Regenerating Australia

Featuring Kerry O’Brien, Sandra Sully, Gorgi Coghlan, Tim Flannery, David Pocock and other well-known voices, Regenerating Australia asks the question, ‘What would Australia look like by 2030 if we simply listened to the needs of its people?’

In a unique format of a news bulletin in 2030 looking back at the current decade, the film was put together in a four-month interview process with Australians from all walks of life sharing their hopes and dreams for the country’s future. Its a story of empowerment, solutions, and regeneration.

The 15-minute film imagines greener, more vibrant cities and communities, a high speed rail network connecting regional areas, the environmental and social effects of large-scale wind, solar, battery and hydrogen projects, and the impacts of landscapes coming to life when combined with First Nations knowledge.

The film was directed by award-winning filmmaker Damon Gameau, who’s previous films That Sugar Film and 2040 broke records for Australian documentaries in cinemas.

Click here to see the film.

Green Is The New Black

Green Is The New Black is a story of passion and purpose behind an ambitious environmental feat of one of Australia’s leading heavy music acts, In Hearts Wake.

Their fiercely loyal following has been forged from their relentless world–touring ethic, passionate ecological advocacy and hard-hitting, melodic-driven music. The band have received four top-5 records, an ARIA nomination for Best Hard Rock album, 110 million digital streams and over 100,000 records sold worldwide. But the more they recorded and toured the planet, the clearer it became: they were unwittingly threatening the very thing they sought to protect. The band vowed to record, release and perform their next album, (Kaliyuga), in a radically new and sustainable way. Kaliyuga became the first carbon offset album, pressed on recycled materials to hit the top 5 in the ARIA Australian Albums Chart as it debuted at #3. 

Green is the New Black is a carbon off-set documentary that captures the twists and turns of the band’s urgent mission to stop at nothing as they face bushfires and an unprecedented global pandemic throughout the album’s creation.

Through conversation with creatives, experts and professionals such as Damon Gameau (2040, That Sugar Film), Tamara Smith (Greens Member for Parliament), AY Young (United Nations Young Leader), Jess Ducrou (Splendour In The Grass Festival co-founder), Heidi Lennfer (Cloud Control and FEAT Artists), and Luke Logemann (UNFD Records), join In Hearts Wake as they uncover unsettling truths, face human adversity and discover inspiring solutions for a new earth-aligned way forward for the music industry and its fans.

In Hearts Wake partnered with Carbon Neutral to offset the making of their album Kaliyuga and have planted over 1,000 trees in the Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor through our Plant-a-Tree program.

The film’s world screenings have currently finished, but more are planned for the future and you can keep an eye on release details on the film’s website.

The trial at Kooyong will help understand the behaviour and accurate measurement of soil carbon on the property and the realisable potential for the land to store additional carbon in the future. The first of Carbon Neutral’s tree plantings on the property will take place in the middle of 2022, and plant-soil interactions will be a key focus as the project grows.

Downforce Technologies have developed a unique, high precision, remote measurement and mapping of soil organic carbon. It is based on a deep scientific understanding of how soils work under different climate conditions and how they change over time.

Carbon West have been helping to develop Carbon Neutral’s soil carbon outcomes and are a key project collaborator in the trial and throughout the Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor moving forward.

“Advances in technology based systems is critical to support the broad scale expansion and verification of carbon project outcomes. We are really looking forward to working with Downforce to play our part in these improvements.”

Nevin Wittber, Chief Operating Officer, Carbon Neutral

“We are pleased to be working with Carbon Neutral, who have a twenty-year record of providing carbon offsets in Australia. We are delighted to support their measurement of soil carbon and the realisable potential for its Kooyong property to store additional carbon for the future.”

Maria Whittaker, Co-Founder and Chief Development Officer, Downforce Technologies

Healthy soils are one of the most effective ways to capture and store carbon from the atmosphere and mitigate the climate crisis, and their importance was recognised recently at COP26. Soils contain nearly 60% more carbon than the plants that grow on them around the world, making them crucial for long-term climate ambitions and the sustainable food supply systems the planet requires as more and more land becomes degraded around the world.

Traditional methods for measuring soil carbon are often time-consuming, costly, and at times unsuitable for variation across large landscapes. Although digital mapping of soil can be deployed at bigger scales, it can fall short in required accuracy.

