Sustainability rating tool gains traction

Compromises with little benefit at COP27

The decision to fund poor and vulnerable nations that are experiencing some of the worst effects of a changing climate, while welcome, is being criticised as a distraction from the lack of outcomes at the annual UN Climate Change Conference

The Conference of the Parties failed to make progress in Egypt around key goals of reducing emissions to hold the world’s temperatures at 1.5 degrees or closing the funding gap to support the world’s poorest nations to adapt to extreme weather and reduce emissions, though University of Canterbury Professor Bronwyn Hayward says the establishment of a Loss and Damage fund is a significant win.

“It will contribute to disaster relief and recognises the harm already caused to poorer countries by richer ones who have used significant amounts of fossil fuels historically.”

However, New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute’s Adrian Macey says it will provide little immediate benefit.

“At least another year will be needed to make the new ‘funding arrangements’ (note a fully stand-alone fund was a bridge too far) operational. Expect much more of the same fraught discussions.

“See references to the ‘many institutions and stakeholders’ and ‘previous work under the UNFCCC’ – they’re already doing relevant work.

“The new arrangements are to ‘complement and include other sources, funds, processes and initiatives’. It also, sadly, creates yet another bureaucratic mechanism to service.”

“So first, there is little or nothing fundamentally new here. Second, this decision and all the days and nights of negotiations which preceded it do absolutely nothing to advance the core task of limiting global warming.

“Third, it demonstrates the steeply declining marginal utility of COPs.

“Yet again a COP has been ridiculously over-hyped by everyone from the UN Secretary-General down… and has failed to meet the unrealistic expectations raised. This is a very bad signal which further erodes

public confidence.

“It is now a complete misnomer to see COPs as either the yardstick for or the determinant of global progress towards limiting global temperatures and adapting to the effects of climate change.

“In fact, COPs are becoming a distraction, more counterproductive than productive.

“The Paris Agreement gave climate change adaptation and finance the same prominence as mitigation in its core objectives and is now fully operational bar some details. Rather than requiring ever more input from COPs, it is enabling and providing guidance for autonomous action, by both government and non-state actors.

“‘Loss and damage’ was a distraction from the core goals. Of course no-one can oppose financial assistance to developing countries for the consequences of climate change they have suffered. But a bit like Amartya Sen’s point that famine does not mean there is not enough food, there is actually not a massive shortage of money to assist developing countries – certainly or at least the most vulnerable among them.

“There are multiple windows already for assistance. A lot more money will be needed in the future. But much of what’s being talked about under ‘loss and damage’ can already be financed through bilateral or multilateral programmes. Creating a new basket with a new label does not and will not increase the total funds available.

“In a negotiating sense, this topic served to force negotiations back into an outdated and counterproductive binary North-South, rich-poor, developed-developing, zero sum framing – all duly bought into by the NGO community.

“This framing, which produces interminable conflicts and stalemates, is the single biggest obstacle to negotiations progress.

“The trope that ‘we did well out of the industrial revolution now it’s our turn to give something back’ is less and less valid.

Historical contribution to warming is not static. China is already at #2 and other emerging economies are catching up.

“Loss and damage has fulfilled a similar function some other topics that have arisen in the negotiations, all of which have served to extract concessions from the industrialised (another outdated label) countries as the price for cooperation on the main goal.

“When it was first raised, no-one knew what it was supposed to cover. There is no chance of broad acceptance of any commitments based on ‘liability’ or ‘compensation’. What is certain, assuming a new fund or window is agreed, is that yet another inefficient bureaucratic mechanism will be created in the UNFCCC to service it.

“In terms of the global goals, the most useful feature at this COP may be one that has nothing to do with the COP – the

US Energy Transition Accelerator, a public and private sector scheme to help countries mobilise investment in their clean energy transitions.

“It has several innovative ideas – including that recipient countries will be able to sell any carbon credits generated. (This is unlike New Zealand’s forthcoming international carbon markets foray to meet our 50/2030 target where we will be getting the credits.) It’s one example of autonomous action.

