The Canva couple flying high on the business of biodiversity
A tree planted for every print order placed with Canva and moving its global data services to be powered by renewable energy is just the tip of the iceberg for Canva.
The team at Canva, the Australian-owned digital design and visual communication platform, has been committed to sustainability since the company was first launched in 2013. “In this day and age, companies have a much greater responsibility than the old mantra to do no evil,” says Canva chief executive Melanie Perkins. She says the company’s Australian operations have been carbon neutral since 2020, and its global operations have been carbon neutral since 2021.
The company plants a tree for every print order placed with Canva – to date the tree tally is more than four million – and is moving its global data services to be powered by renewable energy. It has also switched over to using LED light bulbs and relying on other energy saving strategies across all of its offices.
Those efforts, however, are just the tip of the iceberg for the company’s co-founder Cameron Adams and his wife Lisa Miller, who was head of product at Canva. The couple started their own fund – Wedgetail – to use their billions towards global conservation efforts.
Adams and Miller moved to Tasmania in 2020 to be closer to the natural world, becoming custodians of a significant piece of land in the central part of the state known as the Midlands.
They began to connect with other landholders and farmers who were also focused on nature-positive land management, and quickly realised Australia’s current economic systems don’t support biodiversity improvements. They believe the key to reversing the effects of biodiversity loss lies in new technologies and finance models.
Miller says it became clear that financing the transition to nature-positive systems represented a huge opportunity. “We’ve had all this experience seeing how startups work, how corporates work and how government organisations work and now we’re taking it to this idea of conservation,” Miller says.
“We truly believe biodiversity is better business. We use a mix of loans, grants and investments to support organisations of all shapes and sizes that have biodiversity at the heart of their business models. Wedgetail is looking for results in natural capital and financial capital in tandem.”
Wedgetail’s first financial product is a nature-linked loan, with an interest rate that automatically drops as the borrower creates more natural capital. The loans are built to accelerate businesses that have a nature-positive impact on the landscapes in which they operate. The initial focus is on cacao farmers, with plans to scale into other commodities.
Miller describes their organisation as an antidote to “doom and gloom” around conservation efforts. She says she remains hopeful that the future can be one of abundance, and in which a growing number of graduates choose careers in conservation. Our collective fear has led to inaction around protecting the environment, she argues.
As chief executive of Wedgetail, Miller is focused on the fund full-time, while Adams chips in around his other role as Canva’s chief product officer. “We think of ourselves as a [venture capitalist], but we have a tongue-in-cheek version, which is that we’re venture conservationists,’ Miller says.
More Coverage
Government must focus on serious productivity growth
How does a nation as rich in minerals, energy and skills as Australia lose its standing as a global resources hotspot?
Federal Labor on a collision course with miners over green push
The federal government has made a powerful enemy for itself in the west after the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA said it would fight Labor’s push for so-called nature-positive laws.