A milestone for sustainable development

Richard Gordon.

2007 was the 20th anniversary of the Brundtland Report, which gave the world the widely recognised definition of sustainable development. Governments, business leaders, and communities are still grappling with how to apply the concept, but the sense of urgency was increased in the past year by high–profile publications on climate change and examples of extreme weather events.

Sustainability has moved from being a peripheral to a core issue for an increasing number of organisations. Generation Y expects its employer to espouse sustainability principles; and customer pressure continues to mount for suppliers to demonstrate environmental integrity. In New Zealand over the past 12 months we have noticed a sea change in people’s willingness to consider risks and opportunities presented by the “sustainability agenda”.

In February 2007, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Helen Clark, declared her aspiration that New Zealand should become truly sustainable, with the government leading by example. We therefore took the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister and six other contributors for their views on achieving “a sustainable New Zealand” and what that means for the role of Manaaki Whenua.

New Zealand’s former Prime Minister´s views are complemented by the perspectives of leaders in key sectors of the economy – business, media, Māori, NGO, education and academia. All are significant contributors in their areas, and personally know Manaaki Whenua.

Rt Hon. Helen Clark	New Zealand’s former Prime Minister
Rod Oram	Business Commentator
Phil O’Reilly	CEO, Business New Zealand
Chris Howe	Executive Director, WWF–New Zealand
Grant Hawke	Chair, Ngāti Whatua o Orakei
Linda Tame	Principal, Lincoln High School
Prof. Jan Bebbington	University of St. Andrews

We thank them for their contributions and publish their views in full in the 2007 Annual Report because we believe it important to give our readers, especially those overseas, an understanding of the context in which we conduct our business. That context includes a multiplicity of views held by different groups on the goals of sustainable development.

We let the pieces speak for themselves and do not seek to analyse or interpret them here. In a process that will continue through 2007/08 they will help us in Manaaki Whenua develop our thinking about sustainability and our role. This will be reported in our 2008 Annual Report.

Our journey from unsustainability

The corollary of the Prime Minister’s aspiration of New Zealand becoming truly sustainable is that our present model is unsustainable. Sustainability reporting would more correctly be described as reporting on our unsustainability, and what we seek to do about it.

In our experience, many sustainability reports describe commendable initiatives to reduce adverse impacts, but few (if any) describe the gap between the current model and what could be called truly sustainable. The reader is left in the dark on that crucial matter of the “sustainability gap”. Manaaki Whenua is well–placed with its science resources to describe that gap and will seek to do so in future reports.

Our sustainability reporting started in 2000 and since 2001 has been fully integrated with our Annual Report, during which time our thinking has evolved. We recognised a need to report on the direct impacts of doing our business (e.g. energy and labour used), and also the wider and indirect impacts of our work on sustainability in New Zealand, achieved through our customers and partners.

We recognised that sustainability is a “two–way street” for all organisations: in one direction the performance of the organisation in relation to the elements of sustainability (e.g. water consumption; building human capital); and in the other the strategic implications of the sustainability agenda for the organisation (e.g. contingent liabilities for carbon taxes, changes in labour regulations). These issues are increasingly considered by firms at the Chief Executive and Board level.

We see a triple role for Manaaki Whenua as a Government–owned science company with a majority of its capability and financial revenue for generating national benefit:

Conduct sustainability science and develop solutions, increasing knowledge and its uptake
Collaborate with and support end–users to achieve national outcomes
Manage our own business as an exemplar of sustainability

With this report we continue the process of evolving our role as a contributor to a “sustainable New Zealand”.

Our sustainability challenges

While much of people’s focus in thinking about sustainability is on sustain–, we believe that the –ability has been overlooked. Sustainability is literally the ability to sustain what we need (e.g. natural and social resources). The list below is a “think piece” on the abilities – a combination of competence, willingness, and freedom to act – that as an organisation we need to contribute to a sustainable New Zealand.

Governance

Lead with courage towards a sustainable model – the nature of the role, how to do it, and how to foster such leadership skills in our people
Reflect the values and spirit (wairua) of our land and people in a vision for the future that inspires individual and collective action
Create and manage institutional frameworks that encourage, empower and align participants, and manage risk, in the process of change to a sustainable future

Human capability

Sustain our skill base while demographics are shifting (age, ethnicity, expertise, personal expectations)
Attract and retain the best talent we need from an increasingly competitive global market
“Be the future we seek” through innovation in all dimensions of our performance and change in our behaviour
Assist other organisations to build their capabilities

Social resources

Provide in our working community a high quality of life based on personal well–being, and environmental, family and social assets that attract new recruits and support them in their work and home lives
Support our diff erent staff cultures, learn from their different “world views”, and where appropriate, achieve a creative synergy between them

Environmental resources

• Achieve a radical reduction of our net environmental impacts both through our performance, and indirectly by influencing and empowering our stakeholders and others beyond them

• Understand the implications of today’s options and decisions on the future availability, quality, and cost of maintaining environmental resources – our inter–generational legacy

Stakeholder relationships

Collaborate strategically to overcome limitations of scale and location (“Down Under”)
Contribute to the success of teams that are the “New Zealand–best” and “world–best” in speeding progress on meeting major sustainability challenges
Listen effectively to our stakeholders and learn from their experience and needs

Economic considerations

Factor environmental and social externalities and their inter–relationships into perceptions and measures of economic value
Deliver economic value while enhancing social and environmental assets and financial viability

Role of science and technology (our business)

Work with stakeholders to ensure that scientific results are readily available and contribute to valuable national and international outcomes
Conduct valuable science while we operate increasingly at the interface between government, business and community, on issues such as climate change with high risks, uncertainty, complexity, and polarised stakeholder interests
Recognise and assimilate the evolving relationship between science and community that is evident in new forms of knowledge creation and dissemination

The list is a starting point for reviewing our abilities. We see the same issues being important to New Zealand as a country seeking sustainability. A similar link may exist for other organisations and the countries in which they operate. Recognising this linkage may help us to implement the Brundtland concept of sustainable development.

We would welcome comments from our readers on any aspect of this section.