Prtnr

Climate change is empowering conscious consumerism, is your company benefiting from being an early adopter?

Yesterday a group of professionals gathered for a collaborative "think tank" to explore ways to build a supportive ecosystem. By sharing insights and leveraging diverse expertise, the group aimed to create a network that fosters mutual growth and drives impactful change. The discussions sparked new ideas and partnerships, laying the groundwork for future collaboration and success. A massive thank you to all that attended. #prtnr

As Donald Trump prepares for a return to the White House, driving Climate Change could shift back to consumers With Donald Trump returning to the presidency in January 2025, many are wondering how his policies will impact the fight against climate change. One thing seems clear: the responsibility for addressing environmental issues may once again shift away from businesses and governments, and back to individual consumers. During his first term, Trump rolled back numerous environmental regulations, emphasising energy independence and deregulation. Under his leadership, the U.S. withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, and a "business-friendly" approach dominated federal climate policy. With his is reelection, it’s likely we will see a similar focus on market-driven solutions and individual actions, rather than top-down regulatory measures. For businesses, this could mean a diminished emphasis on corporate sustainability goals and less pressure to reduce carbon footprints. Instead, the onus of mitigating climate impact may fall more squarely on consumers, who could face increased pressure to make eco-friendly purchasing decisions in an environment where green regulations are minimal. From a policy perspective, this could lead to a reliance on market incentives—such as green consumer products, renewable energy options, and sustainable lifestyle choices—to drive the necessary change. While this approach empowers individual choice, it raises questions about whether consumers alone can meet the scale of the climate crisis without systemic changes at the corporate and governmental levels. As professionals in sustainability, business, and environmental advocacy, we must remain agile. Regardless of political leadership, the drive toward climate action will continue to be a central issue for businesses, and the role of the consumer will remain pivotal in the choices they make and the demand they create for greener alternatives. What do you think? Can individual action alone drive the climate solutions we need, or is comprehensive policy change necessary? What does it mean for climate tech companies, should they focus more on consumers, business or government as customers? #ClimateChange #Sustainability #EnvironmentalPolicy #ClimateAction #GreenEconomy #BusinessLeadership #ConsumerResponsibility Planet Price | B Corp Klean - AI based Customer Insights EnergyLab Climate Salad Climate Council Climate Zeitgeist

Starting with a blank slate, Wayne founded Prtnr to channel his capital, energy, experience, and network into building businesses that drive positive change for both people and the planet. With a clear vision for a sustainable and vibrant future, Prtnr was born to prove that business success can be rooted in both profit and purpose. Today, our team and the organisations we invest in and partner with share a fundamental belief: the best businesses operate not only for financial returns but also to make a meaningful impact on customers, communities, employees, shareholders, and the environment. At Prtnr, we’re committed to creating a future where businesses thrive by doing good. 🌍💡Prtnr.au Watch the full video on SBS #SustainableBusiness #ImpactInvesting #ProfitWithPurpose #PositiveChange #BusinessForGood

Last week…Wayne kicked off the third 2024 International Collaboration Sprint, uniting MBA students from QUT, MIT, University of Auckland, and NUS to explore entrepreneurial opportunities in climate technologies. The teams will tackle challenges in carbon capture, electric vehicles, battery tech, wind power, and hydrogen, pitching solutions for global and regional issues. Wayne also shared valuable insights from his journey as a founder and his investment strategies. What a great event with a great team. #QUT #MBA #Entrepreneur

Some great resources and free climate training here Klean - Sustainability for Retail Planet Price Wayne Gerard

Great to see portfolio company Planet Price sharing content like this. They’re on a mission to get people thinking about the planet price of the things we buy for ourselves, our families and our work. Want a hand to assess the planet price of your supply chain, project and procurement spend, reach out to Andy Hill and the team at Planet Price

