The primary purposes of Sustainability Matters are to improve the performance of New Zealand organisations from a sustainability, or "triple bottom" line perspective, and to advocate sustainability thinking and action.
Frequently this requires a change from "business as usual" to a different approach which not only reduces costs and improves financial performance but also results in much needed improved outcomes for people and our planet. We owe this to our children and to at least the next six generations i.e. seven generations.
The traditional measure of organisation success - financial outcomes - is an incomplete method of measurement and excludes key elements. These exclusions result in an "unbalanced scorecard".
Is this thinking new? No, far from it. Rachel Carson via her 1962 book "Silent Spring" was perhaps the person who more than any other alerted us to the need for changed thinking.
The thinking can be applied to entities of any size, in any sector, located anywhere.
Newsletters
As part of what we do a newsletter is published (usually) once very two weeks. It is four pages and is intended especially for chartered accountants** and those who use their services. It is distributed to subscribers by opt-in eMail. There is no ($) charge; donations are always welcome! By coincidence the newsletter is called Sustainability Matters.
** Because they have immense potential to influence others and to make huge positive differences to our world.
Sustainability Matters 2nd April 2020
In this edition of Sustainability Matters you can read about;
• Don’t Waste Time
• Towards Transparency – Proxima’s Annual Guide
• Introducing the Forever Project: Lasting, Meaningful Coverage of the Climate Challenge
• Climate-related Risk Management and Modern Slavery Disclosure
• Donations – Are Welcome Here!
• Special Tribunal Recommend Springs be Protected by Order
• The Bankruptcy of Responsible Investment: How can We Invest Ethically?
• SBN Collaboration will Help Businesses Take Urgent Climate Action
• Developers ‘Must Go Beyond Biodiversity Net-gain Requirements’: Report
• Organic Products Bill
• The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore
• thinkEPD is here!
• Energise Ōtaki
• Glass, Metal, Plastic: The Story of New York’s Canners
• Insuring Fossil Fuels but Not Insuring Our Homes.
Sustainability Matters 19th March 2020
In this edition of Sustainability Matters you can read about;
• Very Different yet Very Much the Same
• Jeanette Fitzsimons’ Poignant Piece on the Kauaeranga River
• Sir Rob Fenwick: The Fêted Environmentalist’s Urgent Last Message
• Donations – Are Welcome Here!
• Creating Climate Resilience for Farmers
• Whenua Ora Tangata Ora Partnership Leads the Way Forward in Regenerative Agriculture
• Is the Current Focus on Climate Change Misguided?
• How Hip Hop Can Bring Green Issues to Communities of Colour
• EcoFest North – 90+ Events
• You Are What You Wear – Moving away from Fast Fashion
• SBN Collaboration Will Help Businesses Take Urgent Climate Action
• David vs Goliath: The Man Taking Huge Corporates to Court over Climate Change
• Documentary “Fantastic Fungi”!
• Tesla Produces its 1 millionth Electric Car
• A Follow-through – Bjorn Lomborg
• Making Sustainability Happen – Blue Star’s NZ Sites Toitū Enviromark Gold Certified
• Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future
• Modernising Governance: Key Recommendations for Boards to Ensure Business Resilience
Sustainability Matters 5th March 2020
In this ‘supa’ edition of Sustainability Matters you can read about;
• Want People to Care About Climate Change? Skip the Jargon
• What I Do – Katharine Hayhoe, Climate Scientist
• Net Zero Goal ‘Greatest Commercial Opportunity of Our Time’, says Mark Carney
• Donations – Are Welcome Here!
• Global Accounting Bodies Announce Climate Change Call to Action
• CA ANZ National Webcast Series –The Financial Impact of Environmental Risks
• Webinar: Using the Power of Data to Reduce Environmental Risk in Your Supply Chain in China
• Would EV Owners Buy Petrol Again?
• Plastic’s Long, Long Way from Fantastic
• Zespri Reveals Sustainability Commitments
• Cool Butterfly Effect: Insect Equipment Could Inspire Heat-Radiating Tech
• Tiny Agency in CA Achieves Environmental Justice by Taking on Polluters
• Responses to Australian Bush Fires are Just Plain Wrong
• Medium to High Density Housing Summit
• Rethinking Growth
• World’s Second Green School Opens in Taranaki
• Top Ten things You Need to Watch on Climate Change
• Auckland Climate Response Unconference
• Fire Fallout: How Ash and Debris Are Choking Australia’s Rivers
• NZ Uses Accounting Trick to Seem Climate-Friendly
• Earth Day 2020
• UK’s Heathrow Airport Expansion Ruled Unlawful over Climate Change
• Celebration 50 years since Successful Campaign ‘Save Manapouri & Te Anau Lakes’
• Design for Sustainability: A Sourcebook of Integrated, Eco-logical Solutions
• The NZ Tourism Industry Cannot Afford to Ignore the Elephant in the Room
• What’s Wrong With a Bit of Good Clean Dirt?
• The Horizon is on Fire (with Life).
