ESG Snapshot: Issue 60
This week's highlights include:
- Human rights. The ACT has become the first Australian jurisdiction to legislate the right to a healthy environment.
- Crossbench demands. Senate crossbenchers have made numerous recommendations in a committee report on the Future Made in Australia Bill.
- COP29. The president of the upcoming COP29 climate talks, Mukhtar Babayev, has visited Australia (see international news).
- Supreme Court case. Victoria's EPA has launched court proceedings alleging a waste company breached its general environmental duty.
- Composting veto. The ACCC proposes not to approve collaboration by four Tasmanian councils on a new composting facility.
- Low carbon concrete. A new ACT policy requires the use of low carbon concrete on government projects, where appropriate.
- Nature hearing. A NSW inquiry will this week conduct a hearing into the state government's proposed biodiversity offsets bill.
ESG Snapshot - powered by the Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia and curated by Earthed.
Statutory development and consultation opportunity - nature repair market. The federal government is inviting comments by 30 September on Rules that will operate under the Nature Repair Act 2023.
The Rules will deal with matters including project registration, the contents of biodiversity certificates, the register, and assurance and compliance.
The Climate Change Authority has released its review of potential technology transition and emissions pathways for six sectors – agriculture and land, built environment, electricity and energy, industry and waste, and transport and resources.
The report is backed by CSIRO modelling which focused on two main scenarios. One scenario is consistent with Australia's current emissions targets - a 43% reduction on the 2005 level by 2030 and net zero by 2050 - in a world tracking to temperature rise of less than 2°C.
The other is consistent with greater ambition and limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot, with Australia reaching net zero by 2040.
In conjunction with releasing the review report, the Authority has released submissions to the review discussion paper.
Six new projects have been successful under the Victorian-South Australian Capacity Investment Scheme tender round, and are expected to start operating by mid-2027.
The successful projects are:
- EnergyAustralia's 350MW/1400MWh Wooreen battery system in the Latrobe Valley.
- Progress Power's 115MW/230MWh Springvale Energy Hub battery system to be developed on the site of a former landfill in south-eastern Melbourne.
- Pacific Green Energy's 250MW battery system near Mount Gambier.
- Zen Energy's Solar River 170MW/653MWh battery, located north of Adelaide between Burra and Morgan.
- Pacific Blue's 60MW/143MWh Clements Gap battery, at the Clements Gap wind farm in South Australia's mid-north.
- Energy Australia's 50MW/200MWh Hallett battery in Canownie, 210 km north of Adelaide.
A Senate committee inquiry into the Future Made in Australia Bill has issued its report, with crossbench senators making numerous recommendations.
Both the Greens senators (nine recommendations) and Senator Pocock (also nine) recommend that it be made clear that the National Interest Framework won't be used to support fossil fuel industries.
They also urge more support for the electrification of Australian households.
Independent, former Liberal Senator David Van made seven recommendations.
Coalition senators participating in the inquiry described the Bill as "highly flawed, incoherent and ineffective".
A Senate committee inquiry into the transition to electric vehicles has scheduled hearings for 13 September, 11 October and 17 October.
The federal government has launched a new digital Australian Critical Minerals Prospectus, showcasing more than 55 investment-ready projects to potential investors and buyers from around the world.
Parliament's Joint Standing Committee on Treaties will today conduct a hearing on a marine biodiversity agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
CSIRO and Murdoch University have launched a Bioplastics Innovation Hub, an $8 million collaboration that will work with industry partners to develop 100% compostable plastic.
The first key focus area will be a co-investment with WA-based biotechnology company Ecopha Biotech Pty Ltd, to develop a new process for water bottle production using compostable bioplastics derived from food industry waste.
The Climate Council has released a new report rating the clean energy performance of each jurisdiction.
Award opportunity. Nominations are now being accepted for the 36th annual Banksia sustainability awards. Entries must be submitted by 6 December.
The consortium behind the Central Queensland Hydrogen (CQ-H2) project, to be located near Gladstone, have lodged an EPBC referral for a 23-kilometre hydrogen transport pipeline.
Referrals have already been made for other parts of the project - the hydrogen production and liquefaction facilities, an industrial water pipeline, and a jetty.
Queensland’s $45 million Zero Emission Vehicle rebate scheme, which started in mid-2022, concluded last Monday.
The scheme initially offered means-tested rebates of $3,000, which were subsequently increased to $6,000. More than 10,000 Queensland individuals and businesses received rebates.
Open consultations:
- PFAS. The state government is consulting on a proposal to amend the threshold values for PFAS in regulated waste. Comments are due by 27 September.
