The five technologies underpinning sustainable transformation

Energy efficiency, renewable energy, electrification, non-energy emissions and offsets are the five key categories of technologies that underpin sustainable business transformation according to Wei Sue, system lead sustainable corporates at Climate Works Australia.

Sue spoke on a panel alongside Rebecca Mikula-Wright, CEO at Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC) and Kristian Fok, chair and director of Australian Sustainable Finance Institute (ASFI) and chief investment officer, Cbus Super Fund at the S&P Global Sustainable1 Summit in Sydney this morning.

The panel interrogated the challenges that corporates and financial communities are facing in achieving their aggressive commitments to net zero.

According to Sue, while the technologies that will be necessary for businesses to transition to sustainable business models will vary based on sector, these key categories highlight the actions areas that apply for any business in any sector.

As businesses navigate their sectoral decarbonisation pathways Sue said its not only the emissions trajectories that they must consider, but also the technologies, actions and solutions that will allow them to meet their targets.

“Net zero means it's not that we don't emit any greenhouse gas emissions anymore. It just means that any residual emissions that are being emitted can also be absorbed and sequestered through nature-based solutions or various other sequestration technologies,” said Sue.

“Having that view on the technologies and actions that will actually allow direct emissions reductions within sectors and within businesses within those sectors means that there is that critical shared understanding of what part of emissions remain residual, difficult to abate, and therefore require sequestration and offsets for because we also won't have enough sequestration, to just offset all the emissions that were emitting today.”

When it comes to the key technology categories, Wei insisted that offsets should be the last resort.

“Offsets should really only be considered after these other options have been exhausted at a point in time when the technologies are commercially available,” she said.

Cbus’ Fok also names energy efficiency and renewable energy as critical before offsets are deployed.

“Your first inclination should be actually about the energy efficiency and where you're sourcing energy from. Offsets are a little tricky, because the integrity of them and reliability is still to be confirmed, I think they have a role to play. But that shouldn't be your first go to,” he said.