Q&A: sustainable finance bears fruit

Corbet: Mark, you’ve recently returned from Europe where you met with ANZ customers, investors and also some of the regulators. What were your key lessons from the trip?

Whelan: The first thing was there is an expectation Australia is going to be at the forefront of this transition and many of our customers want to participate in that.

The second thing is, even with recent issues in Europe and what that’s done to energy prices, you would think there may have been a weakening in the approach to the transition. If anything, it’s completely the opposite. I’m seeing a doubling down from all of those stakeholders in the transition. And I think that’s a positive.

There’s a lot of short-term pain with pricing as we’re seeing at the moment and sources of energy, particularly in Europe. But the short term is not going to get in the way of the medium to longer term. And if anything, I think you’re going to see significantly more investment in renewables at a much faster rate than what we’d anticipated.

That in itself is going to promote pretty significant opportunities for our customers and therefore ourselves.

There’s no doubt in Australia we’re rich in minerals. What came through loud and clear from Europe is there are many customers that want to help Australia in that space.

Australia has been part of the energy formula for the globe for a long, long time. The nature of the role is just going to change, going forward.

Corbet: Frédéric, do you…

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