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SEED attends the SMH Sustainability Summit
12 SEED ATTENDS THE SMH SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT
Lilian Stock (Year 12), Chloe Le Map (Year 11), Natalie Epstein (Year 10) and Rosie Harris (Year 8) were part of only a small handful of the people that were left standing when Liam Ward from Woolworths’ Sustainability Group said at the podium: “Please stand up. Now, sit down if you will NOT be working in 2050.”
The PLC Sydney girls were some of the few that did not sit down and Mr Ward continued: “It is pretty obvious that most of us here will not be on the workforce by the year when we need to reach our zero
emissions goals. It is these people (PLC girls and a few others) that will have to deal with the consequences of our actions and omissions. We have a lot to do and we better get it right!” This was a powerful message to start his speech at the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) Sustainability Summit in September. It really highlighted how it is the future generations, namely the students in our care right now, who will deal with our failure or success at putting a break on global warming. The SMH Sustainability Summit was a unique opportunity to get an insight into the sustainability strategies of corporate Australia. Held at the Sofitel in Darling Harbour on 20 September, it provided the PLC Sydney SEED students with a close appreciation of the efforts that large corporations and the government are making towards reaching emissions reduction targets. It was encouraging, informative, challenging and inspiring. Corporations such as Woolworths, Lendlease, Boeing, Telstra, Qantas and NAB were present on the day and explained how they are implementing structural reforms to their day-to-day operations to address the challenges of climate change. The government was represented by Matt Kean, NSW treasurer and Minister for Energy, the ‘Teals’ independent members of parliament, and Delia Rickard, Deputy Chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
A common theme across a few presentations was that the future of renewable energies lies on the storage and transmission of energy. The technology for renewable energy has been developed and is constantly being perfected, but the challenge currently lies in appropriate storage and transmission. Matt Kean, Ian Leamonth (CEO of Clean Energy
Finance Corporation) and James Hay from Energy Corporation NSW were clear in communicating that the NSW government is investing large amounts of funds in storage and transmission of renewable energy. Priority is being given to projects like the Waratah Super Battery (WSB) project (www.energyco.nsw.gov.au/ projects/waratah-super-battery) and the Hunter Transmission Project (www.energyco.nsw.gov.au/hccrez#next-steps), as well as the development of Renewable Energy Zones in NSW. The WSB will be the biggest battery installation in the Southern Hemisphere designed to provide standby energy in the event of transmission emergencies to the network.
Another focus area was the decarbonisation of the aviation industry. Boeing plans to use allelectric ‘air taxis’ for domestic travel, hydrogen fuel cell powered aircrafts and the use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) or combined technologies in most of their aircrafts. Long haul travel is still a challenge for aviation and there is no zero-emission solution in the foreseeable future. Qantas will develop a SAF industry in Australia in the near future (Andrew Parker, Qantas Chief Sustainability Officer) with feedstocks from agriculture (sugar cane) and the food industry (cooking oils). This summit provided the students with a golden opportunity to interact with the various key players that are driving the political and structural changes needed to achieve Australia’s international commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. It was, in many aspects, an eye-opener to understand the complexity of the massive change that is required by societies to stop entrenched practices that negatively affect the environment. PLC Sydney was the only school in attendance, thanks to the efforts of Natalie Epstein in securing seats. Consequently, the girls drew plenty of attention and interest from various summit participants. I was proud to see them engage with confidence, interest and maturity. These girls made our school shine!
Dr Maria Luisa Gutierrez
Science Teacher and Scientist-in-Residence At the end of Term 3, four SEED members and Dr Gutierrez had the privilege of attending the Sydney Morning Herald Sustainability Summit. This was a fantastic day consisting of speeches, interviews, panel discussions and opportunities to meet people with key sustainability roles. The topics of discussion included the importance of sustainability targets and using them effectively, combatting greenwashing, setting ambitious sustainability targets in corporate Australia. We heard from many speakers in both government and corporate roles including the NSW Treasurer and Minister for Energy, the ‘Teal’ Independants and the CEO of Circular NSW. We were able to learn a lot from the speakers about where Australia is and should be heading in terms of climate action and sustainability. We met many people who have key roles in transforming Australia into a more sustainable country who gave us great advice about sustainability and our own lives and for the SEED group. This also led us to discover more job opportunities in sustainability than we could have ever imagined!
The highlight of the event was speaking to the Teal Independents Allegra Spender, Zali Steggall, Kylea Tink, and Dr Sophie Scamps. Overall it was a fantastic and inspiring experience and we hope to attend similar events in the future and even host our own sustainability summit at PLC Sydney next year.
