The EDS Australia & New Zealand Climate Change and Business Conference

I was able to attend this conference held earlier this month.
With 72 speakers, 8 sessions, and 8 workshops an incredible amount of sub-themes of climate change were covered. The presentations are now available by clicking this link: http://www.climateandbusiness.com/
The Paris Accord, the Carbon Zero Bill, and the UK Climate Commission were the starting points for a lot of discussion and action. Setting greenhouse gas emission reduction targets is becoming the norm. 67 leading NZ companies, who represent 50% of our total emissions, have signed a commitment to decarbonise and are acting on it. It seemed that, on the bottom line, to do so, mostly benefitted them financially.
Carbon accounting and mitigation of risk plans seem to be well understood, and the purchase of Green bonds will be a welcome field for large investors.
Statistics with indicators for Aotearoa need to be worked on very hard.
The mood was overall positive, if not buoyant. All businesses want rules, laws and milestones that reach far into the future.
In the evening, the most impressive new movie “The Human Element” was shown: Available here: https://pureadvantage.org/thehumanelement/