“The D-word – dairy – cited by Mr Key in in linking together the wonders of free trade with China and India should give cause for concern.  Recent reports on how the likes of the Hauraki Gulf and the Kaipara Harbour are changing into marine sewage ponds thanks to bovine excrement and fertiliser runoffs show we are being ‘uddermined’ by poisoning our country to feed foreigners.  Yes, we can sell artificially sustained grass-fed dairy products, but no – as Mr Key so painfully discovered as an interviewee on BBC television – we can’t keep lying about our pure, clean and green image.”

I spent a great day at the Ice Ideas Conference on Friday and came away more convinced than ever that we have the people, the ideas and the capacity to put our economy on a vastly more sustainable footing.

Nobody in the room of some six hundred was heard to suggest that selling more and more  milk powder, or raw logs, or any other high volume / low value commodity is going to give us any joy economically, socially or environmentally.

Those commodities will inevitably hit environmental limits and constraints, as dairying has already shown, and trying to create financial capital at the expense of natural capital is a fool’s errand.

I suspect it will be considerably more innovative and better informed than what we saw earlier this week from the government-appointed  Green Growth Advisory Group . Their discussion paper makes some  claims about the government’s ‘growth agenda’ that are plain wrong; it misses the point about some fairly fundamental issues around making the transition to a low carbon economy; and appears ill-informed about key parts of the economy, notably the Small Medium Enterprise (SME) sector.

We are told for example that ‘Natural capital – natural resources and ecological systems that provide services to society – is a core consideration in all policy making’.  Really?  Even the policies that involve a huge investment into mineral extraction, massive roading projects, a preference for urban sprawl rather than compact urban form?

The document notes that economies ‘will shift to more sustainable practices’, and that our ability to ‘anticipate and respond appropriately to these changes’ is of importance.  It is clearly news to the authors that ‘economies’ including high-value markets like Europe, North America and Japan are already making the shift, and New Zealand is proving to be a very slow follower instead of fulfilling our potential role as leader by example.

The paper seriously understates the economic risk posed by our failure to live up to our ‘clean and green’  brand, despite acknowledging the importance of authenticity (i.e. no greenwash!) and that our environmental stewardship is already under scrutiny internationally.

We are encouraged to reduce our GHG emissions intensity, but not our emissions in absolute terms.  There is no recognition that the government has an enormous ability to influence the behaviour of  economic players by rewarding those who are getting real about sustainability with government supply contracts – the existing approach to procurement, having sustainability as one ‘tick box’ along with many others, is just inadequate.

The assumptions made about SMEs, and the ‘advice’ offered to them, reflects how badly out of touch this government is with the sector, where a lot of work is already being done that is  motivated by a very clear understanding of the imperatives to move to a more sustainable footing. (Maybe the government’s failure to have even one member attend the recent Small Business summit is symptomatic of this lack of engagement.)

On Friday night, they were awarded the 2010 Exceptional Tourism Provider Award.  After an appropriate evening of celebration, they were shaken awake on Saturday morning along with their fellow Cantabrians by the earthquake.

With typical Southern resilience, they let neither earthquake nor hangover get in the way of reassuring their customers and prospective customers that it was ‘business as usual’,  which reflects not only an astute move in business terms but also the attitude that will help the area recover. 

Clearly those businesses hit much harder, with anything from temporary loss of access to their premises through to total loss of buildings, plant and materials, will have a much harder row to hoe, and it is good to see the government offering some initial support to small business, like the wages subsidy being offered.  

Hopefully the government agencies will engage and listen carefully to the business sector and their representative bodies, as the physical and community rebuilding will rely heavily on success of helping to rebuild peoples’ livelihoods.

Some really topical issues were raised, like how small business can get access to training and other support; how a co-operative model could be a real winner for some; how there are some very perverse incentives around research and development. The discussion was wide ranging and animated, and gave us real confidence that ‘Listening Post’ meetings will prove their worth.

This event was the first of many I plan to host around the country as part of  the nationwide ‘Smart Business’ campaign that I launched last week. I want to strengthen and widen our links into the small business community,  and  to find out what I can do for them as the Green Party’s small business spokesperson.

