This Climate Business

Building a new house in New Zealand produces on average two skips of construction debris. If a demolition is involved, added another 13 skips. As a nation, we’re really bad at diverting all that waste from landfill. Ross Inglis spoke with two people with a solution: property developer Nigel Benton and Doctor Terri-Ann Berry from Unitec Institute of Technology.

Part Three: Rohan MacMahon on investment and technology  Is 2023 the year that New Zealand seizes the nettle on climate action? Or is it another year of incrementalism? And what effect will the election, with a potential change of government, have on the direction and speed of climate policy? To shed some light Vincent dusted off the crystal ball and spoke to three experts about the year ahea...

Part two: Victoria Hatton on corporate strategy Is 2023 the year that New Zealand seizes the nettle on climate action? Or is it another year of incrementalism? And what effect will the election, with a potential change of government, have on the direction and speed of climate policy? To shed some light Vincent dusted off the crystal ball and spoke to three experts about the year ahead: Marc Daalde...

Part One: Marc Daalder starts with the year ahead in politics. Is 2023 the year that New Zealand seizes the nettle on climate action? Or is it another year of incrementalism? And what effect will the election, with a potential change of government, have on the direction and speed of climate policy? To shed some light Vincent dusted off the crystal ball and spoke to three experts about the year ahe...

Auckland’s climate plan Te-Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri is an impressive and ambitious document that sets out a response to climate change that’s not just about mitigation (that is, emissions reductions) but also adaptation and developing a future that’s unique to Tāmaki Makaurau. Sarah Anderson and Parin Rafiei-Thompson have been instrumental in the plan and now are the driving forces behind Climate Connect...

The primary sector has been in the gun lately for its reluctance to resolve its emissions profile. You’d almost think there’s some denial going on. Well, that might be true of some, but not all. In 2021 a broad industry effort went into a primary sector document called Fit for a Better World. The strategy lays down the challenge to be sustainable, inclusive and profitable, with specific targets fo...

Rohan MacMahon and Jez Weston are co-founders of the Climate VC Fund – a fund that invest in emission reductions technologies in NZ and Australia. They were on the show to announce their ambitions but a year on, what’s happened? Did they raise the money require? Have they invested in anything? What new tech or ideas are on their radar? And what’s the state of change? Full dsiclousre Vincent is an...

Auckland’s ferries, which burn 13 million litres of diesel every year and produce 20 percent of the city’s public transport emissions, are about to clean up their act. Two electric ferries are being built right now for the Waitematā, with design and engineering in the hands of ambitious zero-emissions boatbuilder EV Maritime . CEO Michael Eaglen told Ross Inglis that the two new boats are just the...

In 1993, school boy Mark Sorenson got 20/20 for an essay about the dangers of plastic packaging. 29 years later Mark and his business partner and wife, Ellie, have established Cleanery, a kiwi start-up that’s attracted millions in venture capital and now has products ranged across NZ and Australian supermarkets. Cleanery removes the water and the plastic bottle from household cleaners, offering in...

Michelle Kennedy is the co-founder of the Auckland Climate Festival, a celebration of all things climate change, ranging from bike tours to investor meetings, beach clean-up, a transport tech conference, film screenings, and the O Tatou Ngahere native trees conference – and so much more. Michelle speaks to Vincent about why she started the festival and how it’s going in the second year. https://au...

Simon Coley is the co-founder of All Good Organics, the pioneering importer of ethical bananas, and also of Karma Drinks, famous for its Karma Cola. Karma just celebrated 10 years, a notable achievement for any brand, but especially noteworthy because 1% of total revenues goes back to the Karma Foundation, which funds health and development in Boma, Sierra Leone, the source of the Karma cola nut....

Next week sees the return of the Climate and Business conference, New Zealand’s most important get-together for government, business, and community leaders about climate policy and action. This Climate Business is pleased to be invited to the conference and to talk about it - Vincent was joined by Mike Burrell, Executive Director of the Sustainable Business Council.   There are still online t...

