The Climate Institute Climate Partners Network is a vital new corporate partnership focused on promoting business leadership in driving climate change solutions and Australia’s transition to a low-carbon, clean-energy economy.

The Climate Partners represent a cross section of the economy who are working individually and collectively to promote the innovation and investment needed for Australia to be competitive in the emerging global low-carbon world.

Leading Climate Partner

Founded in 1817, Westpac was the first company and the first bank to be established in Australia. Today, Westpac is one of the biggest financial institutions throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region, with offices in key financial centres around the world. Westpac employs over 37,000 people and had global assets of $601 billion and a market capitalisation of $83 billion as at 31 March 2010.

Westpac has a long history of environmental firsts in the banking industry and has actively advocated for economically efficient policies to address climate change. The bank is committed to being a global leader in sustainability and believes that outperformance across in this area is a fundamental driver of long term financial return. The current sustainability strategy and objectives include managing its environmental footprint and facilitating the transition to a low carbon economy. Westpac has reduced its own emissions by over 40% since 1996, and recently committed to a further 30% reduction over five years. Click here for more information on Westpac and climate change.

Major Climate Partner

KPMG is one of the world’s leading professional services firms.  KPMG in Australia has operated as a carbon neutral organisation since 1 July 2008.  Currently this is under the Department of Climate Change's Greenhouse Friendly™ program certification.

Through its internal ‘Step Lightly’ program, KPMG encourages its people to reduce their environmental impact by adopting long-term responsible consumption practices at both work and at home. The program builds awareness of behaviours across the three ‘Ps’ — planes, paper and power — and provides incentives and tools for reducing KPMG’s environmental impact.

KPMG’s environmental partnerships also offer its people a range of educational and experiential learning opportunities. They include a two week fully funded ecological adventure with the Earthwatch Institute. KPMG is also an inaugural patron of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s 'ZooX Fund'.

Major Climate Partner

Pacific Hydro is one of the world’s leading renewable energy companies. Developing clean energy projects and carbon abatement products across the globe the Company currently has 1,934 megawatts (MW) of hydro power and wind farm projects at varying stages of development, construction and operation in Australia, Chile, Brazil, and the Philippines.

Its operating projects have already saved the atmosphere from over 7 million tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution and produce enough clean electricity to power the equivalent of 600,000 homes each year.

In Australia, Pacific Hydro has a $2 billion pipeline of wind energy projects ready for deployment and it is investigating geothermal and solar thermal energy opportunities.

Major Climate Partner

OgilvyEarth is a holistic sustainability communications practice. Since its inception in 2007 it has established itself as Australia’s premier communications consultancy in the sustainability space, supported by a team of professionals committed to improving sustainability outcomes for communities.

Uniquely for a communications practice, the Ogilvy PR Australia business model means that OgilvyEarth is able to draw on highly skilled and experienced communicators in government relations and public affairs, research, consumer PR, digital influence, environmental management, employee communications, investor relations, corporate communications, community relations and business to business communications.

The OgilvyEarth point of difference is the team’s world-class experience, not just in effectively communicating sustainability issues, but also offering hands-on specialist knowledge and understanding of specific industry sectors, as well as the technical know-how to add rigour to their clients’ communications.

Climate Partner

Better Place is a two year old, privately owned, global start up company headquartered in Silicon Valley that is dedicated to ending the world’s dependence on oil.

Better Place builds the infrastructure and supplies the services to make driving an electric vehicle not only convenient and affordable for drivers, but scalable for an entire country, thereby overcoming the barriers to mass EV adoption. Better Place is working with vehicle and battery manufacturers to ensure a complete, efficient and compelling solution built around desirable EVs equipped with a new generation of safe, recyclable and reliable lithium-ion batteries.  Better Place’s electric charging system, infrastructure and services will effectively replace those currently provided by the $20B retail petroleum industry. Better Place Australia is a subsidiary of Better Place and is building the largest Better Place deployment globally.

Climate Partner

GE is a diversified infrastructure, finance and media company taking on the world’s toughest challenges. From aircraft engines and power generation to financial services, health care solutions and television programming, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide.