“This paralysis of COPs is abetted by poor negotiating tactics by Europe and some others, especially those most concerned about ‘international reputation’. It now looks as if some face-saving language on mitigation from developing countries will secure an outcome on loss and damage. But what does that really amount to in terms of global progress?

“What matters most now is not grand declarations

on unattainable targets but the speed of the energy transition, most of all in the 20 or so countries that make up 80% of global emissions. And that means trillions of dollars of investment by 2030 – another scale altogether from the amount or money realistically in play under loss and damage.

“The COP has contributed nothing to this.”

Sustainability rating tool gains traction

The Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) Rating Scheme measures a project or asset's sustainability performance and its use is already mandated by Waka Kotahi, features in Auckland’s City Rail Link, Watercare’s Central Interceptor project and Te Aha a Turanga (Manawatu Gorge replacement road project) among others

Best of both worlds

The Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) Rating Scheme leaves “space for the place” and the people of that space -- most importantly in light of Te Tiriti, the Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa New Zealand.

The scheme recognises and rewards, under a range of credits throughout the scheme, the genuine engagement with, and inclusion of, indigenous groups as well as differing world views and needs.

It does not prescribe how that is done. The ethos is that that is best determined by the people from the place where the project is being delivered.

Their knowledge and perspectives inform and flesh out the scheme requirements in a way that preserves the rigour of the scheme but allows for respectful inclusion of a range of views. This occurs across the entire scheme.

In Auckland the CRL team worked with that concept in a highly successful way.

The rating tool is owned and administered by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council (the ISC) to help drive sustainable outcomes in infrastructure. For the $2.5 billion City Rail Link (CRL) Project, Mana Whenua worked alongside the project team to identify opportunities to respond to New Zealand's cultural context, which was right for Auckland and which added to the value proposition of the scheme.

This included a customised CRL Technical Manual, titled Mahi Rauora Aratohu. (Mahi rauora translates directly to 'work on the health of all things' and aratohu translates as 'pathway marker' but can be interpreted as guidance, meaning the manual is 'the guidance for work on the health of all things.')

CRL used version 1.2 of the IS Rating Scheme, but a new enhanced 2.1 version of the Design and As Built Rating Scheme was introduced late last year which contains greater emphasis on inclusion of indigenous perspectives amongst other things.

The technical guidance in Mahi Rauora Aratohu, like a korowai, wrapped around the IS scheme, and is being used for the remaining contracts within CRL. It also informed the approach taken on Watercare’s Central Interceptor Project which is undergoing rating.

In both cases use of the scheme enabled benchmarking with other projects on a comprehensive range of quadruple bottom-line outcomes and a respectful and considered local approach, that yielded measurable third-party verified impacts.

The Te Aha a Turanga project in the Manawatu, also undergoing rating, has attracted attention for its progressive approach particularly with respect to project co-governance. The

The new route between Ashhurst and Woodville Source: nzta.govt.nz

project won an award at the highly acclaimed Diversity Awards in 2021 in relation to this inclusive approach.

Waka Kotahi is currently looking to map those credits across the scheme that will be of particular interest to iwi.

The feedback to date has been that the holistic, long term, inter-generational view of infrastructure (including planning, design, delivery, use and decommissioning or adaptation) and the way a range of credits reference and incorporate local and indigenous perspectives is consistent with the values of Te Ao Māori even if not specifically referenced.

Embedding Te Ao Māori in everything we do

That concept of the importance of Māori perspectives (Te toitutanga) is a concept City Rail Link has included in every aspect of that project.

CRL’s latest health, safety, environment and sustainability report has for the first time been translated in its entirety into te reo Māori.

But then the CRL project has already chalked a few firsts in its storied history. It has achieved a world-first in embedding cultural values within a sustainability framework using the Infrastructure Sustainability Council’s (The ISC) independent and internationally recognised rating scheme.

“Te Ao Māori (the Māori world view) has sustainability at its very core. We have a great responsibility to future generations for the way we conduct our businesses and the impacts that has on the environment and the people, the wellbeing of the whenua (land) and the tangata (people). Mana Whenua Forum member Edith Tuhimata says.

