Australian and New Zealand ESG Update

Landmark climate case won by 8 teenagers and a nun

The Federal Court has ruled that the federal environment minister has a duty of care to avoid harm to young people as a result of climate change - an historic and landmark ruling. The judgement is likely to have flow-on effects for projects that look to justify Australia’s continued production and sale - and use - of coal and fossil fuels.

Legal action was commenced on behalf of eight Australian highschool students and a catholic nun acting as their litigation representative. The nine argued that federal environment minister Sussan Ley had a duty of care not to allow the young people to come to harm due to climate change.

It was argued that Ley would have been negligent if an approval was made from the Vickery coal mine (by Whitehaven coal) to extract another 33 million tonnes of coal from the site. The extra coal was expected to produce 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

Ley argued that no such duty of care existed, as there were no ‘reasonably foreseeable’ climate-change-related consequences from the extraction of the coal. Ley also tried to argue that recognising duty of care would ‘open the floodgates’ of litigation, which could result in many more coal projects being blocked.

It was ruled by Mordecai Bromberg that the federal environment minister owed the duty of care to the young people to prevent harm, dismissing the arguments made by Ley. Ley has tried to say that action on climate change was not part of her portfolio responsibilities.

The injunction that was sought to stop the coal mine from going ahead was declined, thus allowing the environment minister to make a proper decision regarding the extension of the coal mine. What the ruling does do is force the environment minister to take the impacts of the mine on climate change, and onto the young people, into account when approving or denying the mine expansion. The case is not over as yet.

ANZ and BHP sign gender-diverse leadership pledge 40:40 Vision

Already 10 companies have signed up to the 40:40 Vision initiative to commit to achieving gender equality in their senior ranks within a decade. Other big companies joining the pledge include BlueScope, Domino’s, IGO, Ramsay Health Care, SkyCity, South32, Tabcorp and Webjet.

The pledge is to have 40 per cent of senior management identify as women, 40 per cent identify as men, and 20 per cent any gender identification by 2023 and 2027. Plans must be identified for meeting these goals.