All new government buildings and office refurbishments could comply with best environmental practice for little added cost. Photo / Hartmut Albert, File
All new government buildings and office refurbishments could comply with best environmental practice for little added cost. Photo / Hartmut Albert, File
OPINION
Most people in business know the concept of the "iron triangle" - fast, cheap, or good. You can pick two.
You choose fast and cheap but compromise on quality. You can have good and cheap but the project will take a while. If you choose fast and good,you'll have to pay up.
If the climate emergency is a project, we need to act fast. Time is a critical factor; we can't avoid it. Which leaves cheap and good. With Covid digging hard into the government's coffers, money is tight and needs to be spent carefully. Does that leave us with a bad solution?
Environmental Choice New Zealand (ECNZ) has been lobbying for a change. It's not as sexy as an iron triangle but it's effective: sustainable procurement.
Labour has said it wants to occupy buildings compliant with the four-star NABERSNZ star rating and with new builds to have a five-star NABERSNZ rating. The problem is the NABERSNZ rating is less than half the story. According to its own website, NABERSNZ looks solely at energy performance, and is used once buildings are occupied and operating for a year or more.
In this climate emergency, we know a great effort needs to be put into reducing emissions. So why only focus on occupancy? Around half of a building's energy use comes from the building's construction and waste.
Selection of materials during construction dictates the emissions over the lifespan of the building and in the eventual demolition. Photo / Jason Oxenham, File
Construction is where the action is, choosing the right materials and the right companies to provide them is critical. What we want are companies that invest in environmentally preferable materials and processes, and who think ahead to how those materials will be dealt with when they are no longer needed – the whole product lifecycle. Government purchasing departments or government contractors could find these companies by looking for a simple label: the ECNZ seal of approval.
We have several ecolabel specifications in New Zealand, which means the goods and services provided by companies, from paint, insulation and concrete to toilet paper, have been independently audited and are environmentally preferable across their whole lifecycle. And they are price-competitive – you're looking at Resene and Dulux, Golden Bay Cement and NZ Steel – big brands. An ECNZ label means a rigorous process analysing operations as well as the make-up of the products, to ensure environmental excellence.
Another significant contributor to carbon emissions in the building sector comes from construction and demolition (C&D) waste. Up to half of all waste in New Zealand comes from construction activities, and research shows around three-quarters of C&D waste in municipal landfills could have been reused or recycled.
Francesca Lipscombe. Photo / Supplied
ECNZ has created an ecolabel specification for construction and demolition projects to recognise companies for efforts to reduce waste. So far, one company has qualified, Taggart in Canterbury – and we need more. The ecolabel proves the company goes to great lengths to keep C&D waste out of landfill, and to reuse or recycle it instead.
For procurement professionals, choosing companies that have been through ECNZ's exacting processes is as easy as checking a box on a tender document.
If the Government insists companies demolishing buildings have the ECNZ label, we instantly cut waste and carbon emissions from municipal landfills. And we change culture.
The current government sustainable procurement guidelines are just that, guidelines, and they give procurement buyers too much leeway to choose cheap and cheerful over long-term benefits. The choice is no longer relevant – if we're not paying for bad products now (or their manufacture or disposal) we will pay for them in the future in the form of waste, emissions from waste, and toxicity in our water and land.
There is no escaping the need to be fast and good. And when you look at the price differential between products with the ECNZ label and others, it's not a significant gap. A small difference should not be what changes the mind of a procurement officer. The time has come for the equation to change.
Countries such as Sweden, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have been reaping the rewards of sustainable procurement for decades. Japan brought in sustainable procurement in 1994 and mandates local and central government procurement officers choose from more than 270 items – everything from phones to blinds. Imagine the impact on local green business. Imagine the impact on this climate emergency.
The Prime Minister is right when she says the public sector must get its house in order first. It must start shopping in the right places, for the right products. It's concerning sustainable procurement and construction waste were not addressed in this climate emergency package, but I remain hopeful. Because the barriers are not too high, and the benefits are considerable.
We can turn this climate emergency into a turning point in New Zealand, when we became a country focused on quality and long-term dividends.
• Francesca Lipscombe is general manager at The New Zealand Ecolabelling Trust.
