My name is Anne Rainbow and I graduated as a Veterinary Surgeon in 1998 from Murdoch University in Western Australia. I worked in mixed practice for a couple of years before heading to the UK to locum for the next 10 years.

I have always been interested in biology as a whole but became increasingly concerned - and anxious - about environmental news. Everywhere it seems that whole ecosystems are collapsing. Almost weekly we get news of “unprecedented storms/fires/flooding”.

I felt quite helpless and disempowered.

I became very active on social media and attended lots of rallies. This made me feel less alone in my concerns, but I still felt I was lacking in action.

I have three children and felt ashamed when they asked why adults weren’t fixing the problems, in fact as my 7 year old once noted “They are making things worse”.

Through a friends social media posts, I read about the business she was working for and it piqued my interest.

It was a company called Plico Energy that were starting a project to put PV panels (solar panels) and batteries into peoples homes and small businesses for minimal up front cost, including servicing and maintaining the systems. The aim is creating a Virtual Power Plant which sells energy back into the grid with better negotiation power than a single household.

“According to the Department of the Environment and Energy website, Australian households are directly responsible for about 20% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The average household’s energy use generates over 7 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from its premises”

Imagine if I could help households become 90+% fossil free? Imagine how much greenhouse gas production I could stop from being produced

I have spent many years feeling that I needed to get people to align with the irrefutable science behind climate change, but through Plico Energy, I can make the financial case for reducing emissions without having to change peoples mindsets.

The business model of this organisation also has a community aspect; the aim is to create a community and provide education about all aspects of energy use. This will hope flow on to building a community of environmentally aware people who feel they can make change. The community fund created within the business model will be dispersed to community groups for environmentally based projects.

I think often of the Margaret Mead quote;

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Anne Rainbow