‘Copycats welcome’: Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes’ $1.5bn climate pledge

Tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, who together with his wife have pledged $1.5bn on climate projects, has called on corporate Australia to follow his lead.

Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes. Picture: John Feder/The Australian

Atlassian co-founder and co-chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes has called on corporate Australia to follow his lead and pour money into climate initiatives, after he and his wife Annie committed to invest $1.5bn into climate projects by 2030.

The billionaire tech executive said the sum would include $1bn in financial investments and $500m towards philanthropic endeavours, and he now wants executives at other large companies to follow suit.

“We want to spark others into understanding and copycats are very welcome,” he said in an interview.

“We’ve already invested over a billion bucks at this stage and we’re aiming to do that again. The point is to promote the raising of ambition and the urgency of getting those sorts of moneys deployed and into technologies in the time frame that aligns with what we need to get to one and a half degrees by 2030.

“On the philanthropic side this is a huge raise in our ambition, and just seeing the scope of the problem and the amount of things that need to be addressed and changed. My suspicion over the next eight years is that we‘ll need to do a lot more than a lot more so we’re gonna go out and do that.”

Atlassian

The tech executive – Australia’s 3rd richest person according to The List, Australia’s Richest 250 – has also accelerated Atlassian’s own net zero commitments by 10 years, to 2040 rather than 2050.

Mr Cannon-Brookes said expects the Australian government to agree to a net-zero emissions target by 2050, but has scepticism around its timing in getting there.

“I have optimism that we‘ll get there, I have scepticism that we’ll get there in the time required, which will create a lot more economic pain, and not harness the economic gain that could have from making those decisions quickly,” he said.

“2050 is a done deal and it’s not a problem, we’ll end up with a net zero target whether it’s this election cycle, or next election cycle. But 2030 is much more of an issue that we should be focused on, and addressing that over the next eight years is critical.

“From a climate perspective it‘s absolutely what we do in the next eight to 10 years that makes a difference, and from an economics perspective, if we don’t start changing the Australian economy to harness those opportunities that we have in decarbonisation in Australia, then other countries will accept those opportunities and it’ll be much more competitive and difficult for us to win in those areas as an economy, and that will be very sad because that’s a lot of downside.”