How to Improve Environmental Outcomes

My 22 May thought piece here, outlined the compelling case to build a community and disaster resilient Wellington and save $100m per annum through a reduction in Government services such as mental health, benefits and criminal justice etc.

My 29 May thought piece here, outlined how to improve economic outcomes.

This thought piece outlines how to improve environmental outcomes. The objective is to lift all scores to 80% by 2030.

The 5-year trend [1] graph below shows:

·         Capabilities (greater than 80%) are satisfaction with access to the natural environment

·         Capabilities (between 60% and 80%) are confidence with the safety of water for recreational use

·         Vulnerabilities (less than 60%) are lack of confidence that land is being used for optimal purpose

[1] The trends from survey data within a Wellington suburb have been gathered each October since 2019 through a community survey which asks questions of residents based on the wellbeing indicators in the Governments Living Standards Framework here, which have been aligned to the Governments resilience areas here. Here is the Wellington suburb survey data https://newlandrg.weebly.com/result-2019-2024.html

The Ministry for the Environment suggests the negative trends in our environment are stabilising, or reversing due to how we manage land, the land flows into freshwater, the flow of rivers and streams into the marine environment, and human actions effecting the air. They consider we have major challenges ahead from extreme storm and weather events driven by the growing impacts of climate change.

The only vulnerability in the above trend graph is the lack of confidence land is being used for optimal purpose.

Climate change is defined as any change occurring to the planet's climate either determined by

·         the Earth's orbit around the sun, the output of energy from our sun, the ocean’s natural cooling and warming cycles and the constant variability in volcanic activity, (Natural climate change)

·         human impact on the Earth's climate whether  fossil fuels burned causing the emission of greenhouse gas; carbon dioxide which traps heat; aerosol releases; and land alteration from agriculture and deforestation. (Anthropogenic climate change)

The climate response needs to be both:

·         mitigation (e.g. reducing emissions in the long term) addressed by considering the environmental impacts of the options in the economic, transport, water, housing and energy programmes so the trade-offs are clear before the decision is made. 

·         adaptation focused on an environmental programme about making Wellington a better place to live by growing the capability of access to the natural environment, a point of difference for Wellington.

This requires Government investment and a phased solution delivered by public and private sector leaders with more commercial finance and more enabling environmental infrastructure to:

·         Survive :Mitigation only

·         Revive: Mitigation plus adaptation ‘critical’ environment projects

·         Thrive: Mitigation plus adaptation ‘desirable’ environment projects

Each option would transparently show the costs and benefits from an economic, social, cultural and environmental perspective for decision makers to identify the preferred option and way forward. It is likely the preferred “public value” option is Thrive. To be affordable and achievable this will need to be phased starting with Survive for the first three years, then Revive for 3 years and then Thrive.

This would require the Government to reprioritise its existing investment programme to initiatives that deliver, in the words of the Minister of Finance, “better bank for buck” and better public value.

Next steps

·         In my next thought pieces, I will explain the choices we have to improve social outcomes and how the choices could be phased over 10 years to Survive, then Revive and then Thrive.

·         I would love to collaborate with others who are working in this space, trying to solve similar problems, please leave a comment.

Previous thought pieces

To date, my thought pieces have covered what’s needed to achieve a better society, what many recent publications are saying about this, my favourite quotes about this, and that all ideologies have elements about the improvement of society through participation in decision making. I also covered that communities need investment to be resilient and speak with their voices to influence Government decision-making, and that Government seems to recognise the need for place-based solutions drawn from local intelligence. I also went through what I am doing to be part of the solution with my Better Decisions Better Outcomes approach to develop a Portfolio Business Case to inform a start-up decision on the best public value, commercially viable, affordable and achievable initiatives to achieve a better society. See here for my past thought pieces.