EVs’ Australian power-up gathers pace
After years of lagging uptake in other global economies, uptake of electric vehicles in Australia is finally starting to accelerate. Clean Energy Finance Corporation and KangaNews hosted institutional participants in the sector at a September roundtable in Sydney, to discuss the detail on infrastructure and financing behind the headline uptake numbers.
Social linkage shakes the foundations – and validity – of ESG
Social factors have tended to be the black sheep of the sustainable finance family: harder to measure than emissions and frequently less prioritised than the need to respond to the existential threat of climate change. Participants at a KangaNews-Westpac Institutional Bank roundtable, which took place in Sydney in September, discussed moves to improve the measurability of social impact, the sector’s challenges and why the link between the pillars of environmental, social and governance (ESG) might make the term redundant.
Read more: Social linkage shakes the foundations – and validity – of ESG
No deviation from inflation focus, new RBA governor confirms
The new governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Michele Bullock, has used her first public speech in the role to affirm its laser focus on inflation – noting that the other aspects of the bank’s mandate may be subordinate to, or have complementary outcomes with, inflation direction. Analaysts and markets largely view the central bank’s November cash rate decision as a line-ball call with the 25 October CPI print for Q3 likely to be a key input.
Biodiversity becomes too big to ignore even as complexity caps action
The nature crisis may be less widely discussed than the climate crisis but – as well as being a tragedy on its own terms – it represents no less of a threat to human wellbeing. Sustainable finance has the chance to learn from decades of gradually evolving expertise in the climate space to deliver faster action on biodiversity, according to participants at an ANZ-KangaNews roundtable that took place in Sydney in September. But the window to act will not stay open forever.
Read more: Biodiversity becomes too big to ignore even as complexity caps action
Scape’s A$1.4 billion conversion ups the score for ‘sleeper’ SLLs
The ‘sleeper’ sustainability-linked loan has been mooted as a potential answer for businesses whose financing requirements do not conveniently line up with their sustainability target setting. By converting a substantial bank facility to sustainability-linked format, student accommodation provider Scape has demonstrated that the sleeper can awake.