Light Warrior Group: Carbon Dividend Scheme

1. Introduction

• Climate change could turn out to be the most devastating consequence of human progress. If temperatures continue to increase, experts forecast catastrophic sea level rises, and a surge in extreme weather events, bushfires, and famine.
• Unfortunately, within Australia, political uncertainty and a failed attempt to implement a nationwide carbon price have created a policy vacuum for businesses.
• Businesses want to help and use their operations for good and taking steps to address climate change is on many companies’ radars.
• Small businesses, most of whom will not have a dedicated sustainability function or resources, are the key engine of our Australian economy. This can be proxied by employment, as shown below:

Composition of private sector employment in Australia by firm size

Table 1: Source: ABS, Australian Industry, cat. no. 8155.0, Table 5

• Light Warrior is a private investment fund. We work with small, agile and high-growth businesses to support their growth and assist them to grow in a socially and environmentally conscious way.
• Currently, many smaller businesses who want to reduce their carbon emissions are faced with a choice between allocating scarce resources to sustainability or continuing to focus on operations and their own growth. For many of the companies we invest in and support, people and resource limitations mean that carbon abatement falls by the wayside as a business focus.
• Light Warrior sought a way to assist companies – regardless of size – to implement easy and efficient processes to reduce their emissions. The result is the Carbon Dividend Scheme.

2. The Carbon Dividend Scheme

• The Carbon Dividend is a policy that companies can implement, which applies a fee to emissions within a company. The fees are aggregated and added to a ‘carbon fee pool’, which a company can use to fund green initiatives, deliver carbon abatement, or purchase emissions offsets.
• The benefits of the Carbon Dividend are:

1. A simple way for a company to implement a sustainability initiative – does not require a dedicated team or resources
2. Communicates a carbon focus throughout a company, internalising the external cost of carbon pollution into the P&L of a company, division, or team. Makes the costs and consequences of carbon tangible to team members within the company, helping to align them with the company’s objectives and encouraging them to modify their behaviour and cut emissions.
3. Creates investment capital to invest in emissions reductions.

• The Carbon Dividend is not a carbon tax. No business is out of pocket for joining, and indeed, we think companies will benefit financially from membership through the positive branding associated with these actions.

3. What has Light Warrior done?

• Over the past 12 months, Light Warrior has dedicated resources to developing a framework for the Carbon Dividend, which has included policy design, stakeholder interviews and testing, and scheme development.
• With a robust framework for how the scheme can operate, which has now been tested with leading stakeholders in the space, Light Warrior is moving to incorporating the Carbon Dividend within our operations.
• Our aim is to demonstrate that the Carbon Dividend is easy and resource-light to implement, has a positive effect on team member awareness of climate, and can reduce emissions.
• Once incorporated within Light Warrior operations, we will roll this out to our portfolio companies, providing them support to implement the Carbon Dividend within their own businesses, and supporting the scheme to grow.