A parliamentary inquiry into the government's biodiversity offsets reform Bill will hold a hearing on Thursday.
A parliamentary inquiry into beneficial and productive post-mining land use will hold a hearing on 21 October.
The EPA has released the results of an April auction under the Hunter River Salinity Trading scheme.
A total of 200 credits were allocated between eight companies. The auction raised a total go $2,502,883.
Open consultations:
- Coal mines. The EPA is surveying community members on the regulation of coal mines, with responses due by 2 October.
The ACT has become the first Australian jurisdiction to enshrine in law the right to a healthy environment, following the passage of the Human Rights (Healthy Environment) Amendment Bill.
The right to a healthy environment has been an emerging human right at an international level for some time.
The ACT government has issued a Low carbon concrete policy, which commits it to using low carbon concrete in all future government construction projects, where appropriate.
The policy will be implemented in a phased approach, with phase one commencing on 1 January next year. From this date, designers, engineers, and builders will be required to provide options for using low carbon concrete in government projects, including detailed specifications where applicable.
The EPA has launched Supreme Court proceedings alleging Veolia breached its General Environmental Duty by not properly controlling odour at its Hampton Park landfill. The EPA is also alleging the company did not comply with its operating licence for the landfill.
The General Environmental Duty regime, which was intended to mark a shift from a reactive regulatory approach to a prevention-based one, came into effect on 1 July 2021.
The state government has awarded Victoria’s first zero emission bus contracts, intended to fast track the replacement of diesel buses with 600 new electric buses by 2035.
The new contracts to provide electric bus services have been awarded to Dysons, CDC and Kinetic.
The state government is inviting survey responses in the first stage of the review of the Victorian Energy Upgrades scheme. Comments are due by 22 September. Further consultation will be undertaken in the first half of 2025.
The ACCC has issued a draft determination signalling that it will not approve an application for four councils to jointly contract with a waste company to design, build and operate an organic waste facility in Copping.
The ACCC says allowing the Copping project to proceed would likely mean that a much larger, competing proposal for a facility at Boyer wouldn't proceed, because of insufficient feedstock. The Boyer project has received $6 million in seed funding from the federal and state governments.
Consultation opportunity and statutory development - container deposits. The state government has released a draft Environment Protection (Beverage Container Deposit Scheme) Amendment Bill 2024. Comments are due by 25 October.
Statutory development - plastic items ban. An expanded range of single-use plastic items are banned in South Australia, as of the start of this month.
With support from Green Industries SA, the Spencer Gulf and West Coast Prawn Association has launched Pathways to Net Zero – a guide to help members adopt more sustainable practices.
The federal government has declared an area in the Indian Ocean off Bunbury, between Cape Naturaliste and Dawesville, as a renewable energy zone.
The South West Interconnected System is predicted to need 50GW more electricity by 2042, and the declared area could generate up to 11.4GW of wind energy.
The declared area covers about 4,000 square kilometres, which is about half the size of the originally proposed area, and is further offshore, being 30 kilometres offshore at its closest point.
ESG Snapshot is distributed to C-suite executives and sustainability and climate professionals in companies and organisations that are members of BCSDA, which is the local network partner of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. For membership enquiries, contact bcsda@bcsda.org.au. ESG Snapshot is available to BCSDA non-members on a six-week trial basis.
BCSDA welcomes enquiries from organisations and companies interested in distributing ESG Snapshot under their own logo to their members, clients or suppliers.
New listings are in blue.
In FY24, Coles expanded trials of a methane-reducing feed supplement to six operations, with research showing the supplement leads to a 45% reduction in methane emissions.
The retailer has also diverted 86.7% of solid waste from landfill, exceeding its target of 85% by FY25.
Coles has also increased the percentage of own brand packaging that is recyclable to 87.4%.
Sage uses a geothermal technology that captures heat and pressure, which it says can be used in a wider range of locations than traditional geothermal technologies.
Meta has also issued its 2024 sustainability report.
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev recently visited Australia, and also attended the recent Pacific Islands Forum Leaders meeting in Tonga.
Minister Babayev met with key leaders including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the prime ministers of Tonga and the Cook Islands, Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen, Labor MP Dr. Mike Freelander (Chair of the Australia-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Network), and NSW Nationals MP Ben Franklin (President of the NSW Legislative Council).
Climate Week NYC will take place on September 22 to 29, and the UN will host the inaugural Summit of the Future from 22 to 23 September.
Australian news items in all issues of ESG Snapshot can be searched by relevant Sustainable Development Goal category. To do this, click on the '17 SDGs' link at the top of this web page, or on any of the SDG keys below.
Click to search via SDG
