On a mission to make net zero personal
The man who brought the Invictus Games to Australia has turned his attention to climate change and net-zero, launching a new start-up to help drive down household emissions among Aussie families.
When marketing guru Tim Hodgson prepared to launch his start-up platform MyNetZero last month, he knew he was entering “complicated territory”.
“I was like most people on the subject,” he said.
“I was overwhelmed by the information, the doom and gloom, and a bit unsure about what I could do with my family to help reach a net-zero target.”
After more than 20 years as a high-flying marketing and commercial executive, which included co-writing Australia’s successful 2018 bid to bring the Invictus Games to Sydney, Mr Hodgson said he was late to the issue of climate change and emissions reduction, but that “it’s never too late to start”.
“It started when I was watching a David Attenborough documentary on our planet with my wife and four kids,” he said.
“We sat down for dinner afterwards and just started talking about it, and thought we would devise a plan to bring down our own household emissions.
“We made a net-zero pledge then and there, and set about reaching that goal by addressing energy, travel, food, waste, finance and consumption.
“It seems daunting but it’s really not if you have the right roadmap.”
In 2019, the Energy Research & Social Science journal suggested households were responsible for about 72 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a figure Mr Hodgson said would only increase in an Australian context with the number of households projected to increase from 9.2 million in 2016 to 13 million by 2041.
With the average Australian household producing about 17 tonnes of carbon a year, Mr Hodgson said people needed to consider reductions from the perspective of personal responsibility and aim for closer to six or seven tonnes and eventually net zero.
“Clearly families who want to do this need some kind of roadmap,” he said. “Carbon calculators are sometimes overly complicated and can put people off, but unless they can access frameworks to reach net-zero, emissions will remain elevated.
“The government has the Paris Agreement and COP26 ... initiatives like MyNetZero need to become the ‘people’s agreement’, where we’re accountable to each other at a grassroots level.
“With the Invictus Games I think one of the great successes was managing to align government, corporate and not-for-profit groups around this simple concept of using sport as a tool to rehabilitate and reintegrate veterans into society.
“I think MyNetZero is essentially trying to do the same thing.”
Mr Hodgson said MyNetZero was designed as an online hub for members to build, download and print personalised roadmaps, as well as form groups of friends to compare a household’s progress.
It also allows users to interact and develop a timeline to net-zero, which prioritises reductions across energy, waste, travel, finance and consumption habits.
“An individual’s road map will be linked to relevant information and industries that can help them reach their target quicker, based on what you’ve decided to do.”
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