ESG Snapshot: Issue 87

This week's highlights include:

• Waste target miss. Victoria won't meet its 2030 waste diversion target without new waste to energy infrastructure, suggests a new audit report.
• ACCU developments. DCCEEW has provided an update on a proposed innovative new ACCU method.
• Electrification. Greater participation in aggregator programs is crucial, says a new parliamentary report on household electrification.
• Energy efficiency. A Victorian Bill on energy efficiency has advanced to the Upper House.
• Large emitter assessment. WA's EPA has recommended approval for a new large-emitting project, leaving the control of emissions entirely to the federal Safeguard Mechanism.
• 1% nature spend. The Greens have pledged to push for allocating 1% of the federal Budget to nature.
• Funding shift. After stripping $200,000 a year from two environment groups, the NT government has slightly increased funding to NT Landcare.

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

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has committed a re-elected Labor government to the introduction of a $2.3 billion subsidy scheme for home batteries from 1 July this year.

The program would reduce the cost of a typical installed battery by 30%, with more than one million new batteries expected by 2030, according to the Labor Party.

One in three Australian households now have solar – but only one in forty households have a battery.

A Senate committee inquiry into residential electrification has released its final report, which recommends:

• encouraging household uptake of rooftop solar, home batteries, bi-direction electric vehicle chargers and home energy management systems, as well as participation in aggregator programs that coordinate the management of power in response to grid and market conditions.
• examining how community batteries can spread the benefits of rooftop solar to consumers who are unable to install their own systems.
• considering cost-effective tuition for apprentices, including electrical apprentices.

DCCEEW has issued an update on the development of a proposed Integrated Farm and Land Management (IFLM) method under the ACCU scheme.

The IFLM method will be the first ACCU method to combine multiple activities that store carbon in the land into a single method.

It will initially enable crediting of carbon stored from the managed regeneration and plantings of native forest, and from improvements to soil carbon. However, it will be designed to enable the addition of activities over time.

The ACCU landfill gas method sunsetted on 31 March. The method supports projects that converts waste into biomethane to produce electricity, or into CO2 for easier destruction.

Projects that started their crediting period before the method expired aren't affected, but new project registrations under the method won't be accepted. An updated method is under development.

A commitment to spend 1% of the federal Budget on nature features in a suite of new Greens election policies. Other commitments include:

• mandating nature risk disclosure for businesses and governments.
• making greenwashing illegal through updated consumer and corporation legislation. 
• inserting a climate trigger in federal environmental assessment legislation.
• ending native forest logging.

The Climate Council has issued an election scorecard, comparing Labor, the Coalition, and the Greens.

The Investor Group on Climate Change has released its latest annual State of Net Zero report.

"Investor ambition on climate remains strong despite persistent challenges," the report says.

"Most investors now have climate policies and net zero targets in support of their fiduciary duty to beneficiaries, stewardship practices are shifting beyond transparency toward driving real-world action, and constructive
engagement is contributing to a more consistent federal policy approach," it says.

The Carbon Market Institute has released its latest annual Carbon Market report.

Contributors include RepuTex, Gilbert + Tobin, Norton Rose Fulbright, the Indigenous Carbon Industry Network, South Pole, and WollemAI.

Norton Rose Fulbright has released an update on the draft revised corporate net-zero standard proposed by the Science-Based Targets Initiative.

Grant opportunity - industrial decarbonisation. ARENA is inviting applications under round two of its Powering the Regions - Industrial Transformation Stream, with $70 million on offer.

Focus areas for round two include supporting supporting highly innovative, first of a kind technologies and solutions that have the potential to significantly reduce emissions. Applications close on 15 July.

Grant opportunity - critical minerals. The NSW overnment has launched a $2.5 million co-investment seed funding program for critical minerals exploration projects. The program has four funding streams:

• exploration geochemistry: Up to $50,000 per project.
• exploration geophysics: Up to $70,000 per project.
• exploration drilling – less than 250 metres depth: Up to $150,000 per project.
• exploration drilling – greater than 250 metres depth: Up to $250,000 per project.

Australia's first declared Renewable Energy Zone will start construction within months after the NSW government awarded ACEREZ the contract and reached financial close to deliver the Central-West Orana REZ transmission project.

ACEREZ is a consortium of ACCIONA, COBRA, and Endeavour Energy. It will design, build and finance the Central-West Orana REZ transmission project and operate and maintain it for the next 35 years.

The NSW EPA has issued an updated Noise guide for local government.

Victorian agencies have made "considerable progress" in building the state's capacity to recover and reprocess waste, says a new report from the state's Auditor-General.