Sustainability Matters 20th February 2020
In this edition of Sustainability Matters you can read about;
• Climate Risk and Response: Physical Hazards and Socioeconomic Impacts
• The Art of Storytelling (for finance people)
• Auckland Council to Add HomeFit Check on LIM Reports
• Salvation or Pipe Dream? A Movement Grows to Protect Up to Half the Planet
• Wild and Winged in a City of Eight Million
• ‘Uninsurable and Unhedgeable’: Central Banks Warn of Financial Crisis from Climate Change
• Taumata Arowai – Water Services Regulator Bill
• Sustainable Business 2020
• Call for Improved UN Sustainable Development Goals Disclosures
• Ernst & Young Becomes First Big Four to Set Global Carbon Neutrality Target
• A-CSEAR 2020 – Call for Papers: ‘Democratising Accounting’
• SumOfUs – How Many?
• Church of England Devises an Index for Climate-Conscious Investing
• Consultation on the Draft British Standard for Social Value
• Wise Response Society Submission – Crown Minerals Act 1991 Review
• The Story of Plastic Documentary to Premiere in Honour of Earth Day
• Clean Energy Software – Training Workshop
• Insights on NZ’s Sustainability Professionals
• Countdown Trials Produce with Paper Instead of Plastic
• Jonathon Porritt’s Inspiring Lifetime Achievement Award Acceptance Speech
• Green Homes: A Crash Course on Sustainable Design
• This Land is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth
Sustainability Matters 8th August 2019
In this edition of Sustainability Matters you can read about;
• Zero Carbon Bill Hearings
• A Week of Major UK Green Policy Announcements
• Airport Expansion Stalled on Climate Grounds
• More than 350 million Trees Planted in a Day in Ethiopia
• Give us Hope. Show us More Solutions – Less Doom and Gloom
• Biking with Butterflies
• Research to Action: The Science of Drawdown
• Refusing to Give Up on Protecting the Environment: Sam Judd
• Eco-packaging Trials Reduce Event Waste
• Humans Will Never Colonise Mars
• The Bizarre, Peaty Science of Arctic Wildfires
• Following Up on Forget Shorter Showers
• Mint Innovation is Making e-Waste Less Wasteful
• Shaping Our [NZ] Low Emissions Future
• UK Lawmakers to Count Environmental Cost of Mass Tourism
• Defusing Southeast Asia’s e-waste Timebomb
• This Zero-waste Restaurant Generates Literally No Trash
• First Step is All about Mindset Shift
• Meridian Energy Releases Climate Change Risk Report
• TCFD- 2019 Status Report
• Tough Line on Plastics Taken at Airport
Sustainability Matters 6th February 2020
In this Waitangi Day edition of Sustainability Matters you can read about;
• Your Company’s Next Leader on Climate Is…the CFO
• People and Performance Lead
• There is An Antidote to Demagoguery – It’s Called Political Rewilding
• New Zealand Joins International Treaty to Slash Ship Emissions
• International Student Summit on Climate
• Webinar: Supercharge Your Sustainability Strategy with the Global Goals
• Air Bubble Barrier Traps Plastic Waste in Amsterdam’s Canals
• New NZ Houses Emitting 5 Times Too Much Carbon – Study
• New Meat-packing Foam Dissolves in Sink
• Bead and Proceed
• Should I Ditch My Fossil-fueled Car?
• Winner of Australia’s Leading Sustainability Award Spotlights SDGs
• Chernobyl is the Highest-rated TV Series Ever
• Nepal’s Road-Building Spree Pushes into the Heart of the Himalayas
• Could Buycotting be the New Boycotting?
• Churchill Fellowship Awarded to Council’s Waste Specialist
• Passive House: 154 Unit Apartment Block in New York
• New Technology Helping Shoppers Offset Carbon Emissions
• Academics to Showcase to Research to Scottish Parliament
• At Berkeley, A Student-led Class Takes a New Approach
Sustainability Matters 23rd January 2020
In this the first 2020 edition of Sustainability Matters you can read about;
• 99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn’t Hear About in 2019
• Climate Change Litigation Enters a New Era: Court Rules Emissions Reductions a Human Right
• 2020 Sustainability Professionals Unconference
• Ecopsychology: How Immersion in Nature Benefits Your Health
• Plastics Data Challenge
• BlackRock Joins Climate Action 100+ to Ensure Largest Corporate Emitters Act on Climate Crisis
• Accelerating NZ’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
• Decision Time for the Planet
• Omnicide: Who is Responsible for the Gravest of All Crimes?
• Obituary: David Bellamy OBE, Botanist and Broadcaster
• Self-driving Cars will Not Fix Our Transportation Woes
• Podcast or Perish Featuring Markus Milne
• Finance for the Future 2019 awards
• Tales of Sustainable Travel
• The Net-Zero Economy Report – 2020
• Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change
• Climate Change Pushes Investors to Take the Temperature
• National Freshwater Conference 2020
• TemperatureTM Score
• London’s New Artificial Trees Guzzle as Much Pollution as 275 Regular Trees