You are here: State of the environment Reporting

Sustainability

New Zealanders are proud of New Zealand’s clean green image and are committed to living in this environment in a way that meets our social, economic and environmental needs - now and in the future. Sustainability integrates this concern for social, cultural, economic and environmental issues, and involves thinking broadly about objectives, considering long-term as well as short-term effects, assessing indirect as well as direct effects, and taking extra care when changes brought about by development might be irreversible.

One indicator of sustainability is the ecological footprint. An ecological footprint measures how much land is required to supply a particular population (i.e. country, region, city, business or individual) with its living and lifestyle needs - that is food, housing, energy/fuel, transport, and consumer goods and services. The larger the footprint, the more resources are needed to support that lifestyle.

An ecological footprint is not the same thing as a carbon footprint. A carbon footprint only measures a population’s carbon dioxide emissions. The ecological footprint measures the land required to support a population, including land to deal with that population’s carbon emissions.

The 2003 report Ecological Footprints of New Zealand and its Regions assesses New Zealand’s sustainability performance against two criteria - the amount of land appropriated by each person to support their consumption (ecological footprint per capita), and whether we're living within the carrying capacity of the land we have available. The results of this report are summarised in the links below.

The ecological footprints of most developed countries require more land than is available. New Zealand is no exception. While our footprint is smaller than that of the United States, Denmark and Australia, it is over four times larger than China’s, approximately eight times larger than India’s and significantly larger than the footprints of Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Japan. There is no room for complacency about our lifestyle choices and the impact they have on the environment.

What’s being done about sustainability?

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The New Zealand Government has agreed that sustainable development principles should underpin its economic, social, cultural and environmental policies at home and abroad and has programmes of work which contribute to sustainable development in New Zealand and internationally. For more information on the Government’s work see Sustainability.

What can I do to be more sustainable?

All of us, through the way we live and earn our living, have some impact on the environment.

There are many simple, inexpensive things you can do to live more sustainably and help create a better environment for all of us. For ideas what you can do to take action for the environment.