We asked people from around Ministry for the Environment…

…If you could solve one issue in your area of work, what would it be?

Chris from Climate Change…

• Invent the Xero of carbon accountancy and streamline voluntary/compulsory emissions reporting from a business’ perspective: streamlining the multiple lines of compliance (eg ETS, Customs data on imports of synthetic gases, EECA reporting, voluntary reporting…) and help to embed it as a part of business improvement and the environmental bottom line.

• Figure out how to handle cross-boundary activities in regional greenhouse gas inventories to better understand tackling ghgemissions from a local perspective. This is like a top-down version of the first idea.

• I hear that lots of businesses want to do something about their emissions and there’s probably a gap for professional, targeted advice on how to do this (e.g. for large corporates) that goes beyond simply replacing their light bulbs to make real gains.

Dorothee from Strategy

Tackle our materialistic way of thinking and behaving. E.g…

• decreasing or eradicating littering

• encouraging the public ownership/renting and use of electric vehicles (to the point people don’t need to own a car anymore)

• encouraging the build of communal living in cities where you could still have individual, independent living areas but shared production

• use and re-use/recycle of resources

• grow most our basic food ourselves so business can focus on the high-value market

Develop a tool to make participation to government decision-making fun and practical so we get more and better-informed public participation to how we manage natural resources.

Encourage even more citizen science, so people understand the world they live in, including how one thing affects another – the mountain-to-sea perspective, and know how to make things better.

Roz and Lucy from waste and remediation

We fund community groups and councils to remediate contaminated areas. How can we know whether or not our funding to community groups is effective or is improving the environment?

Also - More, useful data on waste!

Cheri and Connie, Mana Taiao

Iwi capacity. I think we could achieve some great environmental gains if Iwi had more resources to put towards environmental mahi (work).

Increase the numbers of Māori entering and completing undergraduate, and post-graduate qualifications in science and engineering

Why?

Breaking down barriers, enhancing potential, celebrating diversity, better acknowledging realities, respecting connections, transforming environmental-human resilience outcomes… …and just, because.

Joe, Resource ManagementSolve excessive housing costs.

It drives inequality and is a major risk for the economy.

What would I do? Enable density in cities.

Jackie, Environmental Science and Systems Monitoring

Use our datasets! They are static, but an interested person could do something cool with them, particularly combining them or joining them with other data.

https://data.mfe.govt.nz/

Cath from Resource Management

Get people connected to the environmental impacts their actions are causing.

This could be a game where you get points for every positive action (e.g. walking to school or work)?