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