So if you can tie back what you're doing to dollars, you're kind of halfway there, depending on the outcome of that business case and the ROI. To me, in terms of building that business case, it really comes back to doing a lot of the groundwork beforehand internally and just really having honest and open conversations with the business or people within the business about their views on where that could go or what it might involve, and being honest with yourself. A lot of sustainability or people working in the sustainability space are probably pretty passionate, so there's probably a bias in some instances to get things over the line or you think that that might be helping to achieve the greater good. At the end of the day, though, you do need to consider that it is often a business decision on certain things and you need to balance that with what makes sense internally as well. So taking an optimistic but realistic approach to conversations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is probably one of my biggest takeaways from the conversation today the idea that sustainability professionals should learn to speak the language of other teams if they want to continue to promote their initiatives and how to communicate with them. It's probably going to take them that much further than staying in their own bubbles of sustainability and climate work only.
Speaker 1:If I can just add as well. Just on that point, do you think that then works to achieve the greater goal of combating sustainability throughout the organization? And, as a running joke in the sustainability space, that you're basically trying to do yourself out of a job. At the end of the day, if sustainability is integrated in a business, that's job done. So for me again, sowing those seeds and integrating sustainability into people's everyday jobs mean that you can have a much greater reach as well. If you're talking to people in different teams that then have different teams overseas or in different regions, then you've got your champions who can then go and help you promote or work on sustainability. So you get that multiplier or compounding effect.
Speaker 2:As we start to wind down the podcast, is there any question that you wish we had asked you today?
Speaker 1:No questions in particular, but I think one thing worth mentioning around those that are starting out in sustainability or sustainability teams out there and I've worked with a few and advised a few the thing is that things will always keep changing.
Speaker 1:So, yes, try and stay positive and optimistic but, as I mentioned before, there's times where you will have to be kind of a little bit more realistic around your role and what you've involved in.
Speaker 1:You made the joke previously of wanting to stay in sustainability and ended up in spreadsheets Hopefully the AI and things like that there can be a little bit less of that. But to me, I think the key takeaway is it is just like any other job and at the end of the day, we're all contributing towards a better outcome for future generations, but that doesn't change overnight. So there will be times where you feel beaten down or you're pretty down in the dumps or you know you read something and you're really at the bottom of that cycle, and then there's other times where you get some really good outcomes and be it on climate or community or whatever it is that you're involved with specifically on sustainability more broadly. So just rolling with the punches sometimes, but also acknowledging those successes when they do happen, because it is a bit of a wild ride and I'm sure it'll continue to be Definitely, definitely, definitely, On that note, but forward-looking.
Speaker 3:Final two questions that we ask all of our guests. First one is if you had a magic wand, what would you like to see happen in the next five years within climate and sustainability, or nature and biodiversity?
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably the latter A better understanding of nature and biodiversity and fast-tracking everyone's understanding of that and what it means for business. It's a loaded topic, as I mentioned, but I think it's potentially a sleeper issue, specifically for certain industries and organisations. So I've talked about some of the links between climate and more extreme weather events and the impacts this has not only on business but our everyday lives as people in South East Queensland and Queensland, north East and South Wales are about to experience this week. So, in short, kind of links between climate and nature are clear and it'd be good if they were demystified. Awesome, love it.
Speaker 2:Let's end today on a high note. Can you take us out by telling us a piece of positive climate news that you've heard recently?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. So there's lots of mixed climate news coming out at the moment, especially in certain countries, in the States. It's been quite interesting for me to see the States over there shaping the climate policy so specifically. If we look at States like California and New York, so in the absence of a federal policy on certain aspects, they're leading the charge. So by default they're shaping it as well because they're moving first. So there's pros and cons to having things done at the federal level and in a country as big as the states as well, state level. But for me, one positive I've taken is seeing some of those states step up and take some leading action on climate, which has been good to see Luke.
Speaker 3:that was so good. Thank you.
Speaker 2:This was Green Fix with your hosts Loretta Gutierrez and Dan Levington. You this was Green Fix with your hosts Loretta Gutierrez and Dan Levington. You can get your Green Fix every two weeks on Apple Podcasts, spotify or Pocket Casts.
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