Joint Board Leadership of the Year Award 2020
Mirvac (sponsored by Baker McKenzie)
Mirvac has undertaken significant actions in the 2019-20 period to address climate change with leadership evident at the Board level. The Mirvac Board has set a clear example to other businesses in their market. This is a challenging sector being highly emissions intensive as well as risk averse. The construction sector usually resists change unless forced by regulations. We are delighted to recognise the Mirvac Board for their exemplary leadership in 2020.
Mirvac board acceptance speech:
We are thrilled to have our Board recognised for their leadership role in Mirvac’s ambition to be net positive carbon by 2030. For the past seven years, we have had a clear focus on reducing our emissions so that we can have a positive impact while building climate resilience within our business. This includes reducing our carbon footprint by 80 per cent from 1 January 2021 by switching to 100 per cent renewable electricity. This award is a fantastic recognition of our work, which has had full support and encouragement from our Board.
Joint Board Leadership of the Year Award 2020
Lion (sponsored by Baker McKenzie)
Lion has undertaken significant actions in the 2019-20 period to address climate change with leadership evident at the Board level. The Lion Board has set a clear example to other businesses in their market. This is a challenging sector being highly emissions intensive as well as risk averse. The FMCG sector has been slow to adapt to climate risks. We are delighted to recognise the Lion Board for their exemplary leadership in 2020.
Justin Merrell, Environment Director at Lion Co
Thank you Climate Alliance and sponsors, we really appreciate the recognition, at a very important time for strong action on climate change. The Lion leadership team was bold stepping into carbon neutral operations, even with a strong and genuine sustainability track record. This award is very welcomed and a helpful proof point for our ambitious sustainability commitments. Thanks again.
Risk Manager of the Year Award 2020
Sharanjit Paddam, Head of ESG Risk at QBE (sponsored by Ashurst)
Sharanjit has driven climate change risk as a core part of QBE’s business planning. He founded an initiative to help the wider insurance sector to be better prepared for the impacts resulting from climate change. Sharanjit has led from the front and is a very worthy recipient of this award.
Sharanjit Paddam, Head of ESG Risk at QBE
Thank you very much for this award. I’d like to thank my ESG Risk team who have driven our achievements at QBE over the last two years. I’d also like to thank the 130 professionals who contributed to the Climate Measurement Standards Initiative, and in particular Kevin Hennessy of CSIRO, Karen McWilliams of CAANZ and Chris Lee of Climate-KIC, who chaired the CMSI committees. Of course, we still have more work to do in the Financial Services industry to address the challenges of climate change, and I hope to be able to continue to contribute.
Small Company Leadership of the Year Award 2020
Informed.City (sponsored by Continuity Matters)
Informed.City has successfully taken on the challenge of supporting local government to deliver on climate risk using a suite of tools at low cost to the end user. They give specific actionable outcomes that Councils can readily use with strong evidence of on the ground change.
Donovan Burton, Founder, Climate Planning
I’d like to thank the Climate Alliance, and the sponsors of this award, Continuity Matters, together with those who nominated me. I’d also like to thank my employee Chloe Portanger, who has collaborated on the development of our platform. The aim of Informed.City has been to help communicate climate-related risks into meaningful information flows and winning this award is some recognition from the market that we are well on the way to achieving our objectives.
Joint Business Leader of the Year Award 2020
Dr Wendy Craik (sponsored by Fujitsu)
For many years, Dr. Wendy Craik has demonstrated a consistent track record of courage, vision and an ability to bring all sides of the climate risk arena together to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes in the sectors she has influenced.
Dr Wendy Craik
I would like to thank the Climate Alliance very much for this award. I would also like to congratulate Simon McKeon with whom I shared the award.
During todays Climate Alliance conference we have heard a number of striking examples of climate change leadership so I feel honoured to be chosen. As everyone here is aware climate change policy has been a challenging area to work over the last decade in Australia but it is extremely gratifying to see that the momentum towards reducing emissions is noticeably increasing and it is in part a testament to groups like the Climate Alliance that we see that occurring.
Thank you once again for the award and I hope you keep up the great work.
Joint Business Leader of the Year Award 2020
Simon McKeon AO (sponsored by Fujitsu)
In the past year Simon McKeon has initiated arguably the most challenging climate risk mitigation program for Australia. That is to seek solutions to emissions reductions in the hard to abate heavy industry sectors which are dominated by highly carbon intensive energy sources and business processes.
Simon McKeon AO
Thank you to our generous award sponsors