Downforce’s methodology enhances this accuracy, up to the nearest 10m², by combining a wide range of data sources and contextual information and integrating them together. Its platform enables both historical analysis of soils, and crucially, forecasts for the future.

Soil carbon sequestration is a priority objective under the Australian Government’s National Soil Strategy, and under the Low Emissions Technology Statement is targeted to reduce the soil carbon measurement price from approximately $30 per hectare to less than $3.

Incorporated in 2021 by the UK based The Downforce Trust, Downforce is led by an impressive team including Chief Scientific Officer Jacquie McGlade, a former Chief Scientist of the UN Environment Programme and Executive Director of the European Environment Agency. Their technology is helping farmers and landowners to understand the health of the soil and generate insights into the potential of their lands to store carbon and other natural capital at scale.

Downforce also recently launched a pilot study of soil carbon across the Duchy of Cornwall’s seven natural capital ‘Focus Farms’ in the uplands of Dartmoor and arable farms in Herefordshire, England.

Carbon Neutral’s majority owner, Tiverton Agricultural Impact Fund, is an investor in Downforce Technologies.

If you’d like to discuss soil carbon project development and opportunities please contact us.

Perth Airport CEO Kevin Brown said that Perth Airport has committed to become carbon neutral by 2030 and is continually looking for opportunities to reduce its carbon footprint.

“As a first step, we have committed to offset more than 300 tonnes of emissions from our bus fleet,” Mr Brown said.

“This is an interim measure as we work towards migrating to a fully electric vehicle fleet. Customers who book their parking online will also be able to tick the box to ‘offset’ their personal journey to and from the airport at a cost of 88 cents.

“Our new partnership with Carbon Neutral will purchase offsets within the Western Australian Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor project.”

“Carbon Neutral uses the highest standard available for carbon offsetting ensuring that every carbon offset is verified and accounted for. We are excited to be part of this important local project, which also generates new jobs for tree plantings, seed collection and integrated agricultural activities for the duration of the project.”

Kevin Brown, Perth Airport CEO

Carbon Neutral’s Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor project is Australia’s largest biodiverse reforestation sink, with over 30 million trees and shrubs planted across more than 15,000 hectares in the northern wheatbelt of Western Australia.

Mr Brown said that the Perth Airport was looking at ways of using new infrastructure projects to further reduce the airport’s carbon footprint.

“The design of our first multi-storey car park in front of Terminal 1 also incorporates solar PV installation,” Mr Brown said.

“We have also started to replace all lights in our car parks with energy efficient LED.”

Carbon Brief found that newspapers who were previously opposed to climate action have U-turned on their position, and found a staggering increase in the number of editorials dedicated to increasing climate action.

There is no doubt that the climate crisis is one of the most prominent stories in modern press, and the issue shows no sign of slowing down and only increasing in relevance and urgency as the emergency worsens worldwide.

Read the full article in Carbon Brief.

Although there are myriad of issues facing our communities at the moment, it’s likely that one issue will be on the minds of many voters – the climate crisis. A recent survey by The Canberra Times found that “environment and climate change” is the most important issue for 43% of voters.

Peter Christoff, Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor at Melbourne Climate Futures initiative at The University of Melbourne, recently wrote in The Conversation about how climate policy is shaping up in the lead-up to the election and the implications it could have for our futures.

Read the full article in The Conversation.

“Obviously, we don’t yet know the persuasion of the next government – nor whether it will rely on support from minor parties and independents. But we do know it will confront growing pressure for tougher climate targets and action – from the electorate, our international peers and the rising number of climate-related legal challenges.”

Peter Christoff, Senior Research Fellow and Associate Professor at Melbourne Climate Futures initiative at The University of Melbourne

Index image by Jo-Anne McArthur via Unsplash.

Governments met in Switzerland March 14-29 to continue progress on the new Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in preparation for a major United Nations biodiversity summit, COP15, which will take place in China in August.

The overarching goal of the GBF is for people to “live in harmony with nature” by 2050, and involves synthesising how ecosystems and species should be conserved and how the resources and benefits that stem from biodiversity should work in our communities and be used in sustainable and just ways.

