Walking the talk: turning climate action into reality in Aotearoa

*The views expressed by this Rangatahi member are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of the organisation(s) they represent.

Tim Hodgson, Environmental Engineer - Fonterra

Why is the RAP important to you?

The work the Circle does is important. It enables a more collaborative approach to sharing learnings and ideas across industry.

The idea of collaborating across industry is bigger than any kind of annual results. It's the idea that businesses are starting to put their money where their mouth is.

It's also a driver for me. We’ve of seen a lot of marketing and advertising about how environmentally friendly stuff is and getting to the nuts and bolts of whether that's true, I think is quite important.

I also want to deliver on promises. The Circle can facilitate partners to demonstrate a pathway forward rather than just claim a pathway forward.

How do you see the challenge of climate change for New Zealand?

To be perfectly candid, I think it's only getting the attention it is now because the public have had enough of inaction. I think there has been a paradigm shift in many people’s beliefs and that flows through to their habits (spending, voting, etc.)

It’s since COVID, when it felt like people started taking it more seriously. I felt it was because some people had a bit more time to take a look at the way we live and where we’re headed. It opened a lot of people's eyes.

It’s this collective moment of the realisation of climate change. We have been talking about it for a long time, but we're not really seeing any action Sadly, our generation and our children’s generation are going to be the ones who cop it if we don't do anything.

For a long time, people have been saying, “It’d be great to solve climate change, but we just don't have the technology right now, so we can't do it,” but I don't really think anyone thought that held too much water. It felt like the status quo was making people a lot of money and they just wanted to keep doing that. It may be that there's a bit of a generational shift as well. Where there are maybe some people who weren’t in positions of power in the late 2000s and now are, who could make those decisions and could pivot things.

It’s definitely getting the attention it needs at Fonterra.

It’s a huge part of the strategy refresh that Fonterra have done, it’s a key a focus of what we do. People are thinking longer term, many dairy farmers want their children and grandchildren to take over the family farm and the best way to set them up for success is to mitigate the worst effects of climate change and reverse as much we can, and look after the nature involved, right? So actually, managing things a little more holistically with more of a future vision is becoming the way of operating which is good. Consumers are more acutely aware of the impacts of industry on climate and nature and are looking to business who lead in that space as a preferred option.

Do you have a vision for New Zealand for 2035? What's your wish list that has to be happening 10 years from now?

I'll be 37 by then and hopefully I’ll have a couple of kids who are school aged. Ideally in a perfect world, I'd be able to walk them to school in the morning and then either get public transport into the office or work from home. I’d like the weekends to be full of good access to safe and clean public spaces, whether it’s parks, trails, or waterways. I’d like to take my kids to swim at clean rivers and beaches and have better access to the outdoors. I’d like our economy, health system, and schools to be thriving.

As far as public transport goes, I think in New Zealand there’s a reluctance to invest capital in transport infrastructure that isn’t roads, so we end up with a bus service as the only option. It works for some places but if we were able to “start again” I’m not sure we’d do it that way. The best time to install intra or inter-city rail was 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now.

I'd like to see a good handle on the effects that agriculture has on surrounding water bodies and catchments. Firstly, managing the impacts of existing operations, and then there’s an untapped area of resource recovery in terms of things like nutrient capture. I don't think that market really exists at a full scale. We irrigate a lot of high-nutrient and phosphorus waste by-products on to both our farms and external parties . But as a product it’s not a truly value-add market yet. Similar to how whey from cheesemaking was irrigated and/or stock food 40 years ago, now it’s a super-premium product.

Secondly, I'd like to see increased renewables and less fossil fuel dependence. I think everyone would. We have wind, solar and hydro in New Zealand. We’ve got a problem in New Zealand where the renewable energy's not necessarily where the people are so then we rely on natural gas for a lot of the North Island. How do we remedy that?

I think we suffer from a lack of long-term vision. Things like the Infrastructure Commission, which the government has set up is great. We need to see more of that stuff. Longer term planning is needed because it feels like everything just gets going, a whole bunch of stuff gets done, and then it’s halted based on elections and everything goes with them. That's not the kind of country that is going to prosper long term.