Working with talented and driven founders solving climate change makes everyday at Prtnr inspiring. Yesterday we had a great meeting with Shan V. the CEO and Founder of Climate and Social Impact SaaS company Klean - Sustainability for Retail We've been working with Shan on his go to market plans and on his climate and impact partnerships. Klean provides three modules, the one we've been working on recently is called Impact@Checkout. It allows a consumer to support a climate project or social impact cause that aligns with their values as part of their shopping experience, at checkout the retailer donates an amount on behalf of the customer to help offset the purchase. Klean enables retailers to align their brand with their customers by partnering with organisations acting on climate change and delivering social impact projects. We're working with Shan and the team at Klean to form more partnerships with reputable and verified climate projects and local social impact causes. Making it easy for these organisations to register on Klean's website and creating shared marketing campaigns to promote new partners and the causes they're supporting. Giving retailers opportunities to partner with and promote the causes they care about is helping them build strong brands with their customers. Interestingly the data is showing that consumers are spending more each order when they have an option to support a climate or impact project they care about. We see applications for Impact@Checkout for any organisation that cares about environmental and social impact and wants to build a great brand with their customers on their ecommerce platform. This includes traditional retailers, power and water utilities, councils, insurance companies, health care providers and many more. If you'd like to learn more please reach out to Shan V. https://lnkd.in/gYfsfmZt

A shoutout to a couple of the awesome #climatetech founders we get to work with. Andy Hill and Mike Capps at Planet Price. As investors it's a privilege to work with founders tackling #climatechange. We're helping Andy and Mike with their go to market strategy, branding and storytelling. Listening to Andy explain why he founded Planet Price and to Mike about how his 6year old daughter Ava said he had to join as a cofounder because he needed to save their planet. It's really inspiring and makes us want to do everything in our power to help them build a global company having global impact. Planet Price allows government ministers, agency heads, company directors, executives, staff, the public and consumers to ask a simple question.. "What's the planet price of this??? What's the planet price of this new product, service, trip, building, infrastructure project, etc.. Is there a better option that achieves the same outcome at a lower Planet Price??? Giving the Planet a seat at the table and making the true cost to the planet transparent as a simple and comparable dollar value is what Planet Price does. It's no longer acceptable for people to make purchasing decisions on the financial price only, it's time we also considered the planet price. If you would like to find out more about Planet Price please reach out to Andy or Mike. www.planetprice.io

6 Months in and things at Prtnr (pronounced Partner) are starting to take shape. Welcome to our first bi-annual update on LinkedIn. We started life as Partner Ventures, but over the last 6 months as our thinking has evolved so has our brand. Starting a new business is a great process, start with an idea, high level vision, partially defined mission, lots of lessons from previous roles and the excitement of making a positive impact. Opportunities arise & things develop differently to how you'd planned, which is part of what makes being a founder interesting. I started an investment and advisory business to enhance the health & longevity of our planet and people. To back Queensland founders and build ecosystems that would accelerate their causes & our economy. I also felt like I had some unfinished work from my time at QIC working on the #QVCDF, so I promised myself I'd help the VCs and accelerators we backed to get connected in Queensland. I've started but still have some work to do on this.. 6 months in here are some of the highlights: Our Vision is now clear, we look at everything through the lens of creating a sustainable and vibrant future. We're proud to have led the investment round in Klean - Sustainability for Retail to support Shan V. with his ambition of bringing climate and social impact to consumers during their eCommerce experience. We've partnered with and backed two more exciting companies that we'll share more about soon. We now have 9 investments (8 Queensland, 1 Victoria). We've reviewed 14 startup investment opportunities in a serious way and had over 100 startups pitch to us. We're in an investment process with 2 exciting companies and hope to proceed with these over the next quarter. We've mentored and run master classes at the LX Health accelerator. We organised and hosted the #QueenslandFutureEnergyEvent for 150 people at The Precinct to connect #startups, #VC's #Accelerators #Universities #EnergyUtilities #Government We've mentored, run OpenPitch nights and master classes at QUT (Queensland University of Technology) QUT Entrepreneurship We've been supporting Children's Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service on their digital and data advisory board. We've also been working with Queensland Government Minister Mick de Brenni on the Minister's Procurement Advisory Council. We've spoken at numerous events & continue to encourage Queensland Government, large corporates & Brisbane 2032 about the economic, social, environmental benefits of partnering with & buying from local startups. We've kicked off two advisory projects with great clients. I'm super excited that we've grown the team to include Manoj Bhatt Jason Seed Sarah Gair, MBA Thanks to everyone that we've engaged with in the first 6 months. Please reach out if we can be helpful. Our new website is coming, in the meantime, you can check out our landing page & register for updates at www.prtnr.au Cheers Wayne Gerard Founder Prtnr