Safeguard Mechanism in Practice: Lessons for Reform
Description
This webinar will explore early corporate responses to Australia’s reformed Safeguard Mechanism and consider the implications of these developments in light of the forthcoming statutory review.
Introduced in 2016 and reformed in 2023, the Safeguard Mechanism has become a central pillar of Australia’s industrial decarbonisation framework. The scheme now imposes declining emissions baselines on large facilities, supported by new compliance options—including tradable Safeguard Mechanism Credits—while retaining access to Australian Carbon Credit Units. As the statutory review approaches, attention is increasingly focused on how regulated entities are responding in practice, and whether the mechanism is delivering emissions reductions consistent with Australia’s climate targets.
Bringing together leading researchers and practitioners, this event will share emerging insights into early compliance behaviours under the Safeguard Mechanism and explore options for reform.
Organisers
Green Lab, Impact Labs, Monash Business School, and University of Newcastle School of Law and Justice
Moderator
Associate Professor Anita Foerster, Director, Green Lab, Monash Business School
Anita is a legal academic at Monash Business School with over 15 years research experience in environmental and climate change law and regulation. Anita is the Director of Green Lab, where she leads projects exploring legal and regulatory drivers for improved corporate sustainability performance.
Presenters
Dr Ella Vines, Lecturer, Green Lab, Monash Business School
Ella is a Lecturer in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash Business School. Her research focuses on climate, and biodiversity law, with a particular interest in corporate sustainability regulation and corporate climate litigation. She is part of an interdisciplinary project which empirically tracks corporate responses to the rapidly developing regulatory and market context in relation to climate change and biodiversity loss. Ella completed her PhD at the Melbourne Law School where her research examined whether the Paris Agreement interacts with other laws to constrain coal extraction and consumption.
Associate Professor Anke Leroux, Department of Economics and Green Lab, Monash Business School
Anke Leroux is an environmental and natural resource economist and Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at Monash University. She is particularly interested in problems of optimal natural resource use and conservation under conditions of risk, uncertainty and irreversibility.
Dr Elena Aydos, Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Justice, University of Newcastle
Elena Aydos is a Brazilian trained lawyer and a Senior Lecturer at the Newcastle Law School, University of Newcastle (UON). Dr. Aydos holds a PhD from the University of Sydney in cotutelle with Tilburg University, The Netherlands; an MPhil in Environmental Law from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil; and postgraduate degrees in Public Law and Taxation Law from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. She is the Program Convener for the Master of Environmental Law at the Newcastle Law School. Dr. Elena Aydos has publications in Portuguese and English in the area of climate change law and policy. The culmination of her research to date is her book ‘Paying the Carbon Price’ (Edward Elgar, 2017). ‘Paying the Carbon Price’ is an important new addition to the prestigious “New Horizons in Environmental and Energy Law series”. Dr. Aydos has ongoing research collaborations with Associate Professor Sven Rudolph, from the Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University.
Kurt Winter, Director, Corporate Transition, Carbon Market Institute
Kurt is a member of the executive leadership team at the Carbon Market Institute (CMI), an independent, member-based institute accelerating the transition to net zero emissions.
Annika Reynolds, National Climate Policy Adviser, Australian Conservation Foundation
Annika is a climate and energy policy expert with a background in law and academia. Before joining ACF, Annika was an adviser at an international climate and energy thinktank and Visiting Fellow at the ANU College of Law.
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