Three different groups contributed to the discussions:

• A scientific advisory body (Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice)
• An implementation body (Subsidiary Body on Implementation)
• And an open-ended working group

What did the talks achieve and why does it matter?

Unfortunately, talks in Geneva were scrutinised and slow-paced, but two key issues repeatedly surfaced in debates.

The “glacial pace” of discussions was reported by many countries and advisors present, who pointed to poor design, structural problems, and a lack of general leadership as slowing down progress. The Russian invasion of Ukraine also overshadowed the event.

One key centrepiece of the talks was the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People signed by 91 of the 146 participating nations, including Australia. This pledge champions the ‘30 by 30’ target of the current GBF draft where 30% of land and marine environments globally are protected by 2030 through “equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas”. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has criticised this 30% figure as being on the lower end of what’s required to protect global ecosystems, with its recent AR6 report finding that a range of 30 – 50% of areas protected is needed.

Finance for biodiversity was another hot ticket item on the agenda in Geneva. Like most international discussions, at the end of the day, money talks. A failure to commit and agree to financial targets has been suggested as the primary reason why the UN’s previous set of biodiversity targets from 2010 were not reached, with countries urging greater collaboration to avoid a repeat disaster. In the final plenary session a cohort of developing countries made a surprise demand for $100 billion annually from developed countries to finance biodiversity measures, rising to $700 billion by 2030. The draft GBF agreement also calls for a $500 billion annual reduction in harmful subsidies by 2030.

“Our countries are repositories of most of the biological diversity of the world that we are committed to conserve and sustainably use as part of our compliance with the CBD. Without the means of implication, the achievement of developing countries…will be hindered, as we saw in the non-fulfilment of the Aichi targets due to the lack of such cooperation. As developing countries we refuse to let that happen again.”

Ndong Ella (Gabon) speaking on behalf of like-minded developing countries.

What’s the plan for the rest of 2022 with COP15 coming up in August?

Countries agreed to meet to further progress talks on the GBF in Nairobi, Kenya in June. There are some concerns that this meeting will echo the slowness of the Geneva talks and lack the urgency and detail needed to address what are complex and technical global challenges.

COP15 is currently scheduled to take place in August – September (firm dates are yet to be announced) in Kunming, China.

“One thing that cannot happen is we leave Kunming agreeing on an outcome, but not also agreeing on the financial aspects and resource mobilisation – and that includes the strategy for resource mobilisation.”

Florian Titze, policy advisor at WWF Germany

With $13 billion of assets under management, La Trobe Financial was founded in 1952 and is one of Australia’s leading credit asset managers, with deep expertise in finance, and credit investment.

For seven decades, La Trobe Financial has been driven by one cause – to place “others before self” and make a positive impact. La Trobe Financial’s impact has gone well beyond financial returns. La Trobe Financial has always been focussed on building a sustainable future and creating a long-term legacy for its employees, customers and communities. Anchored by its foundational principle of “serving the under-served”, the La Trobe Financial team is not only focussed on helping customers grow their wealth, it also believes in creating employment opportunities.  La Trobe Financial employs over 430 staff across its Melbourne and Sydney offices and representative offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and recognises its responsibility as a corporate citizen.

The business case

La Trobe Financial’s commitment to rigorous and measurable management of Environmental, Social & Governance issues is a key driver to its track record as a trusted steward of its investors’ capital. This made it clear that taking climate action now was the right thing to do.

La Trobe Financial wanted to take on more environmental responsibility by accounting for its carbon footprint, pursuing strategies to reduce it as much as possible, and has pledged in its ESG framework, a business commitment to carbon zero by 2030.

“When we first set-up operations in 1952, the firm was formed on the principle of serving the under-served market. This social philosophy has built a strong and sustainable foundation for the business. Today, this philosophy continues and our commitment to the environment is no different. This first stage in our carbon footprint journey is part of our bigger strategy to building a better future through sound environmental management and which is also important to our stakeholders, including our employees, customers and key to securing a better future,” says Greg O’Neill OAM, President & CEO at La Trobe Financial.

“In operating our business La Trobe Financial pursues a sustainability strategy that supports the company’s growth from our impact on the environment, while increasing the efficiency and resiliency of our operations.”

