In FY21 we worked to reduce our impact on the climate and the climate's impact on New Zealand.
We kicked-off a series of events to help inform the business community about adapting to our changing climate.
Our first event focused on what the climate science is telling us about the adaptation challenge. Scientists including Professor James Renwick and Dr Rob Bell outlined the impacts we can expect to see in coming years, especially through sea level rise and flooding, and how business can influence more targeted scientific research in these areas.
Our second event focused on what the policy response to these impacts will look like. Climate Change Minister James Shaw, along with representatives from the Ministry for the Environment and the Climate Change Commission, spoke about the Government’s focus on adaptation and the legislation and other changes that are planned.
We released our fourth annual climate change survey of New Zealanders' views on how we should adapt to our changing climate.
This year, our results told us that most people see the Government as responsible for addressing climate change, but they don’t think the country’s response is moving fast enough. Over 85% of people expect to see more sea level rise, more frequent and intense storms and floods, and more frequent and extreme droughts. And only 37% of respondents were confident that New Zealand will be able to reduce the impacts of climate change.
We committed to transitioning our corporate vehicle fleet to a mix of electric and hybrid vehicles.
We have science-based targets in place for our carbon emissions, with the next target being to reduce our emissions by 40% from our electricity and vehicle fleet by 2025 (compared to 2017 levels). Having already made significant improvements in our electricity use, we’re now focused on our vehicle fleet – where we have around 270 vehicles (a mix of pool and tool of trade).
Not only are we reducing the size of our fleet, but we have committed to transition to a fully electric and hybrid fleet over the next few years, with our intention being to add no more petrol vehicles after December 2021.
We purchased native forestry carbon credits to continue our record of being carbon neutral since 2012.
We have been measuring and reporting our carbon footprint since 2004 and have been carbon neutral since 2012, purchasing carbon offsets which remove the same amount of carbon from the atmosphere – making our overall impact neutral.
This year we purchased offsets from a native forest in Marlborough, which consists of 64 hectares of regenerative native forest. Not only will this help offset emissions from our vehicle fleet and electricity use, but it will also help invigorate our native biodiversity here in New Zealand.
We continued our support for the Sustainable Business Council and Climate Leaders Coalition, sitting on the Steering Committee for the latter and actively working with both organisations on climate adaptation.
We piloted the CoGo app with our people, which helps users align their spending with their values and reduce their carbon footprint, and profiled our AMI and State brands within the app.
We were once again a platinum sponsor of the Climate Change & Business Conference where we chaired a session focused on climate adaptation and increased the focus of the conference on this topic.
We supported the introduction of legislation to require large businesses to identify and disclose the financial risks they face from climate change.
In FY21 we lent a helping hand to those in need and celebrated the diversity of our communities.