Selected Case Studies

Aton Consulting conducted detailed due diligence on a series of land acquisitions for a fund looking to invest into rural properties for the purpose of generating Biodiversity Credits.

The ATON team under took a review and delivered a discussion paper on exisiting marine environmental markets and the opportunities these may provide in Australian marine ecosystems.

Dr Stuart was contracted to the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney to work in the team reviewing the ACT Governments legislation around Biodiversity offsetting. Work on this project included reviewing existing legislation around Australia and internationally, understanding the ACT Governments current and past approach to biodiversity offsetting and developing recommendations for future legislation.

Aton Consulting has conducted a series of projects on retainer with the NSW Department of Environment, based around the developing markets for biodiversity, implementation of natural capital accounting, and environmental finance more generally.  

Grains Research Development Corporation (GRDC) engaged Aton Consulting to advise on the development of a multi-year research strategy regarding the impact of environmental markets on the Australian Grains Industry. 

Waterstart is a US based water industry funded venture capital group, focused on bringing water related startups through the development cycle to the stage where they can deliver products at the industrial scale required for the water supply industry.  Waterstart engaged Aton Consulting to provide strategic review and assistance regarding the launch of their operations in Australia.

Engaged in 2018 on a strategy consulting project with the CSIRO Digiscape Future Science Platform, to identify and scope market opportunities for land sector carbon projects, and to assist the CSIRO research team develop an appropriate research agenda and in particular identify how CSIRO developed decision support tools may have a commercially viable role.

Aton Consulting was retained by the Clean Energy Derivatives Corporation to head the electricity market research and modelling team and produce research reports for investors about trends in the Australian electricity markets.  We also provided the commercial lead for negotiation of forward contract pricing with market counter-parties to the CEDC.

Engaged by the CVC Venture Group to provide a due diligence report on their acquisition of the BigStone crowd financing platform.

Aton Consulting subcontracted with Sydney based consultancy Intelligent Energy Systems (IES) on a year long Asian Development Bank project looking at policy options for the Government of Vietnam to attract investment into utility scale renewable energy projects.  This included reviewing details of the contracting arrangements within the Vietnamese electricity industry and recommending options for reform that would enable private sector power investors.

SocietyOne was Australia's first "peer-to-peer" marketplace lender.   Building upon his PhD research into cutting "smart" combination auction designs, Dr Karl was retained by SocietyOne to head the team developing the AI based "marketplace engine" that automatically allocates incoming loans across investor portfolios using robotic bidding agents to represent investors.  Aton Consulting retains IP rights over key elements of the marketplace developed.  Over $500M worth of loans have been placed into portfolios using this system.

Dr Karl was engaged on retainer 2000-2004 as AFMA's first "environmental markets" policy officer.  Dr Karl led the development of the first market standard documentation for trading renewable energy and carbon credits in Australia, the launch of the first pricing data systems (the AFMA Environmental Products revaluation curve), and was the lead author on AFMA's submissions to federal and state governments around the many issues arising from the design and implementation of carbon, renewables and other environmental markets in Australia.