Carbon management in New Zealand local government: Co-benefits of action and organizational resolve in the absence of government support

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Birchall, S. Jeff

• In an effort to promote public sector carbon management, in 2004, New Zealand’s (NZ) Labour-led government funded local government membership in the Communities for Climate Protection - New Zealand (CCP-NZ) program, the NZ arm of ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection campaign. In late 2008 the Government transitioned from a Labour-led to a National-led government, and this resulted in a shift to its climate change agenda, including the abandonment of the CCP-NZ program. This paper examines the experiences of managers from the councils involved in the CCP-NZ program to determine the cobenefits of participation in the initiative, and to assess whether councils will continue activities to mitigate their carbon footprint in the absence of Government support. The research approach consists of a series of semistructured interviews with managers responsible for the delivery of the CCPNZ program within member-councils, as well as program architects from Local Government New Zealand and ICLEI. Findings suggest that while the scheme delivered considerable co-benefits, including improved management awareness around organizational carbon management and broadened inter-council networking on carbon reduction related objectives, without Government support, overall, carbon management activities will only continue in a scaledback manner.

• Date created

  2014

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Communities for Climate Protection
  • Climate change mitigation
  • Public sector organizations
  • Managers
  • Greenhouse gas emissions

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3TX35M1C

• License

  © 2014 Birchall, S. Jeff. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original author(s) and source must be cited.