 2035 Oceania Summit is an ambitious event combining the food, agriculture, and tech sectors to address the impact of climate change on food. Held in Auckland 10-11 October the summit will feature delegations from the US, Australia, and the Pacific Islands and includes a keynote address from Karen Ross, the secretary for the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Peter Wren-Hilton is...

If Waikato-based lawnmowing franchise LawnRite has anything to do with it, petrol-powered garden equipment is on the way out. It has replaced its mowers, trimmers, and even a concrete mixer with battery-powered versions, and it charges those batteries with solar panels fixed to its trailers. LawnRite managing director Troy Hillard (on the left in the photo) explained the transition to Ross Inglis...

Auckland-based Urgent Couriers was the country’s first carbon-neutral transport company; if you were in Auckland in the 90’s you’ll likely remember its fleet of courier bicycles. The bikes were mostly displaced by electronic messaging, but now they’re back. Late last year managing director Steve Bonnici bought five electric cargo bikes and set them loose on the streets of Auckland. Steve told Ross...

Fast fashion is responsible for packaging, energy use, waste and consumerism at their worst. If there was ever an industry ready for a make over, it would be fashion. How about a very fashionable shoe made of wool, pineapple, bamboo, algae and sugarcane? That’s right it could be delicious, if a little fibrous. YY Nation is taking a circular economy approach to shoes that makes your All Birds look...

What goes around comes around. The toxins we build into products come back to poison us sooner or later. It’s the circular economy at work. So imagine if we could design systems to remove those toxins in the first place, or at least capture them and return them to the process. Building a cradle-to-cradle economy is a mammoth task, and it’s the mission of Louise Nash, the CEO of Circularity, a cons...

We are drowning in plastics, in our soil, our oceans, our food chain, and recently discovered as nanoparticles in our gut. Mmmmm nanoplastics. The government banned single-use plastics in 2019, and is phasing out hard-to-recycle plastics such as meat and vegetable packaging later this year, but what to replace them with? Well, Earthpac is a New Zealand business turning to the humble spud for a sol...

Few public debates get heated more quickly than the one around replacing kerbside parking with transit lanes or bike paths. How do we make the conversation about parking less polarising and more productive? For the answers, Ross Inglis spoke to Dr. Tim Welch , a Senior Lecturer at Auckland University’s School of Architecture and Planning. Tim, a very public advocate around cycling infrastructure,...

Electric vehicles are on their way, but is New Zealand’s grid ready for them? Christchurch-based Evnex makes clever chargers that refuel your car and let your lines company dynamically manage the load on its network. Evnex CEO and founder Ed Harvey told Ross Inglis about the magic behind the plug.

So much farmland – a million hectares according to one estimate – is mostly unfarmable because its erosion-prone, too steep, or inaccessible. In decades past that land might be destinated for forestry or just abandoned to return to scrub. Either way, the return on investment was poor. But now, thanks to the Emissions Trading Scheme, some of that land is destined to become permanent forest, with em...

Most of the population accepts that climate change is real. Most want to do something about it. But what shall we ask them to do? And what’s the best way to elicit a response? Recently the EECA, the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, released an updated version of their survey into attitudes towards climate change. The results show that who you are, where you live, and what you earn dic...

Comvita is much loved for its honey products - who doesn’t love bees and their fluffy bums. But a renewed focus on sustainability has seen the company present a robust strategic plan based on circular economy thinking. The plan, called Harmony, is a comprehensive relook at the entire operation and arrives at a time of restructuring and repositioning the company after a few tough years. To explain...

This month farmers are discussing their approach to managing GHG emissions - as the road show for He Waka Eke Noa comes to an end. He Waka Eke Noa is a joint industry-government-Māori initiative that’s investigating an alternative emissions programme for agriculture that’s outside the Emission Trading Scheme . If He Waka Eke Noa cannot come up with a suitable plan the Government may just fold the...

New Zealand’s transport system relies on fossil fuels. The technologies that heat our homes and businesses aren’t much better. What will it take to transition them towards zero-carbon alternatives? Dr. Richard Meade from Cognitus Economic Insight has tackled the question of Achieving a Timely, Efficient, Equitable and Orderly Transition to Net-Zero Emissions for Transport and Heating in New Zealan...