Ella Lawton and Steve Henry
If every person on the globe had the same ecological footprint as the average New Zealander, four earth-sized planets would be required to meet their needs.
This discomforting statistic is provided by Ella Lawton, a Sustainable Practice Advisor at Otago Polytechnic's Centre for Sustainable Practice.
Lawton is optimistic about the possibility of reversing this trend. However, she believes that positive community responses to two major long-term projects, recently launched by the Centre, demonstrate the willingness of many New Zealand companies and of the community at large to shift towards more sustainable ways of doing business. The launch of the Ecological Footprinting Project and the introduction of biofuels to Queenstown and Otago are the crowning achievements in what has proven to be a landmark year for the Centre. The Centre was established in 2006 with the aim of becoming a collaborative hub for enabling and implementing sustainable practice in Otago, New Zealand and internationally. Lawton is the Central Otago Project Manager for the Ecological Footprint Project, a massive, in-depth study funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and developed in collaboration with Victoria University and the Manakau City Council. Its goal is to measure the ecological footprints of four New Zealand communities and to work with these communities and their local governments to develop policies aimed at reducing these environmental impacts.
"This project is the fi rst of its kind in New Zealand," Lawton says. "It is very exciting for the Centre. We hope that the learning that comes from this research will feed back into developing tools that all communities and councils can use when they're looking at ways to reduce their own environmental footprints."
The project will be conducted in collaboration with two Central Otago communities and two from the Auckland district. This will enable researchers to discover, among other things, whether dense settlements (where people can live closer to work) have lower or higher ecological footprints when compared with rural communities who are likely to have more opportunities to be energy and food self-suffi cient.
The role of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in this research will involve liaising with the Cromwell community, which has committed to the project, and another Central Otago community, which is soon to be fi nalised. Lawton is excited about having the opportunity to further develop the Centre's relationship with individuals and businesses in the region.
"The biggest benefi t for us will be that we have engaged closely with members of the community in Central Otago," she says. "We have worked a lot with local businesses, particularly in the tourism sector, and this is an opportunity for us to broaden our audience in a major way."
While the Ecological Footprint Project looks at the broader picture of resource consumption in New Zealand, another groundbreaking Centre for Sustainable Practice project is already achieving success in reducing Queenstown's carbon footprint on a day-to-day basis.
The Centre for Sustainable Practice received funding from the Energy Effi ciency and Conservation Authority (EECA) to form a consortium of Queenstown biodiesel users last year. Having met signifi cant support for the ideas from local businesses, Steve Henry, Head of the Centre, led a team who established a biodiesel pump in Queenstown, now fuelling 50-plus vehicles in the region.
Project Manager Sharon Schindler says the project has been a resounding success so far, citing positive responses by users to a recent survey and increasing interest by other businesses. "We have these early adopters setting the scene, and with 50 vehicles running without any problems whatsoever, awareness will hopefully continue to grow."
Biofuel users are not the only Queenstown businesses contributing to the project. Local cafes and restaurants are donating their recycled cooking oil to the consortium, meaning that biofuel users may be running their vehicles on the very oil that cooked the chips they ate for lunch.
"It is hugely important to give communities the option to use more renewable fuel sources," Schindler says. "There's such a tight squeeze on resources that we really have to try and fi nd alternatives to what we are currently using."