Green Fix

In this episode, digital sustainability strategist Tim Prosser returns to The Green Fix to unpack the physical footprint of data centres — the invisible infrastructure behind every AI query, cloud service, and streaming session.

Tim breaks down what corporate sustainability professionals need to know right now: why data centres could consume 11% of Australia's electricity by 2035, what the CEFC's reliability gap warning means for energy prices (and your mortgage), and why annual offsets are no longer cutting it. He explains the shift to 24/7 carbon-free energy matching, the emerging water risks that have Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart mayors sounding the alarm, and how direct-to-chip liquid cooling could halve data centre water use.

Plus: six metrics to see through greenwash, procurement moves ASX-listed companies can make today, and why your sustainability team needs to be talking to IT — yesterday.

Whether you're reporting under Australia's climate disclosure framework, managing ESG for a company with cloud infrastructure, or just trying to understand where the grid is heading, this one's essential listening.

Find Tim Prosser at sustainabilitydigital.com

Resources

• CEFC (Clean Energy Finance Corporation) "Data centre growth and the energy transition"
• C40 Cities Network
• "Sustainable IT Playbook for Technology Leaders"  By: Niklas Sundberg, Richard Pastore

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Loreto Gutierrez

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What's the real environmental footprint of your organisation's IT infrastructure — and is your cloud provider telling you the full story?

In this episode, we welcome back Tim Prosser for part one of a two-part deep dive into digital sustainability. Tim is a specialist in digital sustainability strategy and green operations, with over 20 years leading enterprise technology teams across the UK and Australia. He serves as a mentor and community advisory board member at Climate Salad and led industry engagement at Climate Action Week Sydney in 2024–2025.

Since his first appearance on The Green Fix in June last year — one of our most popular episodes — Tim has been on a global study tour, connecting with digital sustainability practitioners across London, attending Climate Week, London Tech Week, and the Global Tipping Points Conference at Exeter University. He returns with sharp insights on what organisations need to know right now.

Tim unpacks why Australian cloud environments are rated E and F against the global standard, what questions organisations should be asking their technology suppliers before hard-baking data into baselines, and where the biggest gaps in IT emissions reporting sit — particularly in financial services, insurance, and media. He introduces the IT Sustainability Maturity Assessment by the global nonprofit Sustainable IT, and explains why the collaboration between sustainability, finance, and IT — what he calls the sustainability value triangle — is the key relationship for credible climate disclosure.

Whether you're a sustainability practitioner preparing for mandatory reporting, an IT leader navigating digital emissions, or someone who's never thought about the carbon footprint of their inbox — this episode is essential listening.

RESOURCES

Organisations & Tools Mentioned

• Sustainable IT (global nonprofit) — https://www.sustainableit.org
• IT Sustainability Maturity Assessment (free, open for 2025) — https://www.sustainableit.org/news/2025-launch-of-the-it-sustainability-maturity-benchmark-program
• Climate Salad — https://www.climatesalad.com
• Parents for Climate — https://www.parentsforclimate.org
• Nic Seton, CEO of Parents for Climate — https://www.parentsforclimate.org/nic_seton

Books

• The Sustainable IT Playbook (2nd edition) by Nicholas Sundberg and Richard Pascoe — https://www.sustainableit.org/sustainable-it-playbook
• The Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)

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Loreto Gutierrez

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How can the Australian subsidiaries of global multinationals become sustainability innovators, rather than waiting for head office to lead the way?

In this episode, we sit down with Dani Matthews, Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer at Abundium, a leadership community for C-suite executives in foreign-owned companies operating across the ANZ and APAC region. Abundium works with over 100 of the world's leading multinationals to drive what Dani calls "good growth", leadership that balances profit with people and planet.

We talk about leapfrogging (not the pilates kind): how Australian subsidiaries can use their distance from global headquarters as freedom to pilot, test, and innovate, then share those breakthroughs back to the global business. She shares how Unilever ANZ achieved B Corp certification before its parent company and piloted a four-day work week in New Zealand, and how DHL Supply Chain is using a global carbon insetting model to reduce supply chain emissions ahead of local infrastructure.

We also explore what Dani calls the Trusted Triangle , the critical alignment between the CEO, CFO, and Chief People Officer, and why sustainability must sit at the heart of business strategy, not on the sidelines. With mandatory sustainability reporting now underway in Australia, Dani shares what she's hearing from CFOs navigating the transition and why frustration might actually be the gateway to flow.

Whether you're in a multinational, an ASX-listed company, or a sustainability role looking for practical ways to keep this work on the leadership agenda, this conversation is full of actionable insights.

