The executive chairman of paper, packaging and recycling giant Visy, and Australia's richest man according to the Financial Review Rich List, on Wednesday made a pledge to invest $2 billion around the nation over the next decade.

Although unwilling to say exactly where the money would be spent, citing competitive concerns, Visy expects to built new paper mills, recycling infrastructure, box plants and clean energy facilities.

Asked what he made of the oft-stated threats to investment from Australia's industrial relations system, climate policy uncertainty and corporate tax system, Mr Pratt told Fairfax Media: "We have been here for a long time and we love it and we believe in Australia.

"We sort of have to insulate ourselves to whoever the government of the day is. We rely on ourselves, not government."

Sometimes the problems with other jurisdictions, such as sovereign risk, were understated, he said.

"We have the institutions here to protect private property where as places like China and Russia don't, they don't have those institutions and there is more corruption," he said.

That was important when examining large investments, "if you look to invest over the long term rather than 'can you make a lot of money out of this deal'."

Mr Pratt made the pledge at the company's plant at Tumut, which has just had a $100 million upgrade and which generates half of the power it uses through burning waste products in a co-generation plant.

Across Visy's business the company supplies about 30 per cent of its own power through its own three plants and Mr Pratt said it hoped to lift that to about 50 per cent. The company still spends about $200 million a year on energy.

Through protecting against price hikes, avoiding paying landfill charges (especially in NSW) and selling Renewable Energy Certificates the biomass generation have a typical payback period of about 10 years at the moment.

"It is not the best return," he admitted but said it removed a key risk from price hikes.

"We have found that it is part of a set of strategies we use to hedge ourselves, if you will, against rising energy prices that you have from time to time."

Complaints about rising energy prices have been a theme of the August company reporting season and BlueScope's outgoing chief executive Paul O'Malley on Monday decried an "energy catastrophe".

Mr Pratt agreed with Mr O'Malley's call for baseload power capacity to be preserved.

But said he did not believe a Clean Energy Target is a make-or-break policy for companies to make investments in improving their energy mix.

"Clean energy is something we are focused about because we think it is the right thing to do for Australia and for us," he said, adding he thought the government was doing a good job on energy.

Mr Pratt said he also believed that the high-profile announcement could encourage a change in the perceptions of manufacturing.

"We hope that by making this announcement that it will continue a national conversation about the creation of jobs and that manufacturing is not dead in Australia. Manufacturing has got a great future in Australia," he said.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described the commitment as "fantastic" and noted that the Tumut plant was responsible for $500 million worth of exports.