Dont wait for permission to go carbon neutral

[Music]

imagine this space

filled to the ceiling with diesel fuel

that would be about 9 million litres

that’s what austral fisheries burn each

year to

catch around four million kilos of

seafood

as someone who prides himself in being

sustainable and whose business relies on

a healthy planet and a healthy ocean

that just doesn’t seem to stack up so

since 2016

uh we’ve been carbon neutral and i’m

talking to you today about

how and why we got there a good mate of

mine assembled 110 australians

with big brains and generous hearts for

a week-long odyssey

of the senses and the mind in the waters

around the east antarctic

it was spending time with these folk in

this incredible place that i was i

confess

transformed for the first time i felt i

had

permission to talk about climate change

and the motivation to do something about

it the question was

what could i do to make a difference in

my position

as austral’s ceo what might a fishing

business be able to do about

climate we are best practice we sort of

pride ourselves in doing everything

top shelf so there would be no green

washing no cutting corners

but it also had to be an arrangement

where it was able to add

shareholder value the journey and the

thought processes

did stimulate more than their fair share

of sleepless nights

uh the 2am scary monsters were real and

i got to i got to worry about

whether my board and colleagues and

friends might

think i’d lost my mind i got to stress

about

telling the world actually how much co2

we’re responsible for

and i got to wonder um how how could we

make it all pay

could we make the numbers stack up if

that wasn’t enough

there was no real road map there was no

guidelines for determining how we got

there

in one standout conversation i had a

recall with a japanese executive

he was responsible for a 500 million

dollar fish processing business

in alaska i put to him without leading

the witness

i said what keeps you awake nights to

which he said without

hesitation it was climate change put

simply the fish he needed

to feed those factories was swimming

north and

that increased his production costs or

his transport costs

and the risk that he might go out of

business the process for going carbon

neutral

is relatively simple i guess mitigate

and reduce our emissions

and then in our case purchase offsets or

carbon credits to

make up the difference carbon captured

through mangroves or seagrass might at

first

be a neat fit for a fishing company but

there were no established methodologies

that would make that possible

so we were looking at forestry credits

first stop

maybe a nice single species forestry

project

but our time in fisheries has taught us

the importance of fully functioning

ecosystems

and so we ended up in favor of a

multi-species

native regeneration project whilst not

the cheapest of offsets

it would mean that whatever we did was

above reproach

it kind of simplified this conversation

about climate put simply we said

if we’ve made the mess then we clean it

up and in our case that’s about

200 000 trees a year if we needed more

fuel for the journey

the um that came in the form of uh

then prime minister making some

observations

about renewable energy based on what he

described as

ugly and noisy wind generator on a

uh an island not far from here i

remember my

uh utter disbelief at such stupidity

and formed the view that business had a

chance

that business indeed progressive

business with well-informed consumers

could offer hope and make a difference

and deliver solutions

where politics had failed we did some

work with

consumer research we found that maybe my

views were not alone

that others in the australian community

did share a concern about climate

but interestingly they felt that their

neighbours did not share that concern

that insight to me screamed opportunity

and if we were able to offer a consumer

who shared those values a carbon neutral

product

then we might just find that our

leadership would be rewarded

with uh pre loyalty and premium

the next trick was to secure board

support

for those of you that deal with the

board they have many obligations

i enjoy a very beautiful and loving

relationship with my board

but only a fool would take this uh for

granted

so at the july meeting in 2015 i

declared to

the board that it was my intention to

bring to the december meeting a proposal

to take the business carbon neutral and

it was met with

respectful sort of stunned silence

really

but it did remind me that whatever we

did we needed to have

thoroughly argued and well thought

through

the december meeting arrived the meeting

had been going well

the fish business had had a good year

the profits were up but my precious

carbon neutral agenda item was slipping

to the end of the program

when i did finally arrive that anxiety

sort of bubbled out and caused me to be

a little act a little out of character

whereupon i says

to one of the directors i said kimi-san

what would your two boys say about this

proposal

and he said they would say do it

a little more discussion and the

chairman

asked for dissenting views that’s also

an important distinction

there were none the motion was passed

that was a pretty big deal the emotion

at that time was

elation and having achieved something

that i knew was really special

humbled by the trust and respect that

the board had had in me

but also overwhelmed at the sense of

responsibility that i had now to deliver

on that trust

the important thing is that all happened

on the 9th of december 2015.

just three days later on the 12th the

world signed the paris climate

accord that’s like a goosebumps moment

there

it was now time to get the job done by

the end of february we’re now in 2016.

the team had completed an emissions

accounting for the business we’d lodged

the necessary paperwork

with the australian government and we

bought four years of carbon

offsets from multi-species biodiverse

plantings

on the 11th of march 2016 with the

support

of our then foreign minister julie

bishop who had

incidentally led the australian

delegation to paris

we declared to the world that we had

been carbon neutral since the beginning

of 2016.

from the deck of a boat in the antarctic

to that day

was 402 days we had done something

special

it was like we dropped a rock in the

pond

and the the ripples would go out in all

sorts of directions

had no idea where that was going to go

but this deep sense that whatever

happened

uh was going to be good the

next trick was to unlock the value of

our values

and then this is this is the bit to make

it pay right

so as a bit of a stunt we thought we

could offer the globe

a um a first cargo of carbon neutral

fish

would allow us the opportunity to

profile this leadership

and to give people a chance to have a

bit of a buzz about all of that

ended up that was extraordinarily

successful from a um

a point of view of generating the

premium but it failed

in passing on the carbon neutral story

because

those customers who generously purchased

that

fish did not in turn pass that story on

to their customers

having learned from that experience we

now incorporate

into our branding our commitment to

sustainability and climate

action we do that in a way that i

believe

gives our crews and staff a sense of

belonging to a business full purpose we

differentiate our products in a way that

adds

shareholder value we still have the

business of reducing the amount of fuel

we burn

and so the caper kona was launched this

year and we were delighted

she is hybrid electric state of the art

in terms of this class of vessel

at a cost of around 50 million dollars

she’s

the most expensive boat we’ve built many

in business

i think have traditionally had the view

that climate has been the province of

greenies and activists

it’s now increasingly clear to me that

it’s about risk and money and risk and

money

is the language that business clearly

understands i also feel that as a

business voice

we are heard different from those in the

not-for-profit or even in the government

sectors

and as such we’ve become powerful

advocates for

climate action and for our oceans

four years on i feel we have

made a difference we’ve normalized

climate conversations

amongst our peers and our supply chain

partners

we’ve differentiated our brand from our

competitors

and i believe we have added shareholder

value

and finally there’s a personal dividend

i am so grateful to be in a position

where i can find my personal and

professional

uh alignment in a way that um

provides me now the great joy and

opportunity which is

to hope to inspire ambition in others

and in sharing a part of my story with

you today

uh it’s my hope that um you too

might find your antarctic moment i

challenge you wekas to do it in 402 days