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Hatched: The capacity for sustainable development

Introduction

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Section 1. Thinking and acting for long term success

The first section explores the need to think and act for long-term success. We often make decisions assuming the future will resemble the present, but a short review of history reminds us this is not so. How do we stretch thinking beyond our limited imagination for change, beyond immediate demands of the present? Government has a particular role here; the market, which we have increasingly relied upon to shape New Zealand, has neither memory nor foresight to do this. Its strength is its agility to adapt and innovate; but it is not the marketplace but society and government who will need to deliberately envision and create pathways to a desired future.

Chapter 1. New Zealand, new futures?
A brief history of futures studies in New Zealand and where the topic might be heading
Chapter 2. 100% Pure Conjecture – the Scenarios Game
A participatory game based on four future scenarios has been highly successful in engaging decision-makers in the long-term impacts of policy
Chapter 3. The Auckland Sustainability Framework
A unique experiment in developing a long-term vision for our mega-city that highlights the elaborate processes needed to satisfactorily address complexity.
Chapter 4. Creating futures: integrated spatial decision support systems for local government
An Integrated Spatial Decision Support System has been created for the Waikato Region as part of a process to link qualitative scenarios and deliberative methods to quantitative systems modelling
Chapter 5. Successful cities in the 21st century
How might success for cities be defined, what are the key characteristics of successful cities, and what is needed to sustain city success over time?

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Section 2. Business - as sustainability innovators

The second section considers businesses as sustainability innovators. Businesses have the capability, creativity and resources to adapt and capitalise on future change and we found some of the most significant shifts in the last six years within the business sector. Globally, sustainability reporting is now a mainstream management and communications tool for large companies – with nearly 80% of the largest 250 companies publishing reports. In New Zealand the development has been more tentative, but the rewards in overseas markets for businesses that engage with sustainability issues (climate change especially) has led many to be innovative in the product, service and business models.

Chapter 6. Foodmiles: fact or fiction?
How do New Zealand’s exporters innovate for a world of sustainability conscious consumers?
Chapter 7. Changing the game: organisations and sustainability
Why and how do organisations change to integrate a sustainability agenda?
Chapter 8. Our journey from unsustainability: reporting about Landcare Research reports
Landcare Research’s experiences at integrating and reporting on sustainability
Chapter 9. Coming of Age: A global perspective on sustainability reporting
Allen White co-founded the Global Reporting Initiative. Here he gives us his perspective on where corporates are taking sustainability reporting
Chapter 10. Sustainability and Māori business
Learning from the cultural practices and experience of tangata whenua
Chapter 11. Life cycle management
Embracing the new design constraints and opportunities that arise in a supply-chain-conscious trading system
Chapter 12. carboNZero
A global programme that helps businesses tackle their carbon footprints
Chapter 13. Greening the Screen
The NZ Film Industry’s world-leading industry environmental management programme

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Section 3. Individuals - as citizen consumers

The third section looks at individuals – as citizen consumers. Changing ourselves and how we live is extraordinarily complex. Our behaviour and consumption choices are influenced by our values, identity and knowledge, and by social norms and institutional constraints. Our research suggests that changing behaviours will require more than providing solid information. People need to learn from each other and create their own solutions. And at a fundamental level society will need to reactivate the concept of citizenship – of acting for the common good versus acting as the individual consumer.

Chapter 14. Sustainable consumption
What is it and what will it mean for society?
Chapter 15. We are what we buy – aren’t we?
How personal and group identity influences consumption
Chapter 16. Seeking pro-sustainability household behaviour change
What works? Profiling the Sustainable Living programme
Chapter 17. Supporting practice change through transformative communication
How communication can create change
Chapter 18. Education for sustainability in secondary schools
Is our secondary education system able to equip students for a complex-decision-making environment?

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Section 4. Facing up to wicked problems

The fourth section is facing up to wicked problems. The complexity and value-laden nature of many global change processes is proving too onerous for many tools that were developed for situations when, for example, resources were considered to be infinite. Such problems are being characterised as ‘wicked’,- and are often symptomatic of deeper problems, persistent and often contain redistributive implications for entrenched interests. Facing up to wicked problems requires new ways of working and new modes of thinking. Our research opens up the difficulty in achieving this, sketches some pathways forward and describes what those pathways might look like in practice.

Chapter 19. Sustainability Technologies 101: ‘Wicked problems’ and other such technical terms
Good research builds on theoretical insights as well as experimental evidence. Here we reflect on our readings and writings
Chapter 20. Looking through a Governmentality lens – a bit more theory
A specific framework to understand and assess society’s progress to greater sustainability
Chapter 21. Water allocation. Canterbury’s wicked problem
The management of water allocation and quality is critical for New Zealand’s long-term prosperity and well-being. The bulk of this is allocated in Canterbury where it represents a problem of a truly wicked nature
Chapter 22. Social learning – a basis for practice in environmental management
Social learning as a framework for approaching complex problems
Chapter 23. Sustainability appraisal techniques
A brief summary of techniques examined and some of the main points arising
Chapter 24. Getting under the bonnet. How accounting can help embed sustainability thinking into organisational decision making
Accounting technologies can be a surprisingly successful vehicle to stimulate organisational change to greater sustainability, as these case studies demonstrate
Chapter 25. Stakeholder analysis
An assessment tool for identifying and better understanding critical stakeholders
Chapter 26. Supporting effective teamwork
A checklist for evaluating team performance
Chapter 27. We are not alone: National Sustainable Development approaches in New Zealand and Scotland
We examine the Scottish National Sustainable Development Strategy and the NZ Sustainable Programme of Action to assess progress and identify future needs

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Section 5. The future as a set of choices

The fifth and last section looks at the future as a set of choices. It is easier in the face of great challenges to believe in inevitability, safer to shuffle deckchairs, more human to deny change is happening. It is a mark of leadership, however, to believe that we can make choices – especially when those choices are hard and require a fundamental review of our assumptions. New Zealand has enormous potential to determine its own future but only if it acts decisively and proactively. In this last section we consider the next steps for sustainable development both in New Zealand’s research and practice and beyond.

Chapter 28.Sustainability: A conversation between business and science
Discussions about sustainability point to very different perspectives in the worlds of business and science, yet collaboration between the two will be an important ingredient in delivering sustainable
development.
Chapter 29.Sustainable Development: responding to the research challenge in Aotearoa New Zealand
With its limited resources how can New Zealand best contribute to sustainable development research? The response includes our approach to research funding and aspects of governance in business and society.
Chapter 30.Unending
Concluding remarks