This Climate Business

Climate-related disclosures are on their way. Auckland-based ClimateTracker has cloud-based software that eases the compliance overhead and makes sense of the data. Co-founder and data architecture heavyweight Dougal Watt backgrounds the new era of climate disclosure and tells Ross Inglis it’s as much about opportunity as it is about risk.

Armed with its own IP, Hamilton-based car charging innovator Hikotron is rolling out a national network of charge points. Ross Inglis asked co-founder Stephanie Smits O’Callaghan how Hikotron tackles the chicken-or-the-egg dilemma of building a network for a small but fast-growing market, how to make sense of all those charging standards, and what on earth a hikotron is. Hikotron EV Charging - New...

The Climate Leaders Coalition turned five years old. Its signatories, which include some of NZ’s largest polluters, are a group of 88 companies that have committed to climate agenda and they’ve notched up some impressive achievements. Collectively they’ve reduced emissions by 3.6 million tonnes, that’s a nearly 30% percent reduction since 2018. And, this one that I found surprising, 97% of signato...

Every 35 minutes solarZero installs a new residential solar system. It plans to invest $1 billion in new solar and battery systems over the next decade and already has 12,000 installations. It made headlines this time last year when it was acquired by Blackrock, the world’s largest investors. And in September just gone, the government-owned NZ Green Investment Finance invested $80m alongside two o...

Ian Parry is the Environmental Fiscal Policy Expert at the International Monetary Fund. He came to speak at a series of events in New Zealand about tax. It doesn’t get more exciting than that. But there’s more. Ian is a specialist in carbon pricing, emission trading schemes, and the role of fiscal policy in climate mitigation. The timing couldn’t be better, with New Zealand wrestling with changes...

How is the Council progressing with Te Tāruke ā Tāwhiri , Auckland’s Climate Plan? In the three years since it was ratified, we’ve had Covid, a change in council, and now a change of government. Will it survive and how much progress has been made? We check in with its architects, councillor Richard Hills, chair of the Planning, Environment and Parks committee; and Parin Rafei-Thompson, head of cli...

Sustainability’s elevation into corporate strategy suggests it’s on its way to becoming integral to New Zealand businesses. But why are businesses writing sustainability strategies? What do they look like? And how often do they translate into real action? For answers, Ross Inglis talked with Vanessa Thompson from Auckland-based sustainability strategy specialists Go Well Consulting .

In June this year, a new piece of equipment was anchored 37km off the coast of Pātea in the South Taranaki Bight. Called the Floating Light Detecting and Ranging device,   FLiDAR will measure wind speeds at heights of up to 300m as a well as waves and currents to provide data critical for assessing the feasibility of a proposed offshore wind farm. The Taranaki Offshore Partnership, if success...

The future of farming may be indoors. With eroding coastlines, droughts and unpredictable downpours, farming may be better done in controlled, indoor environments. Better for GHGs emissions too. We know that’s already happening for tomatoes and leafy greens – but what about large scale crops like wheat or fruits or sheep and dairy? Darryn Keiller is the founder of Way Beyond , a company specialisi...

How does change happen? And what can we learn from political and community leaders? Vincent hosted a live event during the Auckland Climate Festival to learn how three experienced climate leaders crossed the chasm from intention to action:  ●     Sophie Hansford - School Strike 4 Climate founder and Kapiti Coast District Councillor ●     &nbsp...

What does climate change mean for investing - is it a disaster, creating havoc due to storms and ecosystem collapse and ultimately stranded assets? Or is there an upside, as companies discover new tech, new markets and new ways of working? It's probably both! Vincent spoke with Shannen Barns (Mindful Money), Rohan MacMahon (Climate VC Fund) and Darcy Unago (NZ Everyday Investor) for a seminar duri...

Commercial property is more polluting that you might imagine. Twenty percent of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from the property sector. What will it take to reduce those emissions? Scott McKenzie, CEO of Tauranga-based property investment firm PMG Funds, has a plan.

