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Sustainable industry

Successful businesses are sustainable businesses. Find out how at Simply Sustainable.

What is a sustainable industry?

The Ministry for the Environment thinks about industry broadly as organisations that create goods and services, have a drive for profit and operate in a contestable market. It includes:

  • traditional New Zealand industries such as agriculture and forestry
  • small and medium scale enterprises
  • less traditionally recognised industries such as the finance and education sectors, and the operations of central and local government.

In simple terms, sustainability is the practice of making things able to continue indefinitely. This means thinking about tomorrow today, and also thinking about economic, social, and environmental trends, risks, and opportunities.

Sustainability is not environmentalism in disguise and does not mean suppressing business innovation, or reining in economic growth. It is not business as usual either. The focus of the Ministry's work for business is on encouraging and rewarding businesses with sustainable practices, rather than punishing businesses that don’t comply.

The Ministry defines a sustainable industry as an industry that:

  • anticipates economic, environmental and social trends to minimise risk and takes opportunities to improve comparative advantage
  • looks for new ways of doing business that improve economic, environmental and social performance
  • looks for the business opportunities in using natural resources efficiently
  • understands that today’s competitive factors may not be tomorrow’s
  • understands impacts across business and product life cycles
  • operates beyond traditional market and compliance boundaries
  • works with its stakeholders effectively.

How does the Ministry promote and develop sustainable industries?

The Ministry helps industry think+plan+operate sustainably.

Services we offer

  • Supporting and encouraging environmentally responsible business
    • Help business and industry understand the impacts of government policy
    • Provide practical advice and support on major industry projects
  • Simply Sustainable: tools and resources - to help change practice and performance
    • Help industry to translate sustainable industry concepts into practical strategies and actions
    • Provide tools to help industry make performance improvements (eg eco-efficiency, waste management, triple bottom line reporting, and product design)
    • Resources that demonstrate sustainable industry concepts, benefits and best practice
  • Helping government to be a sustainable sector
    • Work with existing central and local government programmes aimed at increasing economic growth
    • Leverage whole of government approaches to sustainable industry services
    • Help government to be a sustainable sector

Ministry for the Environment and Ministry of Economic Development Sustainable Business workshop feedback

The Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry for Economic Development and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise hosted a series of workshops with local and national business representatives about the package of sustainability initiatives announced by the Prime Minister in February 2007. Meetings took place in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch during June and July 2007. The summary of the key issues that were discussed at the workshops is now available.

Links to other resources