Page 2369 - Week 08 - Thursday, 5 August 2021
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that sustainably cultivates and farms seafood for wholesale. It is currently raising capital investment and beginning their first harvest of 50,000 sea cucumbers in Singapore. Evalue8 Sustainability is a software platform that allows organisations to monitor their total carbon footprint and provide explainability to minimise their carbon output. It has recently closed several new deals. CBRIN also partners with the Mill House Ventures to deliver the Social Enterprise Accelerator program that supports social innovators to explore viable and sustainable ways to create, measure and sustain impact to address systemic disadvantage.
In collaboration with the CIT, CBRIN delivered the ZeroCO2 Hackathon in August 2020. The Hackathon’s focus was accelerating Canberra’s transition to net zero carbon emissions by 2045. The virtual event had 39 participants who formed teams to create solutions and compete for a prize pool of over $10,000. CBRIN has commenced work with CIT on ZeroCO2 and Sustainability Collaborative Innovation Lab, to be held later this year.
Canberra-based Mineral Carbonation International, MCi, is an organisation or a business that I have spoken about many times in this place which uses carbon engineering processes to transform captured carbon dioxide into solid materials that can be used to manufacture low-carbon building and construction products. In June 2021 MCi was successful in receiving a commonwealth grant of $14.6 million to construct a world-first mineral carbonation mobile demonstration plant in Newcastle. Many people in this place would recognise its chief operating officer, Sophia Hamblin Wang, who regularly appears on ABC TV on Q&A and is a fantastic ambassador for sustainable jobs and sustainable growth industries.
The ACT’s ambitious renewable electricity target has attracted over $2 billion worth of investment in large-scale renewables and demonstrated the territory’s national and international leadership as a renewable energy and climate action capital. The ACT government’s award-winning reverse auctions also leveraged significant local investment outcomes worth $500 million over 20 years. The Next Generation Energy Storage program and the Renewable Energy Innovation Fund were established as a result of these reverse auctions.
The $25 million Next Generation Energy Storage program has supported the installation of over 1,700 energy storage systems or 7.6 megawatts of sustained peak output, to date. Fifteen local installers are now accredited to the program and delivering those services to Canberra homes and businesses. These installers will also all be accredited to the new Sustainable Household Scheme, which already has more than 35 accredited installers and growing.
Since its inauguration in 2016, the ACT Renewables Innovation Hub, supported by the Renewable Energy Innovation Fund, a collaborative co-working space in Canberra’s renewables precinct, has hosted more than 60 businesses and 150 events, with more than 3,000 attendees. The $12 million Renewable Energy Innovation Fund is providing $2.2 million in flexible, early-stage funding through its direct grants program to help support a diversity of new and emerging technologies and ventures. Local start-ups have been successfully supported to date and there are future rounds to come.
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