24 Oct 2000 – A coalition of some of New Zealand’s leading companies announced a new Chair and Executive Director today. more »

16 Aug 2000 – Sustainable development is a global concept that has implications for everyone. While global economic indicators such as investment, production, and trade are consistently positive, the key environmental indicators are increasingly negative. Forests are shrinking, water tables are falling, soils are eroding, wetlands are disappearing, fisheries are collapsing, rivers are running dry, coral reefs are dying, and plant and animal species are disappearing. more »

9 Aug 2000 – For businesspeople, sustainable development means making sure our businesses deliver value financially, environmentally and socially. Businesses that systematically degrade the environment or which have ongoing negative social impacts are basically not sustainable. Sustainable businesses are in touch with the people around them, aware of new opportunities, innovative in their responses, and clean and green in their operations. more »

10 Jun 2000 – Companies manufacturing fuel cells, solid state devices that generate heat and electricity without pollution, have in recent times experienced stock growth that is normally the privilege of companies with the word "dot" in the name. more »

9 May 2000 – Traditionally, producers of consumer products have had to carry very little responsibility for their products after sale, excepting possible liability for accidents. Extended producer responsibility means that the product producers must carry the burden of the waste that is created when their products are thrown away. more »

31 Mar 2000 – Fuel cells are solid state devices that produce heat and electricity from hydrogen and oxygen, without producing noise or pollution. Used by NASA for many years in spacecraft, fuel cells may soon come into use even in such mundane applications as the family car, and in place of polluting fossil fuel burning power plants. more »

31 Mar 2000 – One of the most effective economic instruments for government is the use of taxes as incentives and disincentives for certain activities; it is common knowledge that there are few more effective ways to discourage an activity than by taxing it. more »

26 Mar 2000 – Constructed wetlands are man made wetlands designed to clean and filter wastewater. While previously regarded as an "innovative and alternative" wastewater treatment method, currently more than 1000 constructed wetlands exist in Europe and North America, both for treatment of municipal wastewater (at scales up to millions of gallons per day), agricultural runoff and acid mine drainage. more »

15 Mar 2000 – In the early 90s, a widely read "Consumer"-type magazine in Europe rated the environmental performance of a Sony television as the worst among its competitors. As one manager put it "If we fail with the environmental features, we can never reach the "best buy" qualification." The unhappy revelation of less than optimal environmental performance spawned a deluge of efforts towards sustainability, starting with television design and now incorporating some of the latest ideas and concepts of sustainability. more »

12 Mar 2000 – When the environment is contaminated by radioactive isotopes or heavy metals, it is very hard to fix the problem without causing huge damage. The usual way to treat contaminated soil is to dig it up and chemically extract the contaminants, but conventional treatment is expensive and extremely damaging to the environment. more »

12 Mar 2000 – Hybrid electric vehicles use a combination of gasoline powered engines and electric motors, achieving doubled or tripled fuel efficiency, better performance and ultra low emissions, while still using ordinary petrol. more »

9 Mar 2000 – A driving force behind sustainable business is that best practises in waste elimination and avoiding pollution pay off in the long term. However a new article in Environmental Science and Technology details why one company didn't implement the environmentally friendly policy that would have saved money. more »

9 Mar 2000 – How is it that a company that exploits Guatemalan workers on as little as US$2.50 a day can receive a Human Rights Award from the Council on Economic Priorities, yet socially responsible multinationals such as GM and Dupont that pay fair wages end up on the activists black list? more »

9 Mar 2000 – Business commitment to sustainability means making an effort towards continuous improvement in social, environmental and economic performance. At the lowest level, sustainability dictates that business is carried out within the restrictions set by law. Businesses that fail to comply with regulations have little hope of attaining long term success, whether socially, environmentally or financially. more »

8 Mar 2000 – New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark told National Radio says that her government will encourage debate about the inclusion of environmental and labour standards in trade talks. more »

4 Mar 2000 – Bioremediation is a way of dealing with chemically contaminated sites by using bacteria to break down the toxic compounds. more »

4 Mar 2000 – Summary of key points. Refer to for details. more »

1 Mar 2000 – Obsolete computer equipment is being given a new lease of life thanks to The Ark, a non profit recycling company. more »

1 Mar 2000 – The Labour and the Alliance coalition agreement establishes their joint aim of implementing "a policy platform which reduces inequality, is environmentally sustainable, and improves the social and economic wellbeing of all New Zealanders". more »

