Actions to Enhance Eco-Verification
Lists of current and potential actions
19. Current and potential actions that government could take to enhance eco-verification are summarised in Annex 1 under the objectives in paragraph 17. The current actions are drawn from the work plans of various agencies and the potential actions have been developed through the April workshop of eco-verification stakeholders and work by officials.
20. Rationales for current and potential actions have not been provided in Annex 1 for the sake of brevity. In most cases, these are implicit in the statements of action and in their relationships to the objectives at the tops of columns.
21. There are overlaps between some of the actions in Annex 1. These will be clarified through the further development work noted in paragraphs 33-36 below.
Selecting key actions
22. Although all the actions listed in Annex 1 would have impacts on sustainability and economic transformation, some have the potential for greater and more immediate impacts than others. Officials recommend that these "key actions" be selected on the basis of:
- strategic importance to New Zealand;
- topicality in relation to domestic and overseas trends;
- potential scale of impact;
- appropriateness for government action;
- immediacy of impact; and
- boldness or symbolic value.
23. Officials recommend that the number of key actions be limited to four to ensure maximum focus and impact.
Recommended key actions
24. Officials recommend the following as immediate key actions from Annex 1 for development under Enhanced Eco-verification:
- develop initiatives to accelerate the uptake by businesses and government agencies of ISO 14000 environmental management systems, including product standards, or other internationally recognised systems;
- position NZ as a global research and development leader in product life-cycle analysis and application of eco-verification support structures;
- work with stakeholders such as Landcare Research to position New Zealand as a leader in carbon-footprint measurement and management in areas that will make the greatest contribution to sustainability and economic transformation; and
- work with primary-sector stakeholders to develop a greenhouse-gas footprint response, including scoping opportunities for co-ordination of research (for details, see Business Partnerships for Sustainability paper), eco-verification, promotion, market development and international trade.
25. Cabinet may wish to select alternative or additional actions from Annex 1 to augment this preliminary set. Note here that some of the actions in the annex are already under way, including the development of national aquaculture standards and a programme to achieve environmental certification of key fisheries against the Marine Stewardship Council scheme.
26. A brief analysis of the way in which the proposed four key actions fit the criteria in paragraph 22 is provided in Table 1. Initial components that fit under the actions are illustrated in Annex 2.
27. Table 1 also includes some of the immediately identifiable issues associated with each of the key actions. Further work will be required to test how significant these issues are. Work will also be required on implementation details, including funding implications and feasible timelines.
28. Officials therefore recommend that Cabinet adopt the four actions as a preliminary set of key actions for Enhanced Eco-verification and this be finalised after they have provided further advice to Ministers at the end of August 2007.
Underpinning action
29. Officials will undertake a stock take of the eco-standards, eco-labels and eco-verification infrastructure currently employed in New Zealand with a view to providing better and more co-ordinated information to businesses, consumers and government procurement and to underpin the Enhanced Eco-verification initiative as a whole.
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