Andrew Caseley is outgoing CEO of EECA, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority. He arrived in 2017 to launch a refreshed strategy and resigns as that piece of work concludes. Back then Judith Collins was Minster of Energy, there were 6000 EVs on the road and Bruno Mars was top of the pops. What’s changed since then, how is New Zealand progressing towards a renewable energy system, and ho...

Cornell Tukiri is the senior Māori advisor for Tataki Auckland United and also for Climate Connect Aotearoa – a climate action accelerator by Tataki Auckland Unlimited. Cornell recently launched He Kete Mātauranga, a resource for climate and community leaders to learn more about Māori approaches to climate change and regenerative practices. A photojournalist and highly competent interviewer himsel...

Next month is the biggest event on the  corporate climate calendar, the Climate Change + Business conference by Environmental Defence Society, the Sustainable Business Council and Climate Leaders Coalition. You could say it’s the CCBC by the EDS and SBC and the CLC. On the agenda are the ETS, the TCFD and of course IPCC by UNFCCC. To explain all those Cs, I’m joined by Rebecca Lowe, head of c...

In Aotearoa New Zealand, we throw away a staggering ​ 97 million single-use plastic drinks containers each year, with less than 7% of those ever getting recycled. Seems dumb especially when most of that drink is water. Brianne West is the founder of Ethique, the eco-beauty products business that took water out of cosmetics and saved millions of tons of plastic, water and emissions in the process....

Back in May, the government injected another $300m into NZ Green Investment Finance – or NZGIF – taking the green bank’s investment pool to $700m. Starting in 2019 the bank has committed about $300m in 16 transactions to-date. Given the scale of the transition, why is it such a small sum and why is it taking so long to spend it? What impact is it having on emissions reductions? And will the bank s...

Emily King is the author of Re-food, a challenge to reimagine and reconstruct the food system in Aotearoa . It’s a timely book, with farmers and growers hit by extreme weather, food prices at record highs and a predominance of highly processed food at the expense of ingredients and wholefoods. But what is Re-fooding and how do we know Emily’s cure will be better than the disease? She spoke to Vinc...

What happens to all that silage baling wrap you see when you’re whizzing around the countryside? Until recently, nearly all New Zealand farmers burned or buried it. That’s changing, largely due to a company called Plasback . Neal Shaw, Plasback’s Commercial Manager, stepped Ross Inglis through the fast-evolving business of recycling farm plastics.

Taranaki-based scaffolding and rigging company Cunningham Construction has deep roots in the petrochemical sector. It’s also on a journey towards sustainability. Managing Director Paul Cunningham talked to Ross Inglis through the why and the how of doing business differently.

It’s hard running a small business. It’s harder running a small business that takes it’s environmental and social responsibility serisously. And it’s suepr hard then auditing that effort and publishing it for all to see. Kōkako Coffee recently published its fourth sustainbility report – presenting a warts ‘n all analysis of its performance. As a small privately owned business it doesn’t have to. B...

You will know about cling film. Perhaps you wrapped your lunch in it this morning. Or you’ve seen swaths of it used to wrap suitcases at the airport. It’s ubiquitous and it’s pernicious. Jon Reed certainly thinks so and has created Compostic, a plant-based alternative that as the label says decomposes faster than an orange peel. He was joined by Vincent Heeringa.

Comvita is a publicly listed mānuka honey specialist – the OG of mānuka money if you like. For a moment it was a sharemarket darling peaking in 2015 but since then languishing as it posted losses and a stockpile of product it couldn’t shift. Enter David Banfield in 2020. A spectacular financial result in February this year signal perhaps a reversal in fortunes. With success in China and the USA, t...

Finn Ross is a young guy on a mission. He’s completing a PhD on seaweed carbon sequestration, he’s also co-founder of CarbonZ , a company offering voluntary carbon credits based on the restoration and planting of native trees on New Zealand farmland. He’s the son of entrepreneurs Geoff and Justine Ross, owners of Lake Hawea Station, New Zealand’s first carbon positive farm. As a worker on the farm...

A framework for any corporate, anywhere, to divert anything from landfill. That’s the promise from Auckland-based social enterprise All Heart NZ . Ross Inglis asked the irrepressible Joe Youssef, the company’s founder and Chief Encourager, how it does it.