Greg O’Neill OAM, President & CEO at La Trobe Financial

The process

La Trobe Financial understood that it wouldn’t achieve their carbon goals overnight and that the process would be an ongoing one that is continually improved and managed.

The first step in its journey was understanding their organisation’s carbon footprint for CY2020. La Trobe Financial worked closely with Carbon Neutral to measure its assessment of Scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions activities in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.

“We are thrilled to have completed this assessment with Carbon Neutral. By undertaking this first step, we are able to understand what we have as a carbon footprint benchmark and what we need to do as a company to reduce it.”

Caterina Nesci, Director of ESG & International Partnerships

Once it understood its impact, La Trobe Financial wanted to take steps to reduce it. Carbon Neutral produced a Carbon Reduction Plan that covered a range of actions across their business such as electricity use, air travel, refrigeration, and waste. The measurement for CY2020 will serve as a baseline measurement for its carbon reduction 2030 journey.

“We will be rolling out a number of projects including reducing travel emissions, sustainable procurement practices, reduce waste and landfill and become paperless just to name a few. This will also involve every staff member playing their part for this to work.  Staff are super engaged over this process and have appreciated the business’ proactive position. It is when we do this together, that we really make a difference.”

Caterina Nesci, Director of ESG & International Partnerships

Carbon Neutral would also like to congratulate Caterina Nesci for her recent CEO Magazine’s Corporate Responsibility Executive of the Year award. As the head of La Trobe Financial Charitable Foundation, Nesci has built a platform to empower employees with the opportunity to make a difference. The foundation has donated over $21 million to charitable causes.

After implementing their formal Carbon Reduction Plan, La Trobe Financial achieved carbon neutrality by offsetting its current emissions that it hasn’t yet reduced. It invested in projects that reduce or absorb greenhouse gas emissions equal to what they produced through CY2020.

La Trobe Financial chose to support Australian biodiverse native reforestation through Carbon Neutral’s Gold-Standard-certified Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor project. It also invested in carbon offsets from the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve project in Indonesia protecting vital orangutan habitat.

The rewards

Achieving carbon neutrality was a major sustainability milestone for La Trobe Financial in 2021, and its journey will continue to build more momentum each year. Carbon Neutral is now working with La Trobe Financial for them to become Climate Active Carbon Neutral certified, illustrating how it continues to lead the way in sustainability commitments.

“We are very proud of this first stage in our carbon footprint program, and we will continue this journey and implement a formal Carbon Reduction Plan to meet future targets and go beyond in simply offsetting to be carbon neutral.  In our reduction plan, we will implement a number of projects to ensure that we reach our business commitment to carbon zero by 2030.  A commitment that we have pledged in our ESG Framework.”

Chris Andrews, Deputy CEO & Chief Investment Officer.

The ACCC and ASIC act as Australia’s competition and corporate regulators to protect consumers and investors and enforce laws relating to finance and trade. Both bodies are ratcheting up the scrutiny on exaggerated or surface-level climate and environmental pledges made by organisations.

The ACCC has announced ‘Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and greenwashing’ as one of its five priority action areas for 2022/23. The spotlight on the issue of greenwashing is aimed to help consumers better assess the accuracy of sustainability claims (e.g. ‘100% recycled’). It’s also hoping to better protect businesses who may be disadvantaged by competitors who are falsely claiming green credentials.

Misleading sustainability claims are familiar territory for the ACCC. Following the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal in which Volkswagen lied about faulty diesel usage software, the ACCC imposed a $125 million penalty on the German vehicle manufacturer.

ASIC is also reportedly on high alert to unsubstantiated ESG claims in the climate-related forecasts in the prospectuses of company’s seeking an Initial Public Offering (IPO) or sell shares to public investors. ASIC wants these sustainability predictions to match the robustness and level of evidence of their financial predictions. The regulator wants greater detail in the net zero targets organisations are setting that explains how these climate targets will be achieved, what risks are involved and what assumptions have been made.

The urgency of the climate crisis has seen more companies than ever before look to ESG and climate as areas of their operations they want to address or feel a responsibility to do so. Much of this relates to the goals of the Paris Agreement and net zero targets pledged for 2030 or 2050.

