Wow, that was quick. On Wednesday, we put up our first note about the next masterclass course on ESG (environment, social and governance mandates), and the spaces are already filling fast.
There’s no surprise, we suppose, as these masterclasses are designed to give you direct access to Australia’s best experts – so your questions, queries and hypotheticals answered.
And what’s interesting is that everyone we speak to about the ESG says how little the new landscape is understood – rules, regulations, and expectations (think social media backlash for the latter) and not much preparedness for how to deal with it.
Even worse is the argy-bargy for the timelines on implementation that’s already underway. Yes, it might be true that the banks, the financiers, and every other big corporate is not quite ready to disclose their climate related financial risk, nor how their business harms and doesn’t replenish nature. Or what their clients carbon emissions are under scope 3 disclosures.
Imagine the lobbying behind closed doors to delay until all the industry sectors are nicely tooled up and prepared. (They’re probably getting lessons from the building codes sect or after the fiasco we’ve witnessed with energy efficiency standards in housing.)
But the government also needs to consider the political optics if it shifts its obligations and promises. And if we thought Albo was getting a hard time for reneging on promises to give the wealthy nearly $10,000 in tax breaks at the expense of low income earners – and instead flipping the formula around – then watch what happens if he stalls on climate and sustainability.
We’re all watching Mr Albanese. So far, the observers and supporters have gone easy, but time’s up now… it’s action time.
As you well know, we’re storming to 4 degrees heating.
We need to change everything – and the faster, the better.
The good news
Meanwhile, this week, there’s some good news with people on the green side of the leadership fence acknowledged with a slew of Australia Day awards.
See the full list here. Among them was Helen Lochhead, who we caught up with, in an impromptu and quite informal way – at the University of New South Wales Sydney Urban Lab led by WOHA duo Richard Hassell and Mun Summ Wong.
Another standout winner in the awards was Monica Barone, chief executive officer with the City of Sydney. As Helen also noted during our chat, the work that she’s done at the City of Sydney in a great partnership with Lord Mayor Clover Moore has been outstanding.
Heritage in the firing line
Check out Joseph O’Donoghue’s story on heritage and telling Sydney’s story. It’s a nice counterpoint to the let it rip (or let’s rip it down) call we’re getting from the YIMBYs (yes, in my backyard), who are stirring up their members to storm local councils and – at last – fight the local residents who oppose development, usually because they want to protect their amenity or heritage homes.
Gotta says that in the old days, that used to be called astroturfing, and it’s sad because we need renewal – get that – but hand on heart, there is no way the developers will sell their apartments to their helpful citizen lobbyists for one dollar less than the market will pay.
But then again, the YIMBYs are calling for abundant, not affordable, housing.
And, of course, we all want more housing, but let’s keep in mind that we need a cohesive city and people who still broadly like each other. So, the recent call from Joseph and Chris Johnson in the SMH for a balanced approach to heritage is much more palatable.
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