It is becoming increasingly recognised that the issues facing small business differ to those facing big business. Therefore, any law changes that affect small business need to take into account the context in which they operate. We can should not  assume that one business is just the same as the next. I can vouch for that from having owned my own small retail business and having managed others! 

I also understand how busy small business owners are and for those that can’t make an event but still want to voice their opinion, we have put together an online survey. So, if you own a small to medium enterprise (SME) please take a few minutes to fill this out and pass around your networks.

This is an opportunity to share your views about what central government is (or is not) doing for business and to tell me what you think could help your business prosper. Please make the most of it!

M&S says environmental and social issues remain important to UK consumers. A survey commissioned by M&S found that 72% of people surveyed are worried about environmental issues, with 73% saying that the recession had not changed their level of concern.

The commissioned research is part of a huge initiative that M&S announced back in 2007 to become the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015. More simply referred to as ‘Plan A’. As, to quote M&S, there is no Plan B.

 M&S’s ‘Plan A’ eco-commitments include:

• converting 2.7 billion food, clothing and home items to meet the plan’s sustainability standards
• encouraging 10,000 food supplying farmers to adopt a sustainable foods programme

UK customers, along with the rest of the world, will be looking more and more for sustainability credentials in the products they choose to buy. Unless NZ businesses start respecting this they will not be able to access high value overseas markets in the future. The previous Government provided a level of funding and other support through the Ministry for the Environment, local authorities and organisations promoting and supporting sustainable business. The current Government would do well to reinstate and indeed increase that funding to ensure we are not left on the sidelines when it comes to international exports. A point clearly expressed in the Green Party’s sustainable business policy.

‘Sustainability’ may have been declared a word that government policy makers may not utter, but in the meantime the rest of the world, not least of all the business sector, is getting on with the real challenge of making their production and consumption patterns more sustainable.

Something has to change and while the Government seems unwilling to take the lead on this massive issue, the best and brightest of our businesses, farmers, producers, will take their future into their own hands and start practicing business the way it should be.

The US and some EU countries are indicating that border taxes may be used to defend their local producers against imports from countries that have ‘soft’ climate change regimes.  The ETS that the government bulldozed through Parliament under urgency last week takes ‘soft’ to a whole new level; we’re talking marshmallows here!

While border taxes would be quite tricky to impose without contravening WTO rules about trade restrictions, and may not present a danger to us in the short term, we can’t be too sanguine about the longer term.

A much more urgent risk is that we are perceived as a country not making serious attempts to reduce our carbon emission, which will give our competitors an opportunity to turn market preferences away from our export products and services.

Given that we now have an ETS with no effective cap on emissions, and that does little to provide regulatory or financial incentives for our major polluters to change their ways and reduce pollution, we have handed our trade competitors a very handy club to beat us with!

Fortunately we do have some smart business people who understand the opportunities for genuinely ‘green’ or sustainable products or services that appeal to the growing number of socially and environmentally conscious consumers (the LOHAS  segment).

What a shame though, that any success they have in securing a share of this affluent, high value market will be despite the actions of the government, rather than being supported by it!

1. The use of a broader range of policy tools to control inflation that support trade weighted interest and exchange rates.  Consistently lower and more stable interest and exchange rates are necessary to encourage long-term investment in productive exporting businesses.
2. A Research and Development (R&D) tax credit to encourage innovation and the development of new products across the real economy.
3. A first year write-off for productive plant and patent expenditure to encourage investment in new product development and intellectual property protection.
4. Balanced taxation on both capital and revenue accounts.
5. Enforcing national product standards to ensure local producers and importers are on a level playing field.
6. Mandatory country of origin labelling to give consumers choice and enhance the value of the ‘New Zealand’ brand.

We have definite and distinguishing policy on points 1, 2, 5 and 6.  After a quick search I can’t find anything on the other two points but I’m sure some commenters will be able to enlighten me below.

The Greens have a detailed and supportive policy on sustainable manufacturing, including continuing to promote Buy Kiwi Made and support the initiatives of manufacturers to work collaboratively.  Local manufacturing plays a key part in sustainable, diverse local economies that can support themselves.  An economy that needs to import vast amounts of goods is not only vulnerable to peak oil and climate change, it also lacks diverse jobs for its workers and is more exposed to global financial crises.