My favourite speaker at the 2022 Climate Change and Business conference was Mike Smith from the Iwi Chairs Forum. He was music to my ears after a long day of listening to people talking about how disclosing climate risk, reporting, tracking and evidence gathering will save the planet and congratulating themselves for starting to take climate change seriously. 

 

Mike told us to face reality. To push reset. To localise, empower communities, build local and regional economies and fully commit to transformation. “There is no silver bullet,” he said. “Work together, do everything you can to shift the dial on this.”  And he acknowledged that we can’t depend on the people in power to come up with real solutions or to have the moral courage to put them into practice. 

 

I got some insight into why from National’s Scott Simpson. His speech started off so well. General support for all the great work that has been done by our climate change minister to create the law, regulation, structures and targets we need. Wouldn’t change a  thing. It started to wobble. Of course we support the idea of net zero by 2050. But we wouldn’t do the things this Government is doing. (What would you do? Ummm.)  And it ran off the rails. Well, there is plenty of time, still 28 years til 2050. Classic filibuster. 

 

Mike’s  story rings true in our world. Gaia’s latest report shows how zero waste strategies are an essential part of every climate plan. It echoes back all of the things we know from experience to be true. Zero waste strategies help us reduce methane and CO2 emissions, adapt to climate change and deliver broader benefits across the board for people and ecosystems. 

 

My time at the conference reminded me that the way we use our economy is the number one thing we need to adapt to shift us onto the zero carbon path.  I love zero waste because it gives us a roadmap and a toolkit for more responsible production and consumption systems. It empowers us to tackle our waste and emissions problems at the source by redesigning business models, products and the systems we use to deliver them. It feels like that is slowly beginning to filter through.

 

So many big companies were on the stage telling us what they are doing across their supply chains to reduce their footprints and how they were supporting others up and down their supply chains to do the same. While others are still using the same old playbook to throw spanners in the works and slow down progressive change. It feels like there is a real tension in the business community around whether to go just far enough to maintain social licence or to fully commit and become part of the solution. 

 

With COP 27 in just a few weeks we need everybody pulling in the same direction. The conference gave me some hope that business leaders are committing to real action. It is easy to see how the businesses that don’t adapt will get left behind.