Australia brings its expertise to Sustainability Expo

Sustainability Expo 2024 is being held from September 27 to October 6 at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center.
This year’s theme is “Sufficiency for sustainability for good balance and a better world”. The expo aims to bring together sustainable organisations from different sectors and to showcase their works and missions on sustainability.
The expo is one of the activities in the “Australian Green Economy Mission to Thailand”, which is a part of their government’s strategy to deepen economic engagement with countries in Southeast Asia.

Australia’s ambassador to Thailand, Angela Macdonald, tells The Nation: “This particular mission is a business mission. So, I suppose the goal for the businesses is thinking about partnerships. One outcome we want is commercial leads as businesses want to do business. They want to actually have their products, their capability being used, and they want to interact with other businesses."

“Secondly, it's how we keep raising their awareness of agriculture,” she adds.

Australia is a known leader in agricultural technologies and the sector contributed over A$60 billion to the country’s economy in 2021. The use of AI, agri-robotics, and sustainable farming has been predominant, according to the ambassador, in preparation for future economic transformation.

“Green skills are so important for the transformation that our economies are going to need to go through as we green up and have energy transition,” says Macdonald. She emphasised the importance of using green energy and a sustainability-oriented approach.

“These challenges are borderless. It doesn't matter where you are. We're all facing them so whatever technology innovation, practices, ways of doing things make our cities better, safer, greener, more healthy to live in and sustainable that's in everybody's interest.”

But given the geographical differences between the two countries, is it possible to share agricultural techniques?
“I always say there's no one size fits all and we've got to be very focused on outcomes, so any policies or processes or methodologies or tools have to be adaptable and flexible,” says Su McCluskey, first special representative for Australian Agriculture.

“Even in Australia, it's a very big country and we farm differently so we have to have different mechanisms. I think that's something to always remember when you're looking at what can be shared and put into place here, but I think the really important thing is being able to share the work around sustainability and meeting climate challenges.”

Despite the differences, the ambassador believes Australia could help Thailand be more innovative and sustainable.
“What Australia brings is a familiarity with Thailand, where we've been in the region for a long time. We are of the region when you look at it geographically,” says Macdonald.

“We have very big countries and expertise that can really sort of assist in any of the range of challenges, whether it's about production in agriculture, reducing carbon emissions, traffic management systems in a way that can help reduce pollution, and the production of biomass or green energy fuels. Australia has a whole range of capability that can assist,” says Macdonald.

The embassy has brought to SX2024 almost 20 businesses that claim to adopt a sustainable approach. One Australian business is Farmed Carbon, which has set as its goal replacing the burning of agricultural waste by using technology that will process the waste into carbon-negative materials such as building blocks, black, or phenolic resin. Another company is Biocare ,which makes biochar carbon dioxide removal from biomass waste at very high temperatures, while Su McCluskey addresses a seminar on Australia’s pathway towards decarbonisation in agriculture.