If reducing carbon emissions wasn’t a goal for your business before 2022, it certainly will be now, since the New Zealand Government released its first Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) in May.
Hawke’s Bay has felt the impact of climate change with a severe drought in the summer of 2020/21 and then major rain events along the East Coast during our most recent summer.
The drought impacted our farming community, while the rain and humid weather took its toll on the wine, apple and cherry growing sectors.
As local business owners, we know a poor harvest season sends economic ripples throughout the community as smaller crops and inferior produce hit profitability and wallets are tightened.
The ERP is the government’s move to place greater responsibility on businesses to take measures to reduce their environmental footprint, including setting emission reduction targets for specific sectors.
Emissions from energy and industry sectors make up 27 percent of total emissions and the plan will lead to estimated emissions reductions during the first budget period of:
● From Transport: 1.7 to 1.9 Mt carbon dioxide equivalent
● From Energy: 2.7 to 6.2 Mt carbon dioxide equivalent
● From Agriculture: 0.3 to 2.7 Mt carbon dioxide equivalent
● From Building and Construction: 0.9 to 1.7 Mt carbon dioxide equivalent. Overall, the plan aims to meet the nation’s first emissions budget of 72.4 million tonnes a year, reducing carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 11.5 million tonnes of carbon in the next three years.
The policies will be backed by $2.9 billion in proceeds of selling carbon credits to polluters under the Emissions Trading Scheme over the next four years, and Hawke’s Bay businesses can apply for funding support to launch their decarbonisation journey via the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry (GIDI) Fund.
First published by The Profit. Click here to read the full article.