Noosa’s inaugural Climate Tech forum was held at The J Theatre last Thursday to pose the question: could this region become Australia’s next climate tech innovation hub.
Hosted by Noosa Council the event brought together industry leaders and advocates from around the country to network the possibilities and hear from guest speakers including keynote speaker Creel Price, CEO of Greenhouse, Australia’s first climate tech hub in Sydney.
“We’ve convened climate entrepreneurs, investors, government supporters and students to start a conversation about how this area can drive the next wave of innovation in this space,” Mayor Clare Stewart told the forum.
“We feel we are uniquely positioned to be leaders in this space given the regions burgeoning tech ecosystem paired with a strong reputation for environmental stewardship.”
Noosa Shire is located in the centre of Australia’s only three consecutive biospheres. It has a long history of conservation and protection of biodiversity with more than 40 per cent of Noosa in conservation tenure, and the growth of tech and innovation through the Peregian digital hub has made it the Sunshine Coast’s epicentre of tech, Cr Stewart said.
“The four-hour workshop will hear from national leaders about the state of climate tech and opportunities for Noosa and the wider Sunshine Coast region.
Discussions will centre on forward-thinking solutions for the most pressing climate challenges.”
“What is climate tech? it’s about the mitigation of climate change impacts, like solar panels, digesting food waste,” event MC Charlotte Connell, from Greenhouse, said.
“There’s no greater problem to solve for. We’re going to have to adapt to a changing environment.
“Technology can be hardware, software or a combination. It’s a broad church, everything from nature-based solutions to the processing of critical minerals.”
Some examples of climate tech companies based in Queensland include Floodmap, creators of technology that calculates what streets will flood in a rain event, Circonomy, a group that repurposes office furniture as part of a circular economy, and Fable mushrooms, creating an alternative protein source, Charlotte said.
Creel Price, a dynamic entrepreneur who built Sydney’s climate tech hub, Greenhouse, and founded a leading climate tech fund, Investible, with an impressive background in building and accelerating Climate Tech opportunities, was invited to talk about his insights on building a community for climate technologies in Noosa.
With his mother living in Noosaville and a brother in Cooroy, Creel is no stranger to Noosa.
His Greenhouse project began as an idea five years ago in Sydney and opened in October, 2023.
“Working with City of Sydney council scoping what would be required for an innovation ecosystem we were pushing that it should be helping companies scale overseas, particularly SE Asia,” he said.
“We’re an adventure capital company. We do a lot of programs in SE Asia and Australia. We could see a lot more science-based groups coming through to invest in. They came from a science more than commercial background. The fear was they wouldn’t have the skills to build the business.
“They can build the technology but not the business. Greenhouse was set up to do that.
“The question was how to harness that incredible technology but help these companies be more commercial. Firstly how do we get more traction and how do we take that around the world.”
The green tech hub has attracted the attention of organisations involved in wide-ranging interests from energy and renewable producers to agtech, food producers, construction companies, forestry, environmental groups and smart cities.
Such has been the industry interest in Greenhouse, in only a few months his 350-seat hub has attained 80 per cent capacity.
“We’ve had a lot of interest internationally. We had the governor of Tokyo come in, the governor of Minnesota come in, it’s quite unique what we’re doing, having a big hub focused on climate,” Creel said.
Creel divided the green tech arena into four elements:
– how to foster the youngest, kid-preneurs
– how to help entrepreneurs to be successful at business
– how to help those doing business for good
– how to help innovators within business or government.
“It takes a village from an investment point of view, including government department, university sectors, large organisations. if you can cultivate that as a village you are more successful,” Creel said.
His final words of advice to Noosa in his keynote address were to “find out your unique way of doing things. You need to choose your flavour.”
