Institutional investors dealing with portfolios in the trillions of dollars aren’t typically the most vocal climate campaigners. You won’t find many superannuation fund staff, fund managers, asset consultants or brokers with a placard on the streets or on top of a Newcastle coal train.
But you may increasingly find them on a screen you’re watching. Or at least their message.
On Wednesday, the Investor Group on Climate Change, an organisation representing 103 members that manage the retirement savings of nearly 15 million Australians, will launch a national advertising campaign of green energy success stories under the banner “climate action pays off”.
The campaign’s stated goal is to compel the federal parliament to back more policies that could accelerate the multibillion-dollar shift to a clean economy so the country can “continue building the industries of the future and help Australia become a clean energy powerhouse”.
Its unstated goal is to address what some see as a vacuum in the national conversation about the climate crisis and communicate to Australians that acting fast would be an economic win across the community, not just a cost.
Erwin Jackson, the investor group’s director of policy, said it was “the first positive investor campaign on climate change globally”.
“Investors and investor groups globally are looking at this campaign because they essentially have the same issues that we have in Australia,” he said.
It kicks off as polling suggests voter enthusiasm for more aggressive climate action has waned amid rising household financial stress. Some surveys have identified confusion about the government’s position on the climate crisis, given it has backed both a rapid growth of renewable energy and continued expansion of fossil fuel export industries.
The investor group campaign is focused on what comes next: a 2035 emissions reduction target due early next year, and six sectoral plans promised to explain what different parts of the economy can do to reach net zero.
Its videos tell the stories of people working in clean businesses, including some who come from backgrounds in polluting industries. The framework echoes previous industry campaigns deployed to prevent ambitious climate action.
One video focuses on Chris, an Adelaidean who says he has “gone from building fast cars” for Holden to “building solar farms at speed” and concludes: “I still love the smell of petrol, I just the smell of success more.”
Jackson said investors had another motivation – they saw climate change as the biggest systemic risk to their assets. “They’ve done their own numbers and see the costs that will come if we don’t get on an orderly, planned and affordable path to net zero,” he said.
“The idea of the campaign is to explain how this is benefiting people today and how there are transferable skills across the economy that will have a place in a net zero world. Whether you are in manufacturing, mining, engineering or a chippy, it will be better for you.”
Investor group member Ausbil Investment Management Limited, a boutique global fund manager, said it backed the campaign because climate change was a significant threat to the economy. “An effective policy framework is crucial,” its chief executive, Mark Knight, said. “We need the federal government to stay on the path to net zero and set a strong 2035 carbon emissions target.”
First Sentier, a A$227bn global asset management business, said its investee companies were already directly affected by the transition to a low carbon economy and the physical impacts of climate change. “It threatens the stability of economies and societies that underpin the financial markets we operate in,” its global head of responsible investment, Kate Turner, said.
On Tuesday, the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, announced the government would spend $5.4m on a community pilot program to help 500 households in NSW’s 2515 postcode north of Wollongong run on clean electricity and appliances.
The Coalition’s climate change and energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, said gas, a fossil fuel responsible for about 20% of Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions, was “here to stay”. He said it would be included in the capacity investment scheme – a government underwriting scheme currently reserved for solar, wind and energy storage – if Peter Dutton became prime minister.
