Australia’s Kodak moment – can we avoid it?

Government inaction on transitioning to a low carbon economy will have no impact our long term behaviours. It will, however, impact where we choose to live and work.

The world has been moving relentlessly towards being more resource efficient and low-carbon regardless of how politicians may fiddle. The shouting and hysteria from all sides of the policy debate is exhausting. What if all that effort was redirected towards delivering successful outcomes rather than butting heads? A strategy of finding and building successful businesses, communities and projects would create the attraction to make politicians, business leaders and even ‘shock jocks’ want to be part of that success. Utilising the power of attraction is a much stronger tactic than pushing these groups into ‘seeing sense’.

In the long term, national Governments are entirely irrelevant and will have little impact on how we end up living. That is not to say that arguing the case for short term policies and their impact on individuals is not worthwhile and important. This will have very real impacts in the short term on individuals in a multitude of ways: who gets rich and who does not; which industries thrive and what we import. It is just that when we look back on the current political discussions, we will see that the big issues of today were just blips on the road to a different way of living.

I can see why rich miners and energy companies would want to protect their wealth, but I can also see why those with much invested in renewable energy want to be successful. There is a futility in trying to push a utility into dismantling their hitherto profitable business models.

Policy positions can drive our best ‘efficient technologies’ to relocate overseas or might help them grow and thrive in Australia. Countries such as Korea and Singapore are actively trying to poach the world’s best low-carbon, clean technology companies as they see this advanced manufacturing as a great way of growing jobs, investment and trade. So short term Government whims are incredibly important if you care in which country you live.

The fact that the dominant Kodak company did not transition to the new world of digital cameras did not stop the world changing. It just drove the company into an ever weakening position leading to its eventual bankruptcy in 2012. Decisions made in this decade will determine if Australia can avoid its own ‘Kodak moment’ through evolving its economy and industry to align with global trends. The alternative is that we enter a long slow decline and, just like Kodak staff, the best people will move to more forward thinking places.

Providing incentives that assist new industries to grow and help old industries to evolve provides economic stability. When talking about the toughness of the 2014 budget, the Treasurer, Joe Hockey said, “By taking action now we are lifting the burden from future generations of Australians.” Those backing action on climate change may have briefly rejoiced on hearing these words!

Focussing policy on ‘lifting the burden on future generations‘ is important but it will not be sufficient to enable Australia to secure a strong place in the industrial world of 2030. To attract the community and then the government to this vision we need some great success stories and we need to tell them loudly and proudly. We need a couple clean tech billionaires on the front page knocking off the saturation coverage of the largely unpleasant and porcine mining billionaires.

The good news is that there may just be some on the way. Their success will not be dependent on Government largesse or any whimsical decisions regarding industry or environment strategies. They will succeed because they have world leading technologies that are close to being incredibly successful. They will also create high value jobs, drive investment and deliver trading opportunities.

Some good examples of this include BluGlass Ltd, a company developing world leading LED manufacturing technology and RayGen Resources which recently signed a $60m deal in Shanghai with the Prime Minister in attendance to supply high tech solar systems to China. Others include Z-Filter, a Perth based company that has developed a filtering technology at one tenth the cost and size of traditional systems, and Enlighten Australia, a Sydney manufacturer of luminaries that can save 93% of energy costs. Each of these great companies are alumni from the Australian Technologies Competition, a mentoring program that helps Australia’s good technologies become great global businesses.

So to those that put their effort into ensuring important short term outcomes are achieved, don’t give up because the outcomes you achieve will help Australia avoid its ‘Kodak’ moment. However, the long-game global outcome is independent of national governments and will be driven by the success of innovative technology companies in whichever countries provide the strongest support for them.

John O’Brien is the Managing Director of Australian CleanTech, a research and broking firm that advises cleantech companies, investors and governments and works across Australia, China, Korea and Malaysia. He is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the Business School at the University of Adelaide. www.auscleantech.com.auTwitter: @jkwob