Consumers and investors also share the growth in expectations when it comes to sustainability. A March 2022 survey by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia reported that four in five Australians expect their money in super, banks, and other investments to be invested responsibly and ethically, and that 72% of Australians say they are concerned about greenwashing.

Community awareness of misleading environmental claims is increasing as the climate and biodiversity crises gain greater attention and corporate momentum, along with notable cases of large organisations doing the wrong thing. For example, the Australian Centre for Corporate Responsibility has brought a legal challenge to energy company Santos, arguing that its ‘clear and credible plan’ to achieve net zero emissions by 2040 was misleading due to the lack of disclosure of what this plan involved and how it would be achieved. BP was also prosecuted for its 2019 ‘Advancing Possibilities’ marketing campaign that exaggerated its sustainability policies whilst 96% of its expenditure remained in fossil fuels.

“Give me the target with intermediary step, give me the leader who is responsible…and give me the money you’re putting in it, and then I will start believing you. If not, this is greenwashing.”

Philippe Joubert, Fellow and Member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability advisory board.

Climate and sustainability-related claims and disclosures to products and services need to ensure they:

• Can be backed up by high quality evidence accurate to the time they were made.
• Match up with the broader organisational goals and long-term strategy.
• Are well equipped to progress and be acted upon by having the resources they need.
• Are part of business risk and compliance assessments.
• Are specific to certain products or services and not generalised to the entirety of operations if they cannot be supported across this full scope.

At Carbon Neutral, greenwashing is an issue we regularly come across working in the carbon, climate, and sustainability sectors and with our clients and partners. We see it as our responsibility to offer guidance and advice on which statements are and are not scientifically legitimate and can be backed up by high quality evidence.

An example of this is the evolution of our business to introduce Carbon Consultants, who provide a high level of measurements that allow us to trust the data to the point that we can confidently approve reduction and offsetting claims. We acknowledge that engaging the services of our consultants isn’t always appropriate for businesses, and therefore we rely on trusting measurements that are obtained from third parties or clients themselves. In these instances, we are careful to not support carbon neutrality or net zero claims unless we have the highest level of confidence in the measurements.

While some of the bigger, large emitting companies are guilty of many of the worst examples of this, we also understand the difficulties for businesses that inadvertently greenwash when trying to promote their own efforts in the sector. As with any business, our systems and processes aren’t perfect 100% of the time and occasionally we become aware of clients that clients cross this line, at which point we make every effort to guide them towards a more authentic testimony of their sustainability and offsetting credentials.

Carbon Neutral takes this matter (and our responsibilities around it), very seriously and conduct regular internal procedural reviews to maintain best practice, while still trying to enable clients to promote their efforts in the most positive light possible. If you are concerned about greenwashing claims please contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you by providing our advice and industry expertise.

When Bethan Winn and Charlie Blake first met at a cafe in January 2022 they could both feel something other than their coffee was brewing.

Both Bethan and Charlie help organisations solve huge problems, innovate, and develop their leadership. Coming up with solutions and ideas is central to what they do and it’s part of what they do best.

However, these two Western Australian small business owners felt huge frustration and isolation when it came to taking action against what they see as the biggest challenge of our age – the climate emergency.

Their own organisations had both taken steps to improve their sustainability and make climate commitments. At the start of 2021, Charlie’s leadership and strategy business had already started a 1-for-1 tree planting program. “For every person we train, we plant a tree. It’s a simple way to directly link what we do every day to making a positive impact. We planted over 1000 trees in the first year alone. Our clients loved it too – so we’ve kept on doing it,” Charlie says.

Bethan took her corporate training and critical thinking business carbon neutral in 2021, and was surprised at how easy and affordable the process was. She started thinking that if taking action was this simple, maybe there’s a way that more can be done?

Over that first coffee, they decided they wanted to spread the word and take their aspirations further. Surely together, they could make a bigger impact.

Collective action leading to large scale change

Bethan and Charlie knew that acceptance of the climate emergency is now mainstream. Although the crisis can seem daunting, they are both natural optimists who believe in a better future if you can create the change you want to see in the world.

Bethan and Charlie’s vision grew quickly. Plant more trees? Reduce carbon use? More solar panels on the roof?

Their ideas swelled, and they realised they didn’t need to go it alone – why not foster a community of like-minded leaders who are ready to embrace the collective action that will really shift the needle?

