Project Reports

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.

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 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.

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.