Business Opportunities Cluster Group meeting minutes for meeting on 3 July 2008
Climate Change Leadership Forum report number: 7
Briefing for the Climate Change Leadership Forum
Prepared by the Business Opportunities Cluster
Date: 4 July 2008
Minutes
Climate Change Leadership Forum
Business Opportunities Cluster
3 July 2008
- Introduction
- Role of CCLF of Government
- Phase I: Education and Communication Strategy
- Phase II
- Next meeting
- Introduction
The meeting objectives were discussed which were to discuss a draft action plan being prepared by Peter Wilson for the education and communication strategy. The intention was that the plan would be finalised and presented to the next CCLF meeting on 6 August. There was also to be preliminary discussions on Phase 2 of the business opportunities cluster’s proposed work on innovation.
The meeting initially focused on the role of the CCLF and Government. It then put clarity around the way forward for the education and communication strategy, and future innovative initiatives.
It was important to get agreement of current and future states, and what impact this group could have. - Role of CCLF and Government
A member of the Cluster presented a general paper on business opportunities for discussion. There was reasonable discussion with respect to the role of both the CCLF and Government in education and communication. There were two opposing views being:
- Firstly, in order to accelerate and seize on business opportunities and to maximise such opportunities, there should be high levels of information readily disseminated. Government and CCLF should take a leadership role.
- The opposing view was that Government should not venture into the role of providing information to firms about the voluntary market or wider climate change business opportunities.
After considerable discussion, it was agreed that the first initiative required was to help New Zealand understand carbon neutrality and compliance, and therefore an Education & Communications Initiative was agreed.
CCLF should collate a document summarising the opportunities which would be designed to help the New Zealand business sector. This document will also contain recommendations on how to get the key messages through to business. There was general consensus (but not unanimous) that business requires leadership from Government to enable it to fully capitalise on new opportunities. These opportunities may be both local and global.
- Phase I: Education and Communication Strategy
It was agreed the way forward was to collate and document a high level education initiative which could seek to move New Zealand businesses’ understanding forward. This would comprise of three key steps:
- What the impact of climate change will be on business and how both regulatory measures and voluntary action will impact on business;
- Initiatives available to maximise business opportunities arising from climate change;
- The collation of vertically aligned information (i.e. sectoral).
Step One: The Impact of Climate Change on Firms
Members of the Cluster agreed to put together a first draft providing an understanding of what is climate change, its business impacts and some of the arising opportunities. This will include explaining the impact of climate change on firms including physical, regulatory and commercial risks and matching these risks with opportunities. The paper will also articulate the differences between the regulatory and voluntary markets, and in particular the differences between the proposed regulatory measures such as the Emissions Trading Scheme and carbon neutrality. In addition, the upfront explanations are likely to include:
- Distinction between demand and supply side;
- An overview of how the regulatory market and voluntary market registries work, and the importance of registries;
- Where to find key information;
- Who are the market makers;
- How the carbon neutral public service carbon labelling and similar initiatives impact on businesses and the voluntary carbon markets;
- Credibility of carbon strategies and offsets, including certification options.
Step Two: Initiatives
Step two of the process is to give the business community a better understanding of options for participation in the voluntary market and the types of global and local initiatives available. It may include illustrative references, which are not designed to be prescriptive nor directive to business.
This step may also include, for example, top (ten) initiatives available to business including energy savings, fuel efficiency etc.
Step Three: Industry Focus
We briefly discussed the need for much of this information to be disseminated vertically on an industry basis to ensure that it has greater effect and relevance. There was initial discussion around key industry clusters including tourism, land use, waste, transport and industry/energy. Initially, various cluster members agreed to be involved in specific aspects of these sectors. However, on further discussion, the view was for some rationalisation of the number of sectors to enable output to be more readily prepared.
- Phase II
There is considerable desire within the cluster to think about actual opportunities and ways to stimulate innovation. Some members of the cluster felt strongly that the CCLF plays a very important role in influencing government and potentially business and therefore appropriate role out for innovation is vital.
The process toward strategy around innovation will be discussed at the next meeting. - Next meeting
The next meeting will be held in the week commencing 21 July.