RESOURCES

Guest & Organisation

• Abundium — https://abundium.com
• Dani Matthews on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewsdani/

Books & Authors

• The Case for Good Jobs by Zeynep Ton (MIT Sloan) — https://goodjobsinstitute.org
• Net Positive by Paul Polman (former Unilever CEO)

Podcasts

• Change Signal by Michael Bungay Stanier
   https://thechangesignal.com

Research & Reports

• WEF & BCG Report: Already a Multi-Trillion-Dollar Market: CEO Guide to Growth in the Green Economy (December 2025) — https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/12/the-5t-green-economy-is-growing-here-s-how-ceos-can-turn-opportunity-into-long-term-growth/

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Your Hosts:
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Loreto Gutierrez

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Forget fighting the climate. Paul Hawken argues we are part of it—and that single shift can change how leaders, teams, and communities act. We bring Paul into a candid conversation about language, agency, and the practical levers businesses can pull right now to lower risk, save money, and grow life.

Paul Hawken has shaped how business leaders approach climate action for over 60 years. "The Ecology of Commerce" inspired, amongst many, Ray Anderson's transformation of Interface. Drawdown became the definitive roadmap for climate solutions. Now Carbon calls for a shift from fighting carbon to fostering life.

In this episode, we go deep on:

• Why "fighting carbon" and "net zero" might be the wrong frame entirely
• The incredible story of meeting Walmart executives in a closed basement for 5 hours - and writing the speech that transformed the company
• What actually changes leaders and CEOs mind's on climate and social justice

Enjoy the episode, share it with your team, and leave a review to tell us which term you’re retiring first! 

PAUL HAWKEN'S BOOKS

Carbon: The Book of Life (2025) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/670480/carbon-by-paul-hawken/

Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation (2021)

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (2017)

Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World (2007)

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (1999) Co-authored with Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins

The Ecology of Commerce: A Declaration of Sustainability (1993) 

PAUL HAWKEN'S PROJECTS

Project Drawdown https://drawdown.org/
Project Regeneration https://regeneration.org/
Paul Hawken's Website https://paulhawken.com/

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Beyond Zero (Documentary) https://beyondzerofilm.com/
Interface - Our Sustainability Story https://www.interface.com/US/en-US/sustainability/our-history
Ray C. Anderson Foundation https://www.raycandersonfoundation.org/Lee Scott's Walmart Speech (October 2005) - "Twenty-First Century Leadership" 

PEOPLE REFERENCED

Ray Anderson - Late founder and CEO of Interface
Damon Gameau - Australian filmmaker (2040, Regeneration)
Lee Scott - Former CEO of Walmart
Doug McMillon - Current CEO of Walmart
Jib Ellison - Founder of Blu Skye Sustainability Consulting
Toby Kiers - Researcher on mycorrhizal networks and fungal communication
Andrew Adamatzky - Royal Society researcher on fungal communication patterns
Tiokasin Ghosthorse - Lakota elder
Dana Meadows - Systems thinker and author

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Your Hosts:
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Loreto Gutierrez

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Connect with us!

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Your Hosts:
Dan Leverington
Loreto Gutierrez

Liked this episode?
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Heat, forests, and hard choices: COP30 in Belém turned climate ambition into a street‑level experience. We have our first return guest, as Beth Dowe, Executive Director of the Climate Leaders Coalition, comes back to the Green Fix to unpack what truly moved the needle at COP: a global push to triple adaptation finance by 2035, Brazil’s big bet on the Tropical Forest Facility, and the fierce debate that stripped fossil fuel roadmap language from the final text while igniting new conversations at home in Australia.

Listen in to hear about the real action inside the pavilions where governments, business and civil society intertwined, and why that proximity matters for turning high-level pledges into projects. 

Beth shares how Australia’s signature on the Belém Declaration creates pressure to refine the Safeguard Mechanism and rethink diesel rebates, even as our COP31 hosting bid fell short. With Minister Bowen confirmed to preside over negotiations, we dig into how Australia can still raise ambition, shape rules and attract global capital to clean energy, critical minerals and value‑chain innovation across the region.

Beth shares that it was Nature that took centre stage in the Amazon. We explore how net zero strategies actually depend on halting deforestation, why more than half of global GDP is tied to nature and how the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is evolving from disclosure to design through pilots that reimagine products, sourcing and end‑of‑life. 

We also spotlight Indigenous leadership across COP. From the Great Peoples’ March to calls for early engagement and Indigenous‑informed governance to include pathways to co‑ownership in minerals and nature markets, this legitimacy is a prerequisite to investment. 

Finally, we talk about language that lands: swapping 'decarbonisation' for 'modernisation', treating efficiency as the silent moneymaker and scaling what works through trusted business coalitions and pre‑competitive collaboration for at-scale positive impact.

Subscribe, share with a colleague who cares about climate and nature strategy and leave a review to help others discover the show. 

What’s the one change you want Australia to lead next?

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What if every job could be a climate job? In this episode, we speak with Lucy Piper, Director of Work for Climate, a non-profit helping employees drive climate action from inside their workplaces. Lucy shares how professionals in any role — not just sustainability — can influence corporate climate policy, push for science-aligned net zero commitments, and hold companies accountable on lobbying and financed emissions. We explore employee activism, avoiding the "climate purity test," and why focusing on the movable middle matters. Whether you're in marketing, engineering, or finance, this conversation will change how you think about your role in the climate crisis.

