Latest / Best of Business / Dr Rob Hales: Griffith Business School associate professor on the rise in corporations ditching their climate targets

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Dr Rob Hales: Griffith Business School associate professor on the rise in corporations ditching their climate targets · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now we've got another corporate, as I was telling you earlier,
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  Speaker 2: who ditched its climate targets. Volvo has just announced it's
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  Speaker 2: going to abandon the plan to be fully electric by
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  Speaker 2: twenty thirty. Add to that, GM done a similar thing,
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  Speaker 2: Ford done a similar thing in New Zealand, and even
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  Speaker 2: a country, Sweden abandoning similar plans. Associate Professor doctor Rob
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  Speaker 2: Hales specializes in sustainability at Griffith Business School in Queensland
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  Speaker 2: and is with us.
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  Speaker 3: Hey Rob, Hi, how are you doing very well?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you? Why do you think Volvo set the twenty
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  Speaker 2: thirty target if they couldn't achieve it?
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  Speaker 1: Well.
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  Speaker 3: I think a few years ago there was a lot
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  Speaker 3: of noise, a lot of excitement about net zero targets,
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  Speaker 3: and I think this was all great to get corporate
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  Speaker 3: businesses across the world, not just New Zealand, interested in
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  Speaker 3: this area. And I think what's happening now there's a
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  Speaker 3: bit of a maturation or maturity happening within corporations, and
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  Speaker 3: there's some other factors as well coming in terms of
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  Speaker 3: transparency and actually being able to deliver on some of
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  Speaker 3: the claims. But I think there's a little bit more
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  Speaker 3: maturity in terms of how we can actually go about
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  Speaker 3: near zero.
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  Speaker 2: Obviously, what they're doing is getting ahead of what was inevitable. Right,
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  Speaker 2: It's much better to ditch it in twenty twenty four
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  Speaker 2: then to get to twenty thirty and be busted.
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  Speaker 3: Right, that's correct. And in New Zealand there is a
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  Speaker 3: case in terms of greenwashing coming up in the courts there,
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  Speaker 3: and there has been a number of cases in Australia,
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  Speaker 3: quite a few in Australia where the corporate regulator is
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  Speaker 3: actually examining the claims of corporations quite seriously and finding
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  Speaker 3: and taking businesses to court and also issuing notices to
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  Speaker 3: comply with the advertising of their claims for sustainable and
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  Speaker 3: climate change.
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  Speaker 2: Ah. So, do you anticipate then that this is just
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  Speaker 2: the start of it? I mean, we're going to see
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  Speaker 2: a lot more businesses walk away from their twenty thirty
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  Speaker 2: targets as we approach it.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I don't think so. I think what's going to
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  Speaker 3: happen is a term called green hushing. You might know
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  Speaker 3: about green washing, but green hushing is actually keeping your
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  Speaker 3: targets and keeping the mechanisms to try and get there
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  Speaker 3: a bit quiet. So there's been some industry studies out
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  Speaker 3: there to show that, you know, up to twenty five
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  Speaker 3: percent of businesses aren't actually disclosing in the public what
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  Speaker 3: their targets are, but they're actually going ahead with, you know,
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  Speaker 3: trying to meet targets and got good mechanisms to do
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  Speaker 3: so within their business. But they're just being a little
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  Speaker 3: bit more reserved about how they go about advertising these things,
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  Speaker 3: mainly because of the liability issues of false advertising and
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  Speaker 3: do they.
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  Speaker 2: Just announce it? Do they announce it then if they
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  Speaker 2: reach it and they just keep it quiet, if they don't.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're or they're waiting to see how they go.
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  Speaker 3: I think they're not. They may be saying that they're
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  Speaker 3: comitted to net zero. You know, this is a claim
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  Speaker 3: that it's quite easy to maintain over time. But to say,
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  Speaker 3: you know that you're getting out of the petrol game,
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  Speaker 3: which one company in New Zealand said they're going to,
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  Speaker 3: and then that got them into a little bit of
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  Speaker 3: trouble because they're getting out of it, but then petrol
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  Speaker 3: sales increased in their business. That's correct, Yes, so you know,
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  Speaker 3: who knows where that's going to land in terms of
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  Speaker 3: the outcome, But the fact that it's going to you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's being disputed, means that companies are being very careful
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  Speaker 3: about claims that they're making now. But it doesn't mean
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  Speaker 3: they say that they're necessarily shying away because you've still
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  Speaker 3: got legislation in New Zealand and soon to be introduced
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  Speaker 3: in Australia next early next year in terms of accountability standards,
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  Speaker 3: sustainability accountability standards coming.
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  Speaker 2: In rob there are obviously industries who will really struggle them.
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  Speaker 2: In the airline sectors one that's going to struggle. What's
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  Speaker 2: the alternative? You know, like there's just not enough, there's
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  Speaker 2: not enough sustainable aviation fuel to be able to use.
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  Speaker 2: But what proportion of industry do you think is actually
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  Speaker 2: going to be able to meet its targets in twenty
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  Speaker 2: thirty across an economy.
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  Speaker 3: Ah, that's a good question. I think there's another factor
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  Speaker 3: in here as well which makes it difficult to answer,
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  Speaker 3: is that the one point five scenario that was dated
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  Speaker 3: to be twenty fifty, if you've been following that, the
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  Speaker 3: I think in COP twenty nine coming up we're going
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  Speaker 3: to see a shifting of the date of when one
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  Speaker 3: point five realistically is going to occur. Like we're gotting
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  Speaker 3: a one point five net zero target. Yeah, and we've
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  Speaker 3: had you know, one point five degrees happen for more
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  Speaker 3: than five years in a row. The average over ten
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  Speaker 3: years is what determines, you know, what is one point
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  Speaker 3: five degrees in the globe. So you know, I can
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  Speaker 3: I could bet my house that that date is going
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  Speaker 3: to change as to when we have the target set
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  Speaker 3: for net zero one point five. It's not going to
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  Speaker 3: be twenty fifty.
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  Speaker 2: When is it going to be.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's hard to say. I was actually just talking
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  Speaker 3: to a colleague about it beforehand. It's hard to say
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  Speaker 3: where it's going to land. You can look up quite
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  Speaker 3: easily in Nature and other peer review journals talking about
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  Speaker 3: the twenty thirties as when the one point five degree
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  Speaker 3: mark is going to be crossed, you know, and that's
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  Speaker 3: probably what's going to be debated at COP twenty nine
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  Speaker 3: coming up. So when a company says, oh, yes, we're
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  Speaker 3: going to be aiming for one point five, but twenty fifty,
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  Speaker 3: there are challenges trying to meet that. But then there
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  Speaker 3: is extra dimension of you know that that target I
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  Speaker 3: believe is going to change downwards in terms of time,
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  Speaker 3: so that poses even more challenges for businesses that are
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  Speaker 3: really progressive and even making those targets. So let alone
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  Speaker 3: the ones that you know in industries that are hard
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  Speaker 3: to abate, airlines and also companies that rely on transport
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  Speaker 3: as well, that that's quite a tricky one.
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  Speaker 2: Rob, Thank you. I really appreciate your time this doctor.
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  Speaker 2: Rob Hales, Associate Professor specializing in sustainability at Griffith Business
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  Speaker 2: School in Queensland.
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