Our Impact Focus Areas

Affordable housing

According to the ABS, in the next 25 years the proportion of Australians aged 65+ is projected to increase from 14.2% to 20%, and those aged 85+ will double from 1.8% to 3.6%. With this ageing population, there is a high demand for affordable housing. While 82% of seniors own their own homes without mortgages, 80% have less than $100,000 in superannuation. ASFA analysis shows that a couple requires $60,843 a year to fund a comfortable retirement but the age pension is only $31,995. To fund this shortfall, there needs to more affordable senior living options. Source

Care & Support

In 2021, 1.32 million children attended one of the 13,589 approved childcare services), receiving on average 26 hours of care per week. With demand for these services growing at over 4% p.a. over the past 5 years, 550 new childcare centres are needed annually. Source

Education

In 2018, it was found that 24.8% of Year 7 students nationally (74,249 students) were not meeting the national minimum standards for both literacy and numeracy. This increases to 55% in remote and very remote areas and over 60% for indigenous students. Source

Financial and other inclusion

Our financial inclusion investment strategy is to invest in companies that provide fairer access to financial products and support financial education. Other inclusion refers to providing access to media and communications for people with hearing loss or in multi-lingual environments.

Healthy Living

Increasingly sedentary lifestyles and poor eating habits are leading to rising health problems in developed countries. Awareness is rising and leading to the adoption of more healthy eating and living in higher socio-economic groups, but investment is required to drive deeper and broader change into all segments of society. In addition, people in developing countries are changing their lifestyles to be more like those in developed countries, resulting in similar health problems, such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity and driving higher demand for meat and dairy products and highly processed foods. According to the World Health Organisation 1.9 billion adults are over weight or obese while 462 million people are underweight. Source

Land & Resource Management

The earths’ finite natural resources are being used up at an alarming rate. In 2020, for the first time ever, global use of natural resources reached 100 billion tonnes per year. Given the ever-increasing demands from a growing population, we need to better manage the use of our resources. This includes reducing our environmental impact and greenhouse gas emissions through more sustainable consumption, re-use and recycling of materials, generating energy from waste, and improving and regenerating natural resources where possible. Source

Renewable Energy

Holding global warming to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 °C will require global net anthropogenic CO2 emissions to decline by 50% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. Private sector investment into renewable energy generation and storage, as well as electrification of our energy use, is necessary to achieve this goal. Source

Wellbeing: Healthcare Services

Just under half (47.3%) of Australians had one or more chronic health conditions in 2017-18, an increase from 2007-08 when two-fifths (42.2%) of people had one or more chronic conditions. Women aged 15 years and over were more likely than men to have a chronic condition (57% compared to 51%). The ageing population is a contributing factor to these trends and the result is that increased investment is required in healthcare services. Source

Wellbeing: Medical Devices

In the last 20 years, Australia has seen a 25% decline in annual mortality, 25% decline in disability rates, 56% reduction in hospital bed days and an increase in life expectancy by 4.6 years, which can all be attributed to medical technology. Source

Wellbeing: Pharmaceuticals

The medical industry is a significant contributor to Australia’s economy, employing thousands of highly skilled Australians, generating billions of dollars in R&D and exports, and most importantly, delivering medicines, vaccines and technologies that millions of Australians and people around the world use every day to live longer, healthier and more productive lives. Source

Impact Focus Areas