ESG Snapshot: Issue 101

This week's highlights include:

• Algal bloom inquiry. A Senate committee will examine the causes of South Australia's toxic algal bloom, and the adequacy of response measures.
• First remarks. In her first parliamentary remarks as shadow environment minister, Liberal MP Angie Bell has quoted Ken Henry and The Guardian.
• Carbon credits. Rio Tinto and Inpex have registered new projects to generate Australian carbon credits.
• PFAS. PFAS-contaminated waste volumes have risen from near-zero to more than 100,000 tonnes over eight years, says a DCCEEW waste report.
• Climate change is local. The NSW Appeal Court has found the Independent Planning Commission didn't properly consider climate change factors.
• Emissions modelling. An activist group says a coal company has used an unsuitable method to calculate the cost of emissions from its NSW project.
• Coal to biomass. The NSW government is inviting views on a plan to convert a mothballed coal plant to a biomass-fuelled power plant.
• A promise kept - sort of. The Queensland LNP's pledge to continue funding for the Environmental Defenders Office hasn't been broken, according to the state's Attorney-General Deb Frecklington.

ESG Snapshot - powered by the Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia and curated by ESG communications and content consultancy Earthed.

The Senate has launched a committee inquiry into the algal blooms in South Australia, that will examine their causes, frequency, scale and duration, as well as the adequacy of response measures.

It is scheduled to report on 28 October.

In 2023-24, Australia generated about 7.3 million tonnes of hazardous waste. This is about 10% of all waste generated, and is a significant increase over tonnages reported in 2022-23, according to a new analysis released by DCCEEW.

A total of 44% of the hazardous waste was sent to landfill, says the report, prepared by Blue Environment and Ascend.

The major contributors to the quantities and growth continue to be asbestos (mostly in NSW) and contaminated soil (NSW, Victoria and Queensland).

In addition, a major cause of the reported increase appears to be due to a significant improvement in reporting by Queensland, the report says.

The top four wastes generated by weight in 2023-24, were contaminated soils (28%), asbestos-containing material (16%), grease trap wastes (7%) and tyres (7%).

Reported PFAS-contaminated waste has risen from near-zero to more than 100,000 tonnes in the last eight years, the report says, adding that this is likely to be an under-estimate.

The report also points out that an estimated five million tonnes of brine wastes will require further remediation and management as the Queensland coal seam gas industry begins its decommissioning phase from as early as 2030.

The report notes that there are shortages of hazardous waste management infrastructure in various areas, as evidenced by persistently high rates of short-term storage (almost 640,000 tonnes nationally, or 9% of all reported tonnes).

"In addition there is the much larger-scale practice of retaining wastes at the site of generation, in potentially sub-standard management, due to [the] lack of solutions," it says.

New projects authorised by the Clean Energy Regulator to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) include two Rio Tinto projects in Queensland - one soil carbon project and an environmental plantings project.

Meanwhile, Inpex has registered a reforestation and afforestation project in Western Australia.

In her first remarks to Parliament as shadow environment minister, Liberal MP Angie Bell noted that former Treasury secretary Ken Henry has described Australia's environment protection laws as having "failed to stop the degradation of Australia's natural environment and held back economic growth".

"It's true that, under the Albanese government, not only are Australians worse off, with soaring cost-of-living pressures, but Australia's environment is also worse off," Bell said. 

"We only need to look at Labor's failure on the algal bloom in South Australia, which has been blooming for months and months," Bell said.

"Scientists in South Australia have been raising the alarm for over 18 months on this, and, according to the Guardian, 13,800 marine creatures have died since March of this year alone, and over 400 species have been affected," she said.

"Not only has our precious marine life been impacted but the local economy in South Australia has also been severely impacted. It could have been addressed much, much sooner."

Meanwhile, South Australian Labor MP Louise Miller-Frost told Parliament that the South Australian algal bloom "is not an early warning of climate change - this is a late warning".

"Scientists tell us there are three factors behind this algal bloom: Murray floodwaters pushing nutrients into the gulf; an upwelling of nutrient-rich water from deep off the continental shelf, caused by changing ocean currents; and a 2½ degree rise in seawater temperatures," Miller-Frost said.

"Climate change is involved in all three of these factors."

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has re-introduced her EPBC (Climate Trigger) Bill into the new Parliament.

"We're in 2025, and the climate crisis is not something off in the future - it is unfolding before our very eyes," Senator Hanson-Young said. "All you need to do is look at what's happening on the coastline and along the beaches in my home state of South Australia."

