Consumers could avoid $9 lettuce and smoked wine as an Aussie startup works with tech giants to better protect homes, businesses and crops from climate hazards.
Joe Glesta, chief executive of Melbourne-based ClimaSens, says he's looking at risks that may unfold in the next seven days as well as the next 70 years.
"Australia is a brutal testing ground ... but we're a microcosm of the wider world out there," he told AAP.
Whether it's $9 iceberg lettuces adding to the cost of living, heat threatening massive cattle herds or retirement villages, or a cyclone destroying Queensland's banana crop, he warns that a lot more stress is coming.
"Knowing when your fruit and veg is going to be impacted, knowing when the supply chain risks are going to happen in Woolworths or Coles is extremely important," he said.
"If we had a fire season that destroys our grape crop, it means we can't have a certain type of wine.
"If you're going skiing, you need to know when to start selling the house or start letting it as an Airbnb for mountain biking."
Growing up in Brooklyn in the United States, he moved to Australia in 2014 and studied in Melbourne "back when sustainability was scoffed at, always the lowest-funded within any sort of organisation."
"But you got up and you did the things because you knew it was right," he said.
Ten years on, Mr Glesta said insurance had struck the "trifecta", with banks, insurers and asset managers needing to deal with credit risk, loans, mortgages and property risk.
"These risks need to be understood to ensure resilience to the entire framework of sustainability within the home sector," he said.
"Anyone who's been in the world long enough knows that you are doing this to hopefully change the world for the better."
Mr Glesta said big tech was also stepping up "in a very big way" by creating and supporting essential technology, and much of that work was public and open source.
"You have organisations who've raised hundreds of millions and there we are, a rinky-dink Australian startup just alongside," Mr Glesta said.
But that humble observation downplays the recent success of the company he founded with three others - one in Australia and two in New York.
In 2023, ClimaSens received a $US5 million ($A7.7 million) grant from Google to build a climate resilience package with New York's Urban Systems Lab after winning a climate impact innovation challenge.
A city's planners can use the platform to identify areas at higher risk for heat stress, allowing local governments to be better prepared ahead of extreme weather and providing the data needed to adapt and build safer communities.
A recent deal means the startup can supply almost all federal and state agencies across Australia with climate hazard data.
But no-one will need it more than the insurance sector, who rely on high-quality data to understand risk, he says.
In development with help from NVIDIA Earth-2 - a treasure trove for climate and weather simulation and predictions - ClimaSens also has a flood risk analysis model in the works.
Some predict data centres will soon account for four per cent of global energy consumption.
But the generative AI revolution is poised to impact every industry and enable a new era of productivity and sustainability, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in the company’s latest sustainability report.
Australians have what it takes to stand out from the crowd and go on to be a global success. director of entrepreneurship at UNSW Founders David Burt said.
"We can help anyone. You don't have to have a PhD. Many of our founders do, but that's not required," he said.
"What's required is you have the ambition to start and grow a company that can help make Australia and the world economy's economy more sustainable."
For climate tech and sustainability founders, it was like playing the game on "hard mode" because there was plenty of goodwill but they needed to lock in customers in the first few years.
"It's going to be great for Australia, great for the world, and they just need a lot of support because it's hard to grow a great company from Australia," he said.
"The challenge for Australia is that the best opportunities seem to be offshore. The only thing that's going to change that is customer decisions or government policies.
"The best support you can give a startup is to be a customer."
For other trailblazers, UNSW Sydney is running a program in partnership with the University of Newcastle with more than $100 million up for grabs for clean energy and recycling projects.
"We're not doing this to commercialise university science, although that is some of outcomes we get. We are ultra-focused on people like Joe," Mr Burt said.
"A better ability to price risk will mean more profits for insurance companies and hopefully lower premiums for consumers."