To learn more, please visit: 
https://www.workforclimate.org/

Lucy's Recommendation:
The Great Simplification Podcast with Nate Hagen:
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/

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Welcome to Episode 6 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney.

Sea level isn’t creeping up by accident; it’s obeying physics we’ve understood for a long time. We sit down with Professor Benjamin Horton—one of the world’s leading sea level scientists—to translate complex mechanisms into plain English, connect polar ice to equatorial risk, and show how today’s choices shape tomorrow’s coastlines. From ocean heat swelling the seas to the accelerating melt of Greenland and Antarctica, we walk through the drivers, the uncertainties that matter, and the signals we can already measure from space and on the ground.

The conversation travels from the Vostok ice core—800,000 years of atmosphere trapped in bubbles—to geological snapshots 2.8 million years ago, when CO2 sat near today’s levels, global temperatures ran 3 to 5 degrees warmer, and sea level rose 10 to 20 metres. That deep history frames the present: it tells us what Earth is capable of and why peaking emissions by 2030 is not a slogan but a lifeline. We also get granular about regional and local realities. Gravity changes as ice sheets shrink, pushing more water toward the tropics. Currents stack seas unevenly. Cities on sinking deltas face a double hit from subsidence and storm surge. Risk is layered, and so are the solutions.

Ben lays out three priorities for the next five years: invest in science and monitoring from pole to postcode, accelerate renewables instead of leaning on unproven carbon capture, and build genuine community engagement so warnings turn into action. There’s grounded optimism here too. We spotlight new cooling materials inspired by desert ants that reflect over 90% of sunlight, practical research that helped trigger timely evacuations in Vietnam, and the steady engine of education driving new ideas. We close with a cultural challenge: bring influencers into the fight and pull climate scientists into the rooms where the biggest decisions are made.

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Welcome to Episode 5 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney.

Systems don’t change neatly; they lurch, resist, and then tip. That turbulence can be terrifying or energising, and in this conversation we choose energy. With Dr Sally Uren of Forum for the Future, we trace a through-line from cleaning a polluted canal to steering global coalitions, showing how climate solutions and public health gains are two sides of the same coin. The energy transition is surging, regenerative agriculture is rewriting the goals of the food system, and health care is shifting from cure to prevention — fertile ground for positive tipping points if we design for co-benefits.

Sally unpacks resilience with a kayak metaphor that keeps leadership grounded in agency. We look at how cleaner air, active transport, and heat-resilient cities slash emissions while reducing mortality and chronic disease. We confront equity head-on: women and children bear outsized risks from heat, water stress, and shifting vector-borne diseases, while undercounted heat deaths hide the true burden. The answer isn’t more band-aids; it’s structural policy reform, smarter incentives for adaptation, and private sector strategies that treat climate and health as the same brief.

Collaboration is the engine. We examine why harmonising standards, as in Cotton 2040, unlocks scale; how systems evolve from startup to acceleration to stabilisation; and where leaders can pull real levers — financing, procurement, disclosure, and cross-sector coalitions. Along the way, Sally challenges outmoded leadership training and invites us to “compost” failing models so better ones can grow. If you want practical ways to align ethics and economics, to turn personal choices into system ripples, and to help your organisation multi-solve for climate, health, and equity, this episode is your map and paddle.

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Welcome to Episode 4 of the Positive Tipping Points Special! A 7-episode special series on the road to COP30 in Belem, with guest host Liz Courtney.

Markets don’t just reflect change—they can create it. We sit down with two leaders in responsible investment to unpack how stewardship, smarter regulation, and clear definitions are accelerating corporate decarbonisation and funding solutions at scale. From boardrooms to supply chains, they reveal where investor pressure truly lands, when escalation matters, and why Scope 3 conversations are reshaping strategy across sectors.

We dig into Australia’s new sustainability reporting regime and what comparability unlocks for capital markets. But good data is only a start; the real edge comes from analysis that weighs abatement costs, feasibility, and long-term risk. Our guests break down the crucial difference between risk, relative sustainability performance, and impact, and how sloppy language feeds greenwashing while precise terms protect ambition. Fiduciary duty isn’t a brake on climate action—it’s a mandate to manage systemic risk over decades, which turns pensions and sovereign capital into engines for transition.

Divestment gets a sober assessment: selling shares usually changes owners, not outcomes. The bigger lever is enabling clean solutions with new capital while engaging incumbents with clear milestones and consequences. We explore why renewables now outcompete fossil fuels in many markets, where technology can design out waste across value chains, and how circular thinking creates durable advantages. The stakes for laggards are rising—physical damage, stranded assets, reduced access to finance, reputational hits, and shrinking export pathways as trading partners tighten standards. Australia has a chance to lead by investing in IP, basic science, education, and advanced manufacturing, turning ideas into industry.

You’ll also hear personal journeys into climate finance, practical advice for students and career-changers, and two bold system fixes: cut mis/disinformation at the source and price externalities so value tracks harm and benefit. Ready to see how capital can push us past the next positive tipping point? Follow the show, share this episode with a friend who cares about climate and markets, and leave a review with the one lever you’d pull first.

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