Resource Efficiency Research

New Zealand’s future prosperity relies on being a nation where high environmental standards go hand in hand with social and economic development. One way of achieving this is by effectively managing New Zealand’s natural resources to improve productivity while reducing the negative environmental impacts of producing and consuming goods and services. This can be summed up in the concept of resource efficiency.

Resource efficiency is about the efficiency with which ecological resources are used to meet human needs. The European Environment Agency defines it as “more welfare from less nature”.

In its simplest form, ‘resource efficiency’ is a measure. It is the ratio of environmental inputs (or waste or pollution outputs) to productive output.  A resource efficiency ratio expresses how much benefit or economic good is achieved from a unit of ‘nature’, or natural resources.

The Ministry for the Environment is building evidence on the resource use of key sectors and the potential benefits of resource efficiency to New Zealand’s economy and environment. 

As part of this work, the Ministry commissioned two projects:

Project 1: Resource Efficiency in New Zealand

Boffa Miskell Ltd was contracted in 2009 to develop and test a resource efficiency framework. A key element of the work was to identify a meaningful measure of resource efficiency that can be used within sectors and to compare sectors within New Zealand, and with overseas counterparts.

The project selected the following resource efficiency indicators:

  • water use
  • solid waste produced
  • energy use
  • greenhouse gas emissions
  • wastewater discharges
  • number of employees
  • gross domestic product (GDP)
  • export value
  • production output
  • net sales.

The project then aimed to calculate the resources efficiency ratios, based on already available data, for these sectors selected by the Ministry:

  • agriculture
  • finance, insurance, property and business services
  • New Zealand-based manufacturing (excluding food and beverage)
  • food and beverage manufacturing including agricultural products
  • retail
  • tourism, and
  • building and construction.

The project resulted in three reports:

Project 2: Quantifying the benefits of resource efficiency to the New Zealand economy

Following on from the Resource Efficiency in New Zealand project, in 2010 the Ministry engaged independent consultants ERM New Zealand Ltd, together with Lincoln University’s Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit and AgriLINK New Zealand Ltd to develop and test a way of quantifying the benefits of resource efficiency to the New Zealand economy.
To do this, the study looked at:

  • water use
  • material use
  • waste production, and
  • greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

in the following sectors and sub-sectors:

  • Agriculture:
    • fruit and tree nut growing; and
    • dairy cattle farming
  • Food and beverage manufacturing:
    • bakery product manufacturing; and
    • wine and other alcoholic beverage manufacturing
  • Construction:
    • residential building construction; and
    • non-residential building construction.

This project and its findings are in:

 

Updated February 2011

Last updated: March 1 2011