Project Reports

The report is released by the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development after nearly two years of research.

It finds that business can play a greater role in setting priorities for New Zealand’s social investment spending.

It recommends business join the Government and not for profit groups in setting social investment priorities, and helping implement them. This would redirect some of the about 75% of the $43 billion a year in Government social sector spending from “social protection”, providing income support and services for those unable to look after themselves to “social investment” policies.

The report comes in three parts, including policy recommendations, a snapshot on the social activities business now engage in, and a guide for corporate social repoonsibility professionals and others on how to select and manage social engagement.

Please click the headline above to access the reports and associated media release and background material.

To work collaboratively and go beyond current thinking to develop an understanding of the energy options for New Zealand out to 2050 which would be sustainable . The project will provide a number of scenarios which will allow Government, companies and people to make informed choices about what they want to happen and will provide future generations with comparable or greater options than we have today.

This “Incentivising greener vehicle fleets” project forms the first tier of a three-staged approach to green New Zealand’s vehicle fleet. The project aims to identify options for economic incentives that could be implemented by Government to encourage businesses to purchase or lease low emission and fuel-efficient vehicles. The recommended incentives will be those that can be implemented relatively easily and quickly, and will offer short-term gains in cleaning up New Zealand’s air. The project also places emphasis on the need for Government to show leadership by committing to greening their own fleets.

The Treaty of Waitangi claims process is currently focused on the pre-settlement phase. However, once settlement is reached, tribal groups face a series of new issues for which there is little guidance: What governance structure should be put in place to manage the settlement assets? How can the tribe's social, cultural, environmental and commercial objectives be achieved? How should the expectations of beneficiaries be managed and delivered upon? To date, efforts in this area have been well intentioned, but not necessarily successful.

The Business Council was informed last year that the issue of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation will be moving quickly up the agenda and details announced after the elections. This was brought forward and a discussion paper on this issue was released at the beginning of July. The document called "Product Stewardship and Water Efficiency Labelling - New Tools to Reduce Waste" was released on July 7th 2005 with a request for responses by August 31st 2005. The Government sought business input to enable it to make decisions about product stewardship, the legislation and how to support the development of product stewardship schemes and water efficiency labelling.

The New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development (NZBCSD) has launched this project to influence the political, policy and public debate on the use of economic instruments and price signals to stimulate more sustainable human activity.

The RMA has one overriding principle: to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. The NZBCSD fully endorses the purpose of the RMA and this project sought to find opportunities to gain in process efficiency without disenfranchising any of the stakeholders in the sustainable management of our nature and physical resources.