Workstreams
Current and Completed
Current Workstreams
Building on the climate scenario analysis completed in 2020, the Aotearoa Circle has now developed a Seafood Sector Adaptation Strategy spanning wild capture fisheries, aquaculture, and the social, cultural and ecological systems which host them.
Climate change poses a significant risk to the seafood sector, which currently employs around 2,500 New Zealanders and last year earned more than $2b in export revenue. Aotearoa’s marine social-ecological systems will come under increasing strain as habitats change, species migrate, and the socio-economic foundations of the industry are forced to adapt to meet New Zealand’s carbon-neutral 2050 goal – all while aiming to support sustainable, productive, inclusive and resilient growth in the sector.
2022 will focus on Wave 1 of the strategy.
Given food is the most obvious output of our natural capital, and yet is also a cause of many of our underlying environmental and social issues today, it made sense to tackle this with a much needed roadmap.
The Mana Kai Initiative involves all parts of our national food system, to co-create solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand food system today.
Over November 2020 to January 2021, through a process of deep discussion with multiple groups representing every facet of our food system from growers and producers to eaters, the Mana Kai Initiative is now in the process of identifying the key goals we want to achieve.
With kōrero at its core, Mana Kai is grounded in Te Ao Māori wisdom. A Mana Kai Framework has been developed as a starting point for kōrero. The Framework presents a Māori view of our food system and its connection to the land, our natural environment and to our people.
This workstream came from the Fenwick Forum report in June 2020, where CEOs came together to prioritise the programmes of work to ‘build back better’. Phase I has now delivered a national low carbon energy roadmap for Aotearoa New Zealand.
The roadmap has outlined a low carbon path that ensures energy security, affordability and a just transition towards the government’s target of net zero carbon emissions across the economy by 2050. It will also identify and provide solutions for managing risks and opportunities for an evolving integrated energy system whilst also considering the role of diverse energy sources and changing technology of how consumers use and access energy.
This workstream will further New Zealand’s understanding of how the tourism industry may be impacted under different climate change scenarios and leverage a cross-section of expertise in climate and land science, conservation, tourism, government (central, local and regional economic development) policy, and sustainable finance to propose possible ways forward for the industry. The key output from the workstream is an adaptation strategy and roadmap. The secretariat for this workstream is PwC.
More information to come
Upcoming Workstreams
Agriculture Adaptation Strategy
As New Zealand’s largest sector of the tradeable economy, the agricultural sector faces unprecedented levels of change to both reduce its GHG emissions and build resilience in the face of a changing climate. A comprehensive strategy for how the sector can adapt to a changing climate and the extreme weather events, natural resource constraints, land-use changes and supply chain disruptions that come with it, is critical to ensuring food security in New Zealand as well as the resilience of our key export markets. This level of change will require support, guidance and collaboration across the agri-food sector, and both public and private sector leadership.
We are further investigating this workstream and will launch soon.
Completed Workstreams
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The Sustainable Agriculture Finance Initiative SAFI was established by The Aotearoa Circle in 2021 to accelerate further investment and support for sustainable agriculture in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The initiative was led by a Steering Group made up of major banks in Aotearoa New Zealand – ANZ, ASB, BNZ, Westpac, and Rabobank – along with the Ministry for Primary Industries, with secretariat services provided by EY.
The Steering Group worked to develop guidance for sustainable agriculture finance that takes note of emerging international frameworks as well as existing good farming practice standards used by Aotearoa New Zealand growers and farmers.
Read more about SAFI and download the Phase One Guidance Document here.
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This report explores the financial gap favouring monoculture exotic forests over biodiverse native forests in New Zealand, and the incentives, policy settings and funding mechanisms required to ‘reset the balance’ by levelling the playing field for native forests.
Addressing biodiversity loss is a task too great for the public sector alone and the New Zealand private sector has an increasingly vested interest in actively contributing to the regeneration of native biodiversity. However, like many economic or cultural shifts Government intervention will be a key enabler of these efforts.
Through this report, the Aotearoa Circle hopes to spark much needed debate around the unique opportunity for the Government and New Zealand Inc. to jointly drive the regeneration of New Zealand’s biodiversity at scale, through the widespread establishment of biodiverse, permanent forest sinks.
Read the full report here
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Climate-Related Scenarios for the 2050s: Exploring plausible futures for aquaculture and fisheries in New Zealand.
This report presents climate-related risk scenarios developed by KPMG with The Aotearoa Circle and its government, iwi, corporate, and civil society partners.
The scenarios in this report are intended to challenge conventional assumptions about New Zealand’s future and provide stakeholders with a means of stress-testing policy and investment decisions, as well as potential trade-offs associated with their decisions. During this process, decision-makers are expected to contest and/or embellish our scenarios in light of their unique perspectives on market behaviour, societal dynamics, and political response. This is both a foreseeable and welcome outcome.
Click here to read the report
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We launched Toitū Tahua, the Centre for Sustainable Finance, at the beginning of August to implement the Sustainable Finance Forum’s 2030 Roadmap for a sustainable financial system. The 2030 Roadmap for Action, is the final work product of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Sustainable Finance Forum (SFF). It represents the collective, voluntary efforts of more than 200 stakeholders including representatives from banks, insurance companies, industry, Māori businesses and Iwi, professional services, civil society, academia, and Government.
The name, Toitū Tahua, was chosen by Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei te reo and cultural experts. It underscores sustainability and protection of the environment, and acknowledges the importance of financial investment, new thinking and collective action required for a robust and resilient financial system and planet. The Centre for Sustainable Finance has set up a number of implementation groups to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Finance Forum's 2030 Roadmap for Action
Visit the Toitū Tahua: Centre For Sustainable Finance Website
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The Fenwick Forum was initiated after Round 1 of Covid-19 lockdown, June 2020, with a focus on ensuring a balanced recovery that considers our natural capital.
The Fenwick Forum was named after the late Sir Rob Fenwick who co-founded The Aotearoa Circle. Sir Rob had a unique ability to not only ‘see the complexity’ associated with systems level change but also to ‘cut through the complexity’ and identify pragmatic actions that could move New Zealand forward in a way that supports a productive, sustainable and inclusive economy.
The Fenwick Forum brought together a wide range of participants to explore how Covid-19 recovery plans might support the transformation of New Zealand’s food systems, energy systems and transport systems.
The aim of the Forum was to identify a pragmatic set of actions to accelerate progress on a list of existing initiatives/ ideas. Whilst new initiatives and ideas are important, due to the time pressures to commence the next phase of our recovery, it was felt that an increased level of focus should be given to more mature initiatives as they have the potential to move quickly to implementation.
Download the full report here.