Australia’s IFM Investors to cut carbon emissions by 100% till 2030

The move could raise a conflict­ with the Morrison governmen­t, which has shut an eye on environmental and social activism by industr­y super funds.

IFM Investors, an Australian investment management company, has recently launched its ambitious project to reduce carbon emissions across its vast asset holdings. The company’s project plans to reduce emissions up to 100 percent by the end of 2030 across a range of infrastructure assets like Melbourne and Brisbane airports, NSW ports and the Ausgrid electricity network.

According to reports, IFM Investors will reveal its plan to strip 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide annual­ly from its resources by 2030, which would be like removing almost 70,000 cars from the road. This plan also adds to Australia’s Paris Agreement target that aims at reducing emissions to 26-28% based on 2005 levels by 2030.

In addition, following the downfall of the Coalition’s national energy guarantee in 2018, IFM Investors have decided to set a target for reducing emissions between 8 and 25 percent on infra­structure projects by 2024, and of 38 to 100% by 2030.

Reportedly, Ausgrid, the half-privatized company by the NSW Liberal government for $16 billion in 2016, is the biggest energy network in the country which delivers electricity to more than 1.6 million businesses and homes across the NSW central coast, Sydney and the Hunter region.

The company aims to cut its emissions by 8% over the next five years and by 17% till 2030. However, to accomplish this, IFM will have to finance a range of solar energy projects, install energy-efficien­t lights, use low-emissio­n vehicles and plan­effic­iency upgrades on its buildings. Meanwhile, NT Airports aims to achieve a 100 % emission­reduction by 2030.

Sources cite that the emissions reduction prog­ram comes at the foothills of the government’s $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation, initiated by the Gillard government in 2012, which spent $150 million in 2018 into IFM to help reduce emissions across the country’s biggest infrastructure assets.

Speaking on the move, Michael Hanna, Head of Australian Infrastructure, IFM, said that it makes perfect business sense to minimize emissions by reducing costs as it would further mitigate future business risks and help generate outcomes that customers demand.

Source Credit: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/super-giant-to-impose-100pc-carbon-reduction-targets/news-story/2d8bb14b7c9c0e301fd23e0072aff5ef