1 Mar 2000 – Increasingly popular environmental standards based on life cycle analyses pose a considerable threat to small and medium sized exporters, says a new Australian report issued by the Cooperative Research Centre for Waste Management and Pollution Control. The high initial cost of meeting ISO 14040 (Product life cycle analyses) environmental standards, increasingly popular in Europe, could be reduced from an estimated $60 000 down to just a few thousand dollars by the establishment of a national database, says the report. more »

1 Mar 2000 – from taxes on energy, transportation and waste disposal over the next 10 years, according to a study prepared for the German Environment Agency. The Reichstag is set to debate the new eco-tax bill, which would become law on January 1, 2000. more »

1 Mar 2000 – Automakers GM and Ford have recently announced that they require all suppliers to be ISO 14001 certified by December 31, 2002 and July 1, 2003 respectively. The ISO 14000 series standards allow certification for environmental management systems, product stewardship and environmental evaluation, in a similar way to the ISO 9000 quality management series. more »

1 Mar 2000 – Sustainable management as a business advantage has gained significant credence upon the recent launch of the Dow Jones Sustainability Group Indices by Dow Jones Indices and SAM Sustainability Group. The most compelling discovery thus far is that the sustainable businesses have significantly outperformed their traditional counterparts by about five percent, with additional risk of about one percent. Risk/Return ratios of the sustainability index outperform those of the Dow Jones Global Index on one, three and five year time spans. more »

1 Mar 2000 – The health and environmental benefits of the 1990 Clean Air Act in the United States are four times greater than the costs, claims United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a recent report to the US government. The EPA has already reported that benefits from 1990 - 1997 well outweighed costs in a previous report. more »

1 Mar 2000 – The Auckland City Council has reversed its policy on replacing the 240 litre mobile garbage bins, instead opting for a financial incentive to use the smaller 120 litre model. The new scheme will introduce an annual charge of $175 for the big bins, and $88 for the smaller models. more »

1 Mar 2000 – Traditionally all plastics have been made using crude oil as the base material. Biopolymers are plastics made from renewable resources. Biopolymers used to be expensive, but recent research efforts may mean that large scale production and use of cheap biopolymers is coming soon. more »

25 Feb 2000 – Home Depot, the largest chain of home improvement retailers in North America, has agreed to eliminate wood products from "environmentally sensitive areas" by the end of 2002. more »

24 Feb 2000 – A new process patented recently by Goodyear gives hope to the owners of billions of used tires worldwide. The new process extracts up to 80% of usable polymer from the tyres, and is based on a solvent that Goodyear claims is environmentally friendly and recyclable. more »

20 Feb 2000 – Over 140 000 New Zealanders volunteered this year in the second annual Clean Up New Zealand campaign. With only a few months to create clean up groups, organisers mustered record numbers of volunteers this year to take part in the scheme including over 500 divers who scoured the nations lakes and waterways for rubbish. Other schemes included planting of 4000 native trees and in house waste audits. more »

16 Feb 2000 – Enzymes are biological agents that act as catalysts, speeding up chemical reactions, or allowing reactions to take place at lower temperatures, pressures or concentrations than they normally would. Enzymes can allow processes to be cheaper, cleaner and more energy efficient than the normal production methods. more »

14 Feb 2000 – Construction of one large-scale plant for production of photovoltaic cells could reduce the cost of solar power by 75%, making it competitive with conventional sources, says a recent report commissioned by . more »

9 Feb 2000 – "Technology based on the manipulation of individual atoms and molecules to build structures to complex, atomic specifications."K Eric Drexler more »

9 Feb 2000 – A cross sectoral meeting of minds to discuss and plan for the future of New Zealand. more »

1 Feb 2000 – - success does not have to cost the earth more »

30 Jan 2000 – Skyrocketing Internet based stocks, 'clicks and mortar' companies, and a predicted boom in retail sales over the World Wide Web are only the latest forms of the e-commerce trend; in fact many may fail to realise that New Zealand has already pioneered EFTPOS. more »

10 Jan 2000 – A paper to provide a context for companies as they prepare Sustainable Development Reports. The guide is intended to help create reporting frameworks that will provide stakeholders with meaningful and balanced information. more »

1 Jan 2000 – Members of the NZBCSD are committed to reporting on their performance in environmental and social areas, as well as financially. This month members will receive a high-level guide to sustainability reporting, as well as more practical guides to environmental reporting, and examples of reports from companies regarded as being at the leading edge internationally. more »