New Zealand has plummeted to world ranking 15th slot in the 2010 Environmental Performance Index. It was 7th in 2008, and topped the inaugural survey in 2006. It’s a trend that is not helpful in supporting the country’s clean and green image, seen by many as its major competitive advantage.
The EPI was kicked off by Yale in 2006. It’s hard to imagine that our relative environmental performance has deteriorated as rapidly as the ranking slide suggests. But the publicity is not what we would want. We would do well to better understand how the EPI works and what we need to focus on to get back to the top of the list. A Green Brand New Zealand strategy is needed for this.
For a century already, New Zealand has been a world leader in biotechnology and the application of that to its land-based industries. Yields are flash and techniques are sophisticated by world standards. Countries the world over eagerly send technical missions here to glean secrets and technology.
But this stunning scientific progress hasn’t been enough to even maintain, let alone grow, our relative standard of living. In 2007 and early 2008 New Zealand enjoyed all-time record global price levels for its food products. And yet the country still couldn’t even balance its physical trade by a long way. Let alone rectify our big “imbalance of payments” given the need to pay huge levels of interest on debt and repatriate profits to offshore owners. So why continue on this exclusive “biotech is our economic nirvana” path?
A circuit- breaker is required. Something radical. Continuing to rely on incremental gains in production through biotechnology advances is just continuing the path of the last century, which hasn’t got us where we need to be. We don’t tolerate for long All Blacks players and coaches that fail to deliver the goods. Nor should we be much more patient in an economic sense. Science doesn’t appear to be able to do the required economic job alone. It needs to work in with something more.
Certainly our land & sea based industries – ie. food & beverage, wood products, tourism, and even creative (the real star of The Lord of the Rings as noted by some international observers was New Zealand’s landscape) – account for the vast majority of our economy and international earnings. This is where we must win the economic war.
Consider in summary our performance in the growing number of global indicators of environmental and associated lifestyle values:
| Environmental Performance Indicator (EPI) | World 15th rank 2010, 7th ranking 2008, but 1st in 2006 |
| Net Ecological Footprint | In top 10 out of 150 countries |
| Peacefulness | World number 1, 2009 |
| People’s well being | World 1st equal with Denmark |
| Coolest Country | 1st in 2006 |
| Use of renewable energy | World leader |
| Trees planted per capita last 100 years | World leader |
| Presence of nuclear waste from power generation or weapons | Zero |
| Carbon position | Big opportunity for offsets, but conditional on future outlook for tree planting |
| Arresting biodiversity decline | Trying hard given our difficult starting point of a highly unique and sensitive biosphere. |
It’s an impressive report card in anyone’s book. But are we really making full use of it?
Some countries, like Australia and Canada, have natural advantage in vast mineral reserves. They exploit these to their economic advantage. Other countries, like United States, Japan, and Germany, have built competitive advantage through technology. They work hard to keep their lead and associated economic advantage. New Zealand has natural advantage in our clean and green image but has also added a lot of value to that through conscious decisions and actions discussed at length in this book. We need to work to maintain our green leadership. We also should exploit it fully for our economic development.
If we become leaders in building a pure place within a pure planet, we will grow faster and build profit
claims 42 Below founder Geoff Ross. New Zealand has the opportunity to build its Brand into something more powerful. The world wants and will pay for green. We need to accelerate our ability to provide it, and take Green Leadership in the industry categories we specialize in. A Green Brand New Zealand strategy will be key to that.
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Tags: 100% Pure New Zealand, clean & green, clean & green NZ, Clean and Green, clean and green NZ, Environmental Performance Index, EPI, Kaitiakitanga