"The Greens have been calling for a climate trigger in our national laws for a long time," Hanson-Young said.

"But, actually, we weren't the first ones to think of it. Even the Prime Minister himself, Anthony Albanese, in 2005, 20 years ago, introduced a Bill in the other place, calling for the exact same thing. Twenty years ago, the Prime Minister was ahead of the curve; 20 years later, I ask him to stop playing catch-up."

A Clean Energy Council strategy update says the organisation is "evolving its role" to help guide the energy transition.

"We need to be clear and realistic about the important role of gas in the transition," the update says.

"As we have previously stated, gas will be required in the short and medium term and it is critical to supporting the grid as we phase out coal from the system in a controlled and deliberate way."

The Council has several new board members and is seeking a new chief executive following Kane Thornton's decision in May to step down.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has released its latest Connections Scorecard, which shows a surge in new generation and storage capacity reaching full output in the National Electricity Market.

A total of 29 projects with a total capacity of 4.4GW completed NEM connection processes in the 12 months to June.

Earlier stage developments were also strong, with 260 projects (totalling 53 GW) in the connections process as at the end of June, which is a 39% increase in capacity compared to the same time last year.

Of this, 7 GW is already built and is commissioning to full output.

ARENA has awarded a $44.9 million grant to Calix to build a novel demonstration plant using its Zero Emissions Steel Technology (ZESTY).

Powered by renewable electricity and hydrogen, the plant will aim to produce up to 30,000 tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen direct reduced iron (HDRI) and hot briquetted iron (HBI) each year.

ZESTY is based on Calix's proprietary Flash Calciner technology. The new funding follows successful results from ARENA-backed engineering studies for the demonstration plant.

The latest funding will also support early-stage engineering studies for a much larger commercial scale ZESTY plant.

A changing climate, which is expected to exacerbate extreme weather events, will likely continue to present challenges for the insurance industry, says a new ACCC report on the insurance industry, which is focused on cyclone insurance.

Documents also suggest some insurers are accounting for expected increases in natural hazard events in their current pricing and offerings to customers, the report says.

"Insurance affordability and availability challenges are more likely to impact households that are most at risk of extreme weather events," it says.

The Senate's Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee has launched a new inquiry into the development of a hemp industry in Australia.

The inquiry will examine matters including the production of bio-based plastics.

Consultation opportunity - offshore greenhouse gas storage. DCCEEW is seeking feedback on an exposure draft of a remake of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Resource Management and Administration) Regulations.

Proposed changes include new data management requirements and updated penalty provisions. Comments are due by 8 August.

Consultation opportunity - hydrogen. DCCEEW is seeking comments on two new regulatory guidance documents for the hydrogen industry - one on hydrogen production, and the other on hydrogen refuelling.

Comments are due by 19 August.

The EY Net Zero Centre has issued a new report on Australia's 2035 climate target.

"Committing to a national emissions reduction target of 65-75% by 2035 from 2005 levels would be responsible, and create new opportunities," the report says.

"Shifts in technology costs mean Australian governments and businesses do not need to choose between addressing climate change and managing cost-of-living
pressures," the report says.

The Climate Council has issued a new briefing titled Stronger target, safer future: Why Australia's 2035 target matters.

The federal government has launched a new website - ev.gov.au - to provide information on to electric vehicles.

The website provides information on buying, owning, and maintaining an EV.

Standards for mercury and its compounds have been added to the The Industrial Chemicals Environmental Management Standard (IChEMS) Register.

"For the first time in our history, Australia controls all the variables - the resources everyone needs, the climate leadership platform, and the capital to deploy at scale," says a Substack post by former diplomat Luke Heilbuth, chief executive of BWD Strategic.

EPBC developments:

• HMC Capital's StorEnergy 1 Pty Ltd has made an EPBC referral for two Battery Energy Storage Systems at Columboola in Queensland - one with a capacity of 400MW/1,950MWh and the other with a capacity of 150MW/1,449MWh.
• MRP has made an EPBC referral for the 500MW Sunny Corner wind farm in the Sunny Corner State Forest.

Open consultations:

• The Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee is inviting comments on whether to remake four ACCU methods that have either sunsetted, or will do so shortly - land and sea transport, reforestation and afforestation, source-separated organic waste, and beef cattle herd management. Comments are due by 4 August.
• DCCEEW is consulting on the merits of running Capacity Investment Scheme tenders for aggregations of small energy projects and technologies. Comments are due by 5 August.
• DCCEEW is consulting on two aspects of consumer energy resources. The two aspects are data sharing, and redefining roles for market and power systems operations. Submissions are due by 20 August.
• Treasury has released a paper on policy options for a possible sustainable financial product labelling framework. Comments are due by 29 August.
• Offshore carbon capture and storage. DCCEEW is consulting on three offshore CCS guidance documents. Comments are due by 12 September.