They decided to try and get 100 Western Australian businesses to go carbon neutral by the end of 2022. It’s a number that felt scary, but achievable.

Taking action together – Join The 100

Join The 100 is a project to inspire change. The movement is bringing together ambitious organisation leaders who are ready to step up to the plate. It’s about creating a community of businesses focused on change, achieving the outcomes they want, and leading with action rather than words.

Join The 100 can highlight to politicians and incentivise the market that there is strong business support for action on climate, and there’s huge demand for investment in clean energy and climate technologies.

By deciding that now is the time to make an impact, they hope the project will pave the way for others and make it easier for others to follow.

Through Perth-based partners Carbon Neutral, achieving carbon neutrality is easier than you think and can be done entirely online. As the project progresses, there’ll be access to supporting resources and to share insights and ideas with the Join The 100 community and members.

So what are you WAiting for? Join The 100! Click here to check out the LinkedIn page.

Three of the 37 methodologies used to generate ACCUs are under increased scrutiny:

• Human-induced regeneration – where landowners destock or reduce stocking to allow natural regeneration of vegetation.
• Avoided deforestation – which pays landholders for not clearing trees they have permits to clear.
• Landfill gas – which pays waste dump operators to limit emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

These methods are generating concern due to claims of not meeting ‘additionality’ requirements, which refers to carbon credits being generated to “not chop down forests that were never going to be chopped down, to grow forests that are already there, to grow forests in places that will never sustain permanent forests,” said ANU law school professor and former chair of the Emission Reduction Assurance Committee Andrew Macintosh to the ABC in a story for 7.30.

Emission reductions should not be ‘business as usual’, they must be additional to the baseline scenario. In other words, the investment by the purchaser should create new reductions in emissions that would not otherwise have happened.

Additionality is a real issue that all carbon projects cannot ignore. From their inception, the highest standard of land management should be maintained, be underpinned by the best ecological advice, and regularly reviewed by independent parties.

Macintosh and two CSIRO scientists, Kerryn Paul and Dr Stephen Roxburgh, have claimed that their analysis has revealed a substantial proportion of ACCU projects are breaching additionality rules and are underperforming, with skewed estimates of carbon storage. The Clean Energy Regulator, who manages the ERF, has dismissed these claims as false due to a lack of evidence.

It is critical that such claims be investigated, and the government’s ERF framework be independently reviewed and integrity restored. They should also seek to regularly improve based on past implementation, emerging technologies, and the latest science. If carbon capture claims are overstated, or would have happened anyway without the project, it hinders the planet and Australia’s formal obligations to the global community such as it has under the Paris Agreement.

For Carbon Neutral’s reforestation project, there are no questions of additionality breaches because this methodology delivers verifiable and tangible carbon sequestration outcomes. Its Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor is Australia’s largest biodiverse reforestation carbon sink, having planted more than 30 million native trees and shrubs across over 13,000 hectares. The restoration project has taken place since 2008 on land that was once a thriving woodland ecosystem. Clearing in the 20^th century has now stripped it of over 90% of its original native vegetation. By planting a biodiverse mix of 60+ species endemic to the region where these ecosystems once used to thrive, Carbon Neutral is starting the ecological restoration process in one of 36 Global Biodiversity Hotspots.

The Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor is the only carbon project in Australia to achieve Gold Standard-certification, which is the most rigorous framework in the world in relation to on-ground carbon measurement and sustainable development, aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Establishment of new plantings and monitoring of existing plantings in the Corridor project is undertaken independently and is regularly audited in line with certification requirements. The plantings are also protected through a carbon covenant agreement that protects the reforestation for a minimum of 100 years. Fire management activities are also undertaken and the plantings are insured against any potential loss by fire, whilst many native species are resilient to fire.

An independent study recently identified, quantified and valued the co-benefits of the Corridor project and mapped these to 7 different SDGs to better understand its positive impacts. The benefits to the community include environmental, social, economic and heritage outcomes – comprising co-benefits of:

• Biodiversity
• Regional economic impact
• Soil quality
• Water quality
• Indigenous cultural heritage

Previously, the ABC highlighted Carbon Neutral’s Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor in a story on Australian businesses taking the lead on climate action.