Simon Wild’s climate and sustainability advisory firm Andefena has been going for three years and is now looking to add another three people to its team of 12.
Wild, who has appeared at Fifth Estate events, spent more than seven years at Lendlease before starting his new business that he now shares with an investor.
Among his staff attraction strategy is a four day a four day week. It’s an innovative idea that many companies might have these days have as their north star, but few achieve.
“The market in our area is very much one of growth. Not just listed companies but privately owned companies that have to start reporting.”
But then Wild has always been an innovator. In a former life he shared his then company’s intellectual property (IP) innovations online for all to use, not just because technology made it difficult to keep IP but because it marked you as an innovator, he said.
During a busy schedule Wild found time on Thursday morning to outline why he needed more staff. His company is working with about a third of Australia’s listed real estate companies to help them prepare for the advancing climate disclosure regime.
“We’ve have found a niche spot in between the big four [advisory firms] and the engineering consultants that are delivering focused projects,” he said.
“We translate the company’s need for corporate reporting into what needs to be delivered at a real asset level.”
ASRS or Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards will be mandated for the biggest companies from 1 January or 1 July, next year depending on their reporting schedules.
These companies will be asked to disclose climate change related issues such as their scopes 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions, but also their transition risk and physical exposure to climate change.
Wild’s company also carries out scenario planning – assessing how exposed corporates may be to two or, sometimes three, potential climate scenarios through impacts such as from river rises, floods, heat wave, windstorm or water scarcity.
His team builds a dashboard that can track risks and opportunities.
“So how you assess risk and generate value and for those physical assets.”
There will be three tranches of rollout to capture companies of varying size with the final in 2028 expected to capture about 20,000 companies.
Wild sees an increasing awareness in the market of the longer term impacts of climate change but the positive outcome is that this is generating better resilience with the issues finding their way into corporates’ general planning cycle and strategies.
Long term adaptation includes factoring in Green Star ratings for performance and in new buildings, he said.
So what do the responses look like on the ground?
Barangaroo raised its ground plane
In the case of the frequently cited Barangaroo development in Sydney, Wild says, it was to raise the ground plane so that the precinct had a better chance of avoiding floods.
In the case of chiller replacements expected in say, 10 years’ time, it might be planning for kit that can accommodate much higher temperatures.
Going global
Most clients are Sydney based, but with national assets, and there is some work with UK clients and in Singapore.
The company is now looking for staff to help with ESG consulting at the corporate level, especially in materiality assessments and in strategy.
There’s also a need for someone skilled in the nature and biodiversity field and another in accounting and assurance.
For Wild the economy might be tough right now but not in his patch. “The market in our area is very much one of growth. Not just listed companies but privately owned companies that have to start reporting.”
The pressure is coming from legislation but also from investor demand, capital partners shareholders and stakeholders.