US tipping point expert to lead free NZ forums

US tipping point expert to lead free NZ forums

A world facing significant climate change, deteriorating eco-systems and the end of the oil-use generation can raise more questions than answers.

World-renowned sustainability expert Professor Hunter Lovins is embarking on a New Zealand tour to change all that.

A Professor of Sustainability at Presidio World College, San Francisco, she insists local and global solutions do exist.

"They can be implemented in ways that create greater prosperity, improve local and national security and present opportunities for each of us to find greater meaning in our lives," she says.

While in New Zealand, Professor Lovins aims to get Kiwis thinking about their future.

"Maori call our earth Papatuanuku and see it as a taonga – a priceless and irreplaceable treasure of which we humans are just a part," she says.

"We must behave as kaitiaki, guardians, taking responsibility for guarding the life force of all future generations."

Professor Lovins teaches in the world's first accredited MBA programme in Sustainable Management at Presidio World College. She commends the New Zealand Government for putting more money into environmental education and supporting more local enterprise projects in schools and communities but says we need to do more.

"Few of us in the older generations had the advantage of learning at school about the cycles of nature and how everything is interdependent and balanced," she says. "Our world is approaching tipping point. We need everyone's help to do something now."

In a series of free public forums throughout the country, Professor Lovins will join a panel of New Zealanders to reflect on what to pass onto future generations.

Organising team co-ordinator Peter Goldsbury says having Hunter in New Zealand is a huge honour and pivotal to New Zealand's sustainable future.

He says they want to attract as many people to the forums as possible and get them thinking about their future now.

"The invitation is open to everyone," he says. "We've organised large venues at zero cost to attendees. This makes it possible for people who would never get the opportunity to hear someone like Hunter to do so."

New Zealand sustainability expert Professor Kate Kearins, from AUT University's Business School, says this is an opportunity for everybody to get involved in local and national sustainability.

"New Zealand is fortunate to have someone of Hunter Lovins' calibre in the country willing to interact with us on the sustainability issue," she says.

AUT's Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE AUT) members Michael Seaton and Ineke Jacobs, and AUT Business PhD Student Aarti Sharma will sit on Auckland's discussion panels.

Forums are being held nationally:

- Dunedin Sunday July 2 - Christchurch Monday July 3 - Auckland Wednesday July 5 - Hamilton Thursday July 6 - Hastings Monday July 10 - Wellington Wednesday July 12

Professor Hunter Lovins is the president and founder of Natural Capitalism Solutions and co- creator of the Natural Capitalism concept. In 2001, she was named one of four people from North America to serve as a delegate to the United Nations Prep Conference for Europe and North America for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

She is also a Commissioner in the State of the World Forum's Commission on Globalization, co-chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev, Jane Goodall, Jose Ramos-Horta, Vandana Shiva, George Soros and others.

Professor Lovins has co-authored nine books and dozens of papers and was featured in the award-winning film, Lovins on the Soft Path. Her latest book, Natural Capitalism, has been translated into a dozen languages and was the subject of a Harvard Business Review summary.

For more information about Professor Hunter Lovins, please go to: www.natcapsolutions.org/Hunter_Lovins

For more information about the free public forums and to register, please go to: www.kaitiakitanga.net/hunterlovins

ENDS

© Scoop Media