The ACCC now has an internal taskforce to oversee Australia’s “greener economy”

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has created an internal sustainability taskforce to “build our expertise [and] inform and coordinate our efforts across the agency”, says chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

“The taskforce will examine and seek to influence a range of issues where environmental and sustainability issues intersect with the application of competition and consumer law, including product safety,” the chair said at the ACCC’s annual enforcement and compliance policy update in Sydney this week.

“The ACCC has a wider role in this transition beyond consumer law issues. The transformation to a greener economy is changing industries and creating demand for new infrastructure.”

The ACCC has already been targeting ‘greenwashing’ claims by Australian businesses. An ACCC internet sweep found 57% of the 247 businesses made “concerning claims” about their environmental credentials.

After the event, Cass-Gottlieb told The Mandarin the taskforce includes about 15 people from teams across the agency.

“They are looking to make sure that we take a consistent approach,” she said. “Whether we look at a consumer-protection question or competition question, we build our scientific knowledge [and] our knowledge of standards.”

The chair added the taskforce has to “knit it all together”, with the group also looking outside the agency to be more informed about sustainability issues.

Speaking on the eve of International Women’s Day, the ACCC’s first female chair also used her address to state she wishes her agency to remain diverse and inclusive.

Cass-Gottlieb said the commission faced both opportunities and challenges from the breadth and scale of its work.

“I’m looking for us to remain as strongly collegiate, effective, diverse and inclusive as we are today and to keep growing in that respect.

“Every member of the agency is there through an absolute dedication to the public interest.

“It’s a privilege and an inspiration to work with people. And I want to see in circumstances of the sort of workloads and challenges that we face that we continue to have that sort of experience.”

Cass-Gottlieb voiced her support for a Voice to Parliament and constitutional recognition of First Nations people during her Acknowledgement of Country.

On diversity, the chair said her agency had prioritised increased opportunities for First Nations employees, with the Reconciliation Action Plan published in November last year.

“We’re proud to support our First Nations employee network,” she said.

“Mipla Tunapri — that name comprising two words from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, meaning ‘we’ or ‘us’ and to give knowledge and understanding – just as we benefit from listening to and being influenced by our colleagues in Mipla Tunapri and our outreach activities.”

Cass-Gottlieb told The Mandarin that she was personally being mentored by a First Nations woman out of the ACCC’s Darwin office.

“It’s a program that is designed to change the way we think and open up our knowledge and experience and to build relationships that might otherwise not occur,” the chair said.

But First Nations diversity is not the only area being targeted, with staff networks for people with disability and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) staff as well.

Those in the audience for the CEDA-hosted event included representatives from Uber, Westpac, Woolworths Group and Google.

This article was first published by The Mandarin.