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The COP26 summit brought governments together in Sept 2021 to discuss accelerated actions towards the goals of the Paris Agreement (2015), which is an international treaty signed by 196 participating member states at COP21 in Paris, 2015. It aims to keep the global average temperature at ‘well below’ 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, ideally 1.5 degrees, to strengthen the ability to adapt to climate change, and build resilience; align all finance flows with, ‘a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions, and climate-resilient development’. New Zealand has signed up to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and as a signatory to the agreement we have to commit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) to climate action. Our first NDC saw us committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030. However this was refreshed at the summit to increase our commitment to reduce emissions by 50% at 2030, compared to 2005 levels. One of COP26 objectives is to phase out coal. The current Government has already committed to removing coal as a fuel source from our economy. A ban on new coal boilers used in manufacturing and production will come into effect by 31st December 2021 and phasing out existing coal boilers by 2027. A further option proposed is to prohibit other new fossil fuel boilers (gas, LPG) where suitable alternative technology exists and is economically viable. The key instrument that will be used to foster a move to a low carbon economy will be the emissions trading scheme (ETS), and a series of changing emissions budgets. An emissions budget seeks to limit greenhouse gases that can be emitted over a period of time.These changing budgets are spread over three key periods: 2022-2025, 2026-2030 and 2031-2035. This will reduce the quantity of Government-issued New Zealand Carbon Units. As these quantities reduