A new Australian research group will soon bid for government funding to establish itself as cooperative research centre (CRC) with the aim to support A$2 billion in annual investments in carbon, biodiversity, and natural capital markets.
The CRC programme is a government initiative that funds industry-led collaborations between industry, researchers, and end users.
Professor Ian Overton, the chief executive of South Australian government agency Green Industries SA, and Professor Andrew Lowe, interim director of the Environment Institute at the University of Adelaide, are spearheading an effort to establish a Nature Positive Economy CRC (NPECRC).
“The CRC aims to develop the market infrastructure needed for businesses to confidently engage in carbon-offsetting, biodiversity credit trading, and other activities that support natural systems and processes at the scale needed to make real, fair, and sustainable change,” its website reads.
According to the group’s prospectus, the NPECRC will identify, de-risk, and connect projects that transition Australia to a nature positive economy.
It aims to support communities, businesses, and stakeholders to de-risk large scale projects that will make a significant difference to carbon reduction, biodiversity conservation, and community well-being and prosperity.
It will also support investors to find A$2 billion per annum of investable projects in the emerging nature positive economy it said.
“We are in a climate and biodiversity crisis. What has been missing to date is broad scale financial support for nature positive action,” Overton wrote in a LinkedIn post Sunday promoting the prospectus.
The group is seeking partners to provide a commitment of intent to engage with and support the CRC.
Some of the benefits it touted for joining would include being a co-investor in building financial market instruments and measuring tools to help a nature positive economy to thrive, as well as gaining priority access to trusted tools and systems that ensure that investment in carbon abatement and biodiversity improvement is real.
It comes as Australia’s carbon market begins to reform after integrity flaws in the scheme were raised last year and as some scientists and environmental groups voice their scepticism to the Albanese government’s proposal to a voluntary national biodiversity market.
FIRST ACCESS
The prospectus said the CRC would also coordinate an industry PhD training programme that matches students with companies to build, test, and validate the tools and systems needed for a nature positive economy.
“These students will be the leaders of this economy in the future, and your organisation will have first access to them,” it claimed.
Potential research programmes listed that the CRC could explore include new ways to measure nature, which it said could create tools to calculate carbon and biodiversity credits, and baselines.
Financial engineering would also be a potential research activity, which it said could create multiple new exchanges for trading credits and support platforms, improve and extend the Australian Carbon Credit Unit market, and create a trading space in CCS reservoirs, methane emissions, and hydrogen.
It would also focus its attention on accelerating the transition by overcoming barriers to create new and diversified income streams from carbon and biodiversity trading, and look into case studies for partners and sectors to profitably decarbonise.
The bid is being supported by the Rozetta Institute, an independent research organisation that seed-funds research centres to deliver economic impacts and improve lives, according to its website.
Its members include several Australian universities, alongside the US Nasdaq stock exchange.
The Rozetta Institute submitted a successful bid to establish the 10-year, A$180 mln Digital Finance CRC, which started operation in 2021.
The Digital Finance CRC is leading a partnership with the Reserve Bank of Australia and other major Australian banks to pilot the tokenisation of carbon credits.
NPECRC’s website said it will submit its bid to the Australian government for funding support in March next year and begin to receive funding in July 2025, if its bid is successful.
Last month, the government announced the progression of six applications to the next round of the current CRC application process.
The applications include a CRC for Net Zero Net Emissions from Agriculture, a Pollination Security CRC, and a Scaling Green Hydrogen CRC.
The government expects to announce its selected applications in December, with funding to commence from July 1 next year.
By Mark Tilly – mark@carbon-pulse.com