“So in our work with the CRL, we were concerned that cultural values, Te Ao Māori, were not represented in the diagnostic tools in the ISC rating system,” Tuhimata says.

CRL members and the

* Data for January to December 2021

Mana Whenua Forum together developed and implemented Mahi Rauora Aratohu, a world-first custom-made Infrastructure Sustainability Council (The ISC) Infrastructure technical manual specifically referencing and incorporating Mana Whenua values, the first time cultural values have been piloted as part of a market-based sustainability rating tool.

Created through a series of monthly meetings between CRL and the Mana Whenua Forum, it takes the cultural context of New Zealand into account and uses criteria that is compatible with Te Ao Māori.

Mahi Rauora Aratahu was adopted by the Link Alliance for the project’s main Contract 3 works (tunnels and stations) and helped guide the contractor as it gave effect to the cultural criteria embedded within the technical manual.

The Infrastructure Sustainability Council (the ISC) has enhanced references to indigenous world views and perspectives in a new iteration of its rating system (version 2.1) - an approach that tipped its hat to the method pioneered on the CRL project.

CRL chief executive Dr Sean Sweeney says he takes great pride and satisfaction in the success of the Mahi Rauora Aratahu approach taken on this project.

“It has been an honour to be involved in this world-first and a privilege to partner with the Mana Whenua Forum in ensuring Te Ao Māori values drive our work in building New Zealand’s biggest transport infrastructure project,” Sweeney says.

Photo: Hiwa-i-te-Rangi is unveiled to Auckland school children Source:Watercare.co.nz

“The complete translation of our report, Te Pūronga hauora, haumaru, taiao, me te toitutanga, is a continuation of our commitment to our Mana Whenua partners and Te Ao Māori,” he adds. “This is meaningful work and has had real-world application as we endeavour to make the CRL a sustainable and best-practice project that adds value to our society and environment.”

CRL also acts as a leader on more sustainable practices

The City Rail Link’s environmental credentials have been further burnished with its Waitematā Station (Britomart) works awarded a ‘Leading As Built’ rating, an independent verification of the project’s outstanding sustainability outcomes, from the Infrastructure Sustainability Council (the ISC).

A Waka Kotahi perspective

“Since we adopted the IS rating tool in late 2020 we’ve seen a real shift in awareness and the desire to embrace sustainability across Waka Kotahi and our transport sector industry partners,” says Principal Specialist (Environment & Sustainability) Rebekah Pokura-Ward.

“Sustainability is no longer a nice to have but a ‘must have’ on our projects and Māori are really important part of that sustainability journey because Māori are inherently the protectors and guardians of Aotearoa and have a history and value system that respects, nurtures and protects the environment

The Māori Strategy Te Ara Kotahi guides Waka Kotahi’s relationship with Māori across all aspects of its business.

“It affirms our commitment to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi based on the principles of Partnership, Protection and Participation and identifies how we can bring these principles to life with over 60 key actions, by way of example,” she says

“On the multi-billion-dollar New Zealand Upgrade Programme we are incentivising our suppliers to come up with innovations to reduce carbon emissions in construction, to restore and enhance our biodiversity and support our local and Māori businesses. “

“We want to show leadership in this area and the IS Rating tool helps drive and reward proper consideration and inclusion of local insights and knowledge. We have started to map these examples so we can continue to improve practices taken on our projects,” according to Pokura-Ward.

Waka Kotahi has a number of projects where Māori values and Māori decision-making has been core to the success of these projects. One example is the Ara Tupua walking and cycling project in Wellington where Waka Kotahi recently won an international award under the indigenous category for its leading work with Māori.

“On that project a stronger approach to partnership was undertaken with the establishment of an Iwi Steering Group to ensure that the Māori voice was heard, and cultural values were incorporated into the design and environmental outcomes for the project.

“Māori perspectives have been key for us to build a sustainable future for New Zealand and it’s exciting to see Māori increasingly leading these conversations and initiatives,” says Pokura-Ward.