THE Bass Coast Shire Council is going into business, the environmental business.
At its monthly council meeting last Wednesday the council voted to establish ‘The Environment Fund’ as a company limited by guarantee, typically a company structure used for not-for-profit and charitable organisations in Australia.
But it’s a private company nonetheless, registered with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and if not aiming to make a profit, then hopefully not to make a loss.
However, while the council intends to go out, cap in hand, for contributions to philanthropic trusts, companies looking to improve their environmental credentials and sister councils; it’s not at all clear whether the council will be contributing financially to the organisation itself.
Cr Michael Whelan, who is credited with the initiative, says yes, council should consider giving ratepayers’ money to the private environmental organisation over which it may have no ongoing control.
But despite other councillors raising reservations, a majority of councillors supported the idea on a vote of 7:1, Cr Ron Bauer being the only dissenting voice.
Cr Whelan praised the work of council’s partner, Biodiversity Legacy, as one of the best attributes of the initiative:
“It's really great to have got to this stage with this environment fund and to have a partner like Biodiversity Legacy that's out there and doing this already, gives it a great chance of success,” Cr Whelan said.
If, as Cr Whelan says, the independent not-for-profit organisation ‘Biodiversity Legacy’ already has enough runs on the board to secure the future of the shire’s new company, they must have been busy.
Biodiversity Legacy was only established in 2022.
He commended to initiative to the council:
“There's been a hell of a lot of work done in terms of how to get the governance structure right for this and have it sitting outside of Council is a great solution.
“I haven't come across any bodies yet that would willingly donate to a council whereas a philanthropic fund that this is to be set up with has strong potential to attract that sort of investment.
“Some of the research work that's been done on this is done by the South East Council's Climate Change Alliance that I chaired for five years and we pushed this thing along, and there's strong potential from metro councils, and that sort of thing, to invest in this sort of thing, as we may choose in future budgets to do as well,” he said, a clear indication that’s what he has in mind.
“That's a discretionary part of how we go forward and it has the potential to assist us in our approach to address biodiversity decline in our area, and also to look at carbon drawdown.
“So, it has incredible potential. It's very consistent with the regenerative tourism model that's been adopted by Destination Phillip Island and also the potential through science and academic tourism that are largely under invested in this area for those to also get a leg up through these sorts of operations.
“So, I think it's a great opportunity to extend the vegetation cover in our shire that became quite devastated over the period of white settlement. So here we go. Let's kick it into action.”
Cr Rochelle Halstead and Cr Geoff Ellis both said they were only prepared to support it because they had been given the understanding, that beyond “in kind” admin support, the operations of the fund would not impact council’s budget.
“I just wanted to say that this council has invested and continues to invest significant ratepayer funds in the name of addressing climate emergency. It's a difficult debate to have as the threat of climate change is real and I don't doubt any councillor in their commitment to addressing the challenges we all face, but this council has done some seriously heavy lifting over the last eight years in that space, and I do worry the pendulum has swung far too far one way,” said Cr Halstead.
But support from the likes of Cr Leticia Laing, Cr David Rooks and Cr Brett Tessari was unequivocal.
“Council often gets a lot of criticism about investing into climate action and talking about it like it’s an expenditure rather than a potential for income. Creating the environment fund as a separate entity from council allows us to access a lot of funding resources and tap into a multibillion-dollar industry which is carbon offsets,” said Cr Laing.
“According to Morgan Stanley, by to 2050, this is going to be a $250 billion, global industry and I'm not suggesting that that's going to all happen in Bass Coast Shire, but it just shows that investing in projects that can create financially sustainable and positive outcomes for the environment are possible and can bring great financial returns as well as environmental returns to our community.”
Cr Ron Bauer said it simply wasn’t the work of council to be going out and setting up private companies to address the impacts of climate change.
“If individual councillors feel strongly enough about the work of Biodiversity Legacy they can request a prospectus and are more than free to invest their own money in this venture,” Cr Bauer said.
As well as there being no indication whether council will be contributing ratepayers’ money to the new company, there was also no word from the individual councillors who voted for it, Crs Halstead, Laing, Le Serve, Rooks, Tessari, Whelan and Ellis, if they will be putting in their own hard-earned.