The Queensland government has gazetted an amending regulation associated with its recent overhaul of assessment procedures for large-scale renewable energy projects.

The Planning (Social Impact and Community Benefit) and Other Legislation Amendment Regulation 2025 amends the Planning Regulation to prescribe that development for which social impact assessment is required includes wind farms and solar farms with a capacity of 1MW or more.

It also outlines that an applicant can request a departmental decision that a social impact assessment report or community benefit agreement is not required.

In addition, it specifies that pre-existing applications that have not been decided will be taken to be not properly made and will be required to be remade after completing the community benefit system process.

The Queensland government has honoured its pre-election pledge that state government funding for the Environmental Defenders Office would continue, even though it is no longer funding the organisation, according to state Attorney-General Deb Frecklington.

"The former Labor Government provided limited-term funding to EDO, which expired on 30 June 2025," Frecklington said in a response to a petition. "No additional funding was budgeted beyond this period of time."

"The Crisafulli Government has honoured its pre-election commitment by maintaining EDO's funding agreement until its expiration on 30 June 2025," she said.

Open consultations:

• The Queensland government has launched a statutory review of the environmentally relevant activity (ERA) standards that form part of the Great Barrier Reef protection regulations for agriculture. Comments are due by 8 August.

Court ruling - climate change and development consent. A community environment group has had a major win in the NSW Court of Appeal in a dispute over planning consent granted to MACH Energy Australia Pty Ltd to extend the life of a coal mine.

After the NSW Independent Planning Commission approved the Mount Pleasant coal mine optimisation project, the community environment group sought a judicial review of the Commission's decision in the Land and Environment Court.

It argued that the Commission had failed to consider mandatory considerations, including the likely impacts of the project on the local community and NSW due to climate change.

The group went to the Court of Appeal after the Land and Environment Court dismissed its application for a judicial review of whether the mandatory considerations had been properly considered.

The Appeal judges unanimously accepted that the Commission should have considered the likely impacts of climate change on the environment in the locality, as a result of the project's emissions, and that it didn't do so.

"There is nothing in the Commission's reasons to indicate that the Commission, having accepted that Scope 3 emissions would make up 98% of the Project’s GHG emissions and that those emissions would contribute to global climate change, went on to consider the impact of climate change on the locality (which was the required causal enquiry)," Justice Julie Ward held.

"The evidence before the Commission established that the effects of global warming on New South Wales and, in particular, in the locality during the life of the project and beyond, were such as to cause, and increase the incidence of, extreme weather events (flood, bushfire, drought, reduced run-off etc), increased temperatures (in excess of global averages) and rising sea levels which would compromise residences and business in the locality (and potentially lead to evacuation) and cause significant economic and personal harm to the population, both human and non-human, and the environment which may be irreparable," Justice Christine Adamson held.

"The evidence indicated that there were features of the locality which made the locality particularly susceptible to the effects of global warming," Justice Adamson held.

"The Commission’s report did not deal with any of these matters. Nor did it seek to distinguish between the effects of global warming generally and the effects of climate change in the locality of the project," the judge said.

"This omission was not only material but also highly significant having regard to the evidence before the Commission," she said.

The matter has been remitted back to the Land and Environment Court.

If a proposed coal mine extension was required to use standard NSW greenhouse gas costings it would be found to have no net benefit, but it is using modelling that instead ascribes a major net benefit to the project, says a new analysis.

The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility has examined the modelling of the economic cost of emissions from the proposed extension of the Hunter Valley Operations (HVO) coal mine.

Public projects must use NSW's current Treasury guidelines, introduced in 2023, which align the evaluation of emissions with the state’s legislated climate targets.

If these guidelines were applied to the HVO project, then the cost to NSW of the project's emissions would be more than $6.3 billion, ACCR says.

But private projects don't have to use the Treasury guidelines, and the proponents of the expansion - Yancoal and Glencore - have used modelling that leads them to conclude the cost of the emissions from an extension of the project's life would be much lower - $3.7 billion.

ACCR says all large-emitting projects - public and private - should be required to use the Treasury guidelines.

The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure has referred to the Independent Planning Commission its assessment of the merits of Verdant Earth's proposed restart of the 151MW Redbank power station using biomass as a fuel.

