Green Growth NZ’s best chance for wealth - Pure Advantage

Auckland, July 7 2011 – A group of business leaders is calling on all New Zealanders to sign up for a future of green growth.

Pure Advantage (www.pureadvantage.org) has been formed in the belief that enhancing New Zealand’s natural environment to improve New Zealand’s competitive positioning in the global shift to green growth represents a huge opportunity for all Kiwis to prosper.

New Zealand needs to build wealth as a country. We cannot distribute wealth without first generating it and it is a county’s wealth that determines its long term ability to invest; investment that is critically needed in New Zealand in education, healthcare, environment and infrastructure if New Zealand is going to arrest its long term decline in wealth relative to other countries.

Pure Advantage chairman Rob Morrison said: “This is the perfect time to launch a dynamic organisation to lead the charge for change. International benchmarks and recent media coverage overseas have exposed a gap between New Zealand’s clean, green rhetoric and reality.”

“We simply can’t afford to let our reputation, and consequently our exporters, suffer because of a lack of environmental leadership, nor should we miss the opportunity that the global shift to green growth represents for a country like New Zealand,” said Mr Morrison.

“We need to ensure that our own house, environmentally, is in order. Getting it right in New Zealand through improving the sustainability of our production processes and resource usage, improving energy efficiency and enhancing our clean green credentials will help us to get it right internationally. The linkage is important because we have to succeed here in New Zealand to be successful internationally. If we aren’t successful internationally we won’t generate the wealth we need as a country.”

“If we want to achieve the kind of living standards New Zealanders aspire to we simply can’t afford to let this opportunity slide.”

Pure Advantage trustees* want thousands of New Zealanders to sign up for change via the Pure Advantage website and social media pages.

To open the public debate, Pure Advantage will shortly publish a study it has commissioned entitled

New Zealand’s Position in the Green Race, which outlines the huge financial opportunity from adopting a green growth strategy

The growth of the global green economy is forecast to grow to an estimated US$6.8 trillion by 2015. As things stand currently, even a 5% loss to New Zealand’s reputation could cost more than 20,000 jobs in primary products and international tourism and more than NZ$600m in lost sales per annum.

“We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we hope that by opening the debate – and funding further research and discussion – we can help New Zealanders to reach a broad agreement about the best way forward,” said Mr Morrison.

As part of a long term programme, Pure Advantage will commission a macroeconomic review by world-leading economists to define the opportunities of green growth for New Zealand and highlight the threats of inaction.

Pure Advantage also intends to roll out a ‘Roadmap for change’ once the business case has been proven, which would include supporting New Zealand’s green companies.

“We need to act now to take New Zealand’s natural advantage – its Pure Advantage – and turn that into a financial gain, or we risk being left behind,” said Pure Advantage trustee Phillip Mills.

“We believe it is possible to have a cleaner environment AND a leap in economic performance and for a clean and green country like New Zealand, that is a natural outcome. ”

Sign up for a greener, wealthier future at www.pureadvantage.org


*Pure Advantage Trustees are:
Chris Liddell
Geoff Ross
Jeremy Moon
Joan Withers
Justine Smyth
Lloyd Morrison
Philip Mills
Rob Fyfe
Rob Morrison
Sir Stephen Tindall

ABOUT

Pure Advantage is a campaign lead by a group of New Zealand business leaders that refutes the proposition that climate change will penalise New Zealand’s economic performance. It is our belief that our country can have a better future if we take action now to protect our unique natural environment, grow our high value exports and develop new industries that will thrive in international green growth markets.

New Zealand’s economic and environmental performance is sliding, and the goal of greater wealth for our country and our people is slipping further away. Our exporters cannot afford to be caught in the gap between New Zealand’s clean, green marketing proposition and a different reality.

By working with communities, businesses, Government and iwi, Pure Advantage believes that we can make a difference.

Join us and help turn our natural advantages into greater wealth for all New Zealanders.

You can find us at www.pureadvantage.org and on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube!

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