However, the state is not on track to deliver its target of diverting 80% of waste from landfill by 2030, says the report on recycling resources from waste.

"The proportion of waste going to landfill has not changed in the four years since the circular economy policy started," it says. 

However, there could still be a path towards the 2030 target if the department invests in new recycling infrastructure.

"For example, there are four thermal-waste-to-energy facilities currently under development in Victoria," it says. "These thermal-waste-to-energy facilities will have a combined capacity of 1.1 million tonnes per year."

"Recycling Victoria may also issue licences for additional thermal-waste to energy facilities up to a combined capacity of 2 million tonnes under the government’s waste-to-energy cap," it says.

"If these thermal-waste-to-energy facilities come online and reach full operating capacity, up to 87% of waste could be diverted from landfill," the report says.

The report adds that data inaccuracies mean it isn't clear if the government is on track to halve the amount of organic material that goes to landfill.

However, it concludes agencies are on track to deliver the target for every Victorian household to have access to a food organics and garden organics waste service by 2030.

Statutory development - energy efficiency. A Bill to expand the Victorian Energy Upgrades scheme from 2030 to 2045 has passed the Legislative Assembly.

The Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025 is now before the Legislative Council.

The Victorian government has placed an order for 50 gigalitres of water from the Victorian Desalination Plant. 

The decision follows Geelong storages hitting a six year low of 42.2% and the first double digit annual decline in Melbourne’s water storage levels since the Millenium Drought.

Melbourne's water storages are 78.1% compared with 91.5% at the same time last year.

Open consultations:

• Planning legislation. The Tasmanian government has released a draft Bill that would allow certain types of development applications to be determined by independent Development Assessment Panels (DAP), appointed by the Tasmanian Planning Commission. Comments are due by 24 April.

Statutory development - planning. The Legislative Assembly has passed the State Development Coordination and Facilitation Bill, and it has now moved to the Legislative Council.

A business and its sole director have been convicted and fined $340,000 for intentionally causing serious environmental harm in the Adelaide Hills.

Tara Hills Pastoral and its director Philip Rollond were found guilty of eight contraventions of the Environment Protection Act, related to the dumping of waste.

Open consultations:

• Planning regulations. New draft planning amendment regulations would exclude electric vehicle charging stations from the definition of 'development'. Comments are due by April 22.

The WA EPA has released a report recommending approval of a TransAlta project that would build and operate up to 150MW of new gas reciprocating engines at BHP Nickel West's Mt Keith nickel mine.

The project would annually emit up to 164,380 tonnes of greenhouse gas. However, the EPA does not assess the impact of these emissions as the state government now relies solely on the federal Safeguard Mechanism to regulate large emitters.

The EPA notes that TransAlta did investigate the alternative of relying on firmed renewables. However, "the exclusive use of renewable energy for the proposal is not considered feasible at this stage".

Zephyr Energy's Parron 489MW wind farm, proposed for a site near Badgingarra, does not require assessment, the WA EPA has decided.

After terminating funding agreements with the Environment Centre NT and Arid Lands Environment Centre, each worth $100,000 annually, the Territory government has announced it will provide $150,000 over five years to Landcare NT.

New listings are in blue.

A group of anonymous senior food industry executives, in consultation with campaign group Inside Track, has released a memo warning that "we have reached a moment of threat to food security like none other we have seen".

"The data on degrading soil health, water scarcity, global heating and extreme weather events back up what we are seeing from within the system: an interconnected set of crises."

"Mitigation strategies meanwhile are simply not commensurate with the level of the risk we are facing. And yet they are being presented to investors as a fitting 'solution' to the situation we are in," the memo says.

New EU data shows a 5% reduction in emissions in 2024, compared to 2023 levels, from the reporting stationary installations and aircraft operators.

The result means EU ETS emissions are now around 50% below 2005 levels, and are on track to achieve the 2030 target of -62%. 

While the ocean economy doubled in real terms, from US$1.3 trillion in 1995 to US$2.6 trillion in 2020, co-ordinated policy action is essential to safeguard its long-term prosperity and sustainability, according to a new OECD report.

Over the past 25 years, the ocean economy – driven by offshore oil and gas, marine and coastal tourism, marine fishing and aquaculture, maritime transport and port activities – contributed between 3% and 4% of global gross value added and grew steadily with no substantial contractions, it says.

But various forces – including climate change, demographic shifts, trade disruptions, and insufficient investments in productivity and green energy – could slow or even reverse growth.

In a future scenario where investment in productivity is not forthcoming and the energy transition stalls, global ocean economic activity could decline by around 20% below 2020 levels by mid-century. In contrast, an accelerated shift to cleaner energy combined with technological innovation could support continued ocean economy growth.

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