The power station, located in the Hunter Valley, was fuelled by coal tailings until it was mothballed in 2014.

The $70 million conversion would enable the power plant to use purpose-grown energy plantations and crops, agricultural residues, demolition waste, and vegetation legally cleared for infrastructure projects.

Verdant Earth says that in its first three years the power plant would predominantly rely on energy from waste, but would then gradually transition to 70% purpose-grown vegetation as a feedstock.

Total scope 1 emissions for the project are estimated to be 17,773 t CO2-e per year.

Verdant Earth's application for planning consent follows an unsuccessful attempt to have the project approved through a modification of the original consent for the coal-fired plant.

The NSW Net Zero Commission has released submissions to its 2025 consultation.

The NSW Treasurer has issued a new direction on climate-related financial disclosures that applies to government departments and agencies, as well as Sydney University and UNSW.

Grant opportunity - low carbon landscapes. Applications must be submitted by 7 August for grants of up to $1 million for landscape-scale projects that deliver carbon abatement.

EnergyCo has launched the Agrivoltaics Handbook - a guide to preserving productive agricultural practices while meeting the state's growing renewable energy needs.

The guide was developed by Farm Renewables Consulting and Progressive Agriculture, with support from EnergyCo.

Written transcript is now available of a 17 July hearing of a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the impact of renewable energy zones on regional communities.

The Banksia Foundation has extended the deadline to enter the NSW Sustainability awards to 9 September.

Finalists will be announced in early November.

The Emergency Management Committee of the SA Cabinet has signed off on a $28 million harmful algal bloom support package, with the federal and state governments each contributing $14 million.

The largest share of the funds ($8.5 million) will go towards expanded early detection and monitoring of coastal algal blooms.

A Harmful Algal Bloom Taskforce will meet every Thursday, and will be followed by a media conference.

Public forums will be organised for affected coastal communities, and public information campaigns will be organised to rebuild confidence and encourage visits to coastal regions.

The State Government has also released new underwater footage captured by the patrol vessel Southern Ranger, which visited sites in the Gulf of St Vincent last week, including several important marine sanctuaries.

Meanwhile, the Biodiversity Council has released a briefing paper listing seven key actions to urgently respond to the algal bloom.

The South Australian government's new trade and investment strategy lists 'renewables, fuel and cleantech' and 'mining and minerals processing' as being among the state's globally competitive industry sectors.

"Our unique combination of sun, wind and valuable minerals in the Upper Spencer Gulf and surrounds, position our state as a global green economy leader," says Premier Peter Malinauskas in an introduction to the strategy.

Energy and Decarbonisation Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson has announced the terms of reference for an independent review into Synergy's electricity billing practices.

The WA government has announced new contracts totalling $342 million as part of what it terms "the largest investment in electricity transmission infrastructure in more than a decade".

New listings are in blue.

The International Court of Justice has handed down a unanimous advisory ruling on the climate change obligations of nations, which was initiated by a group of young law students in Vanuatu and other Pacific islands.

Their efforts eventually resulted in the UN General Assembly formally seeking the Court's advice.

In a commentary on the decision, UNSW academics Wesley Morgan and Gillian Moon said the Court has concluded that "countries are legally obliged to prevent harms caused by climate change, in a ruling that repudiates Australia’s claims it is not legally responsible for emissions from our fossil fuel exports".

During the court's deliberations, Australia sided with other fossil fuel exporters and major emitters – including Saudi Arabia, the United States and China – to argue state obligations on climate change are restricted to those set out in climate-specific treaties such as the Paris Agreement, Morgan and Moon noted.

"But the court disagreed," they said.

"It found countries have additional obligations to protect the climate and take action to prevent climate harm inside and outside their boundaries. These obligations arise in human rights law, the law of the sea, and general principles of international law."

The decision says that the failure of a country to take appropriate action to protect the climate system – "including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies" – may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that country.

Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, Ralph Regenvanu, welcomed the advisory opinion.

"The ICJ ruling marks an important milestone in the fight for climate justice," he reportedly said.

"This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples."

The ruling was also welcomed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

"As the International Court of Justice has laid out today, the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement must be the basis of all climate policies under the current climate change treaty regime," Guterres said.

See additional comments by Christiana Figueres here.

The UK government has confirmed its plan to integrate Greenhouse Gas Removals (GGRs) into the UK Emissions Trading Scheme by 2029, with legislation targeted for 2028.

Engineered removals of CO2 will definitely be included, and nature-based removals might also be included.

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