Australia’s top 10 most prolific business leaders on sustainability
With sustainability taking a front row seat in recent campaigns for major retailers Coles and Woolworths, media monitoring service Streem has conducted a ranking of Australia’s top ten most prolific CEOs when speaking about building a more sustainable future, in the past 12 months, across print and online coverage in the media.
The mining, oil, gas, energy and banking industries dominate the list, with Santos’ chief executive officer, Kevin Gallagher taking the top spot for visibility, mentioned a total of 145 times.
Kevin Gallagher, CEO, Santos Group
BHP’s chief executive officer, Mike Henry came in a close second with 103 unique mentions across the board, while ANZ’s CEO Shayne Elliott came in third with 71 mentions, and Woodside’s recently-retired CEO Peter Coleman taking fourth spot with an overall of 62 mentions.
Gallagher told Mumbrella: “With 80% of global primary energy coming from hydrocarbon fuels – the same as 45 years ago – Santos is focused on making these fuels cleaner and eventually zero-emissions.
“Santos has a strong future as a clean fuels company producing zero-emissions LNG, hydrogen and other clean fuels, enabled by large-scale carbon capture and storage such as our proposed Moomba CCS Project, world-leading nature-based offsets such as our West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Project and increased use of renewables and energy efficiency in our operations.
Gallagher added: “Santos is already working to align our business with the Paris Agreement’s central goal to limit global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.”
In December 2020, Santos committed to and announced a pathway to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040, including new emission reduction targets that build on its existing 2025 targets.
“At Santos, we are committed to continually making progress on the aspirations and targets we have set for each of our sustainability pillars, and maturing the way in which we report,” Gallagher said. “I see the energy transition to net zero emissions as a huge opportunity, building off our historical relationships and into new clean energy products such as CCS and hydrogen.”
Gallagher concluded: “The energy transition provides the opportunity for Santos, and for Australia, to establish a new, large-scale industry producing carbon offsets that will be in heavy demand from emitting countries that lack Australia’s competitive advantages in carbon storage. Australia can become a carbon storage superpower based on our vast tracts of pastoral and cropping land and our depleted oil and gas reservoirs.”