Through its business initiative, ecomagination, GE aims to help solve the world's biggest environmental challenges while driving profitable growth in all its businesses. We're investing in more efficient transport, water, lighting and healthcare technologies.
Climate change requires a long-term path for significantly reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Developing more energy- and fuel-efficient products and technologies is an important step, and GE reviews its own operations to use resources wisely. Ecomagination products play a crucial role in helping its customers meet their energy demands more economically and with less environmental impact, all while helping to drive GE’s internal GHG and energy reduction commitment.

GE serves the energy sector by developing and deploying technology that helps make efficient use of natural resources.  GE Energy is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies. GE Energy provides integrated product and service solutions in all areas of the energy industry including coal, oil and natural gas; renewable resources such as water, wind, solar and biogas; and other alternative fuels.

Responsible leadership and operational excellence are hallmarks of GE. GE's citizenship framework — make money, make it ethically and make a difference — enables it to make contributions and create value for society in ways that are aligned to the business strategy of the company.
For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.ge.com.

Climate Partner

AGL is one of Australia's leading integrated energy companies and is taking action toward creating a sustainable energy future for its investors, communities and customers. Drawing on over 170 years of experience, AGL operates retail and merchant energy businesses, power generation assets and an upstream gas portfolio. AGL has Australia's largest retail energy and dual fuel customer base. AGL has a diverse power generation portfolio including base, peaking and intermediate generation plants, spread across traditional thermal generation as well as renewable sources including hydro, wind, landfill gas and biomass. AGL is Australia's largest private owner and operator of renewable energy assets and is looking to further expand this position by exploring a suite of low emission and renewable energy generation development opportunities.

Climate Partner

Jemena is a unique Australian infrastructure company that builds, owns and maintains a combination of major electricity, gas and water assets.

We are committed to minimising harm to our vital planet through the delivery of our vital services.

In 2009, we began rolling out our Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) program in conjunction with United Energy Distribution (UED).  This program will see just on 1 million homes and businesses in Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula receive a new ‘smart meter’ to help them manage electricity consumption.  Customers are being connected to a ‘smart metering’ network which will allow them to better monitor and manage their energy use.

We also continue to play an important role in transitioning to a low carbon economy through growing Australia’s natural gas transportation infrastructure and related services.  This work will provide an increasing number of residential and commercial consumers with the opportunity to take advantage of the GHG emission reductions that can be delivered using natural gas, sooner rather than later.

We are leading the way in the rapidly growing area of recycled water development.  AquaNet Sydney Pty Ltd, part of the Jemena group, and Veolia Water Australia have signed a contract with Sydney Water to build a A$100 million plant and pipeline scheme that will provide major industrial customers in western Sydney with recycled water.  AquaNet Sydney has created an innovative and environmentally sensitive infrastructure solution to meet Sydney’s growing need for a cost-effective, reliable and quality water supply.

As the world searches for sustainable energy solutions, we are identifying innovative ways to help ensure the future of our vital planet.

Climate Partner

Australia Post is part of the fabric of Australian life. Through their people, products, services and community investment, they contribute to everyday life and business success across the nation.  They are dedicated to providing high quality mail, financial, fulfillment and retail services to business and the community. In doing so, they recognise they have a responsibility to manage the social and environmental impacts of their business and support social and environmental sustainability.

Alongside a number of other environmental commitments, Australia Post is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. They have demonstrated this commitment through voluntary participation in the Greenhouse Challenge since 1997 and over the past decade, their emissions reduction program has saved approximately 400,000 tonnes of CO2-e (carbon dioxide equivalent). Their current and historical greenhouse gas emission levels can be viewed in their Greenhouse Challenge and Annual Reports (for reporting purposes, the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (NGER) has superseded the Greenhouse Challenge program).

Media Coverage

The Climate Institute's CEO John Connor appeared on Sky Business News to discuss the launch of the Climate Partners Network.

Read The Climate Institute's Climate Partners launch media release