The Ethical Investor: Family offices, led by Aussie moguls, drive sustainability investments

Family offices grow rapidly in Asia-Pacific
These funds are backing sustainability projects
We take a look at Grok, Tattarang, and Wedgetail

The rise of family offices across the Asia-Pacific region has quietly shifted the financial landscape in recent years, and it’s no longer a trend we can ignore.

As detailed in KPMG’s Global Family Office Compensation Benchmark Report, Asia-Pacific now accounts for about 10% of global family offices, with Singapore hosting a dominant 59% of that slice.

So what’s behind this surge? Well, in simple terms, it’s wealth.

Asia-Pacific is home to some of the fastest-growing fortunes in the world, and the complexity of today’s financial markets means that traditional methods of wealth preservation can no longer cut it.

As global uncertainty becomes the new normal, high net-worth families are pivoting towards a more hands-on, strategic approach to managing their assets.

According to KPMG, nearly 60% of the 2,000 family offices now operating in Australia were founded just in the past 10 years.

The boom has been driven by Aussie entrepreneurs cashing in on global opportunities, and the baby boomers cashing out of family businesses.

Family offices now account for over a third of active investors in the country, up from a mere 7% just five years ago.

Family office and ethical investments

Known for their extreme privacy, family offices are finally putting up websites as they start hunting for staff and investments.

But it’s still tough to track down a comprehensive list of family offices or their rankings, mainly because these private funds tend to operate under the radar.

What we do know, however, is that family offices are getting more serious about sustainable investing, with half of them saying they’ll likely back green tech.

According to UBS’ 2024 report on family offices, sustainability is now a key part of long-term investment strategies of these funds.

Climate tech, food innovation and water scarcity are among the top themes invested.

“Family offices are telling us that sustainability considerations are increasingly important, both in the context of their investment portfolios, but also for the long-term outlook of their operating businesses,” said Antonia Sariyska at UBS.

Australia’s leading family offices, backed by high-profile entrepreneurs like Mike Cannon-Brookes, Twiggy Forrest and the founders of Canva, are indeed making their investments in sustainability.

Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures

When you think of billionaires, you probably picture lavish lifestyles, private jets and yachts. But for a new wave of Australian moguls, their fortunes are taking a different direction.

For example, Mike Cannon-Brookes, the co-founder of Atlassian (NASDAQ:TEAM), is on a mission to use his wealth for something far greater than just cashing in.

Announcing a “refined” investment strategy, Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures said that it will seek to focus on opportunities “right across the climate capital stack”.

Grok’s climate investments span from AGL Energy (ASX:AGL), Who Gives A Crap (the eco-friendly toilet paper brand), to innovative biowaste companies that are working to slash carbon emissions.

Grok Ventures is also behind SunCable, a massive renewable energy project aiming to build the world’s largest solar farm in Australia’s Northern Territory, to then send the power to Singapore via a 4,200 km subsea cable.

The project is expected to cost over $30 billion and, despite facing challenges, has been backed by Grok, which invested $65 million to keep it going.

Grok is also an early investor in Xpansiv, a platform that trades carbon credits to help businesses cut their carbon footprint and hit sustainability targets.

One of Grok’s latest investments is in Rhizocore, a company working on soil health tech to boost crop yields and help farmers grow more sustainably.

‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s Tattarang

But Cannon-Brookes isn’t alone in this movement.

Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest’s family office, Tattarang, has evolved from a traditional mining investor to a force in renewable energy.

Twiggy, founder and chairman of iron ore giant Fortescue (ASX:FMG), is now using his wealth to fund massive green energy projects.

Alongside his investments in mining, he’s also backing SunCable, the same project Cannon-Brookes is involved in.

Tattarang also invests in Squadron Energy, which is focusing on developing renewable energy projects like solar, wind, and hydrogen.

Squadron’s portfolio includes big projects like the 1,200 MW New England Solar Project and a number of wind farms and hydrogen ventures.

Tattarang’s also got its money in TenMile, a biotech investor with stakes in ASX-listed firms such as CurveBeam AI (ASX:CVB), Emyria (ASX:EMD), and Lumos Diagnostics (ASX:LDX).

Finally, Tattarang has stakes in beloved Aussie brands like Vegemite and Akubra Hats.

Lisa Miller’s Wedgetail

Then there’s Lisa Miller, former Canva executive and wife of co-founder Cameron Adams, who has her own family office, Wedgetail.

Wedgetail has a mission to conserve and restore biodiversity through sustainable investments.

The fund has loaned money to Zorzal, a company using cacao farming to protect Bicknell’s Thrush habitat, located in the Appalachian Mountains.

The loan helps Zorzal expand by buying cacao from farmers who use eco-friendly practices that protect local wildlife and biodiversity.

Wedgetail has also granted funds to Bangalow Koalas, a not-for-profit working to restore native habitats for koalas and other endangered species in New South Wales’ Northern Rivers.

The non-profit’s goal is to plant 500,000 trees by 2025, having already planted 414,000 since 2019.

Miller has also invested equity in a company called Xylo Systems, a platform that uses data and AI to make tracking biodiversity impact easier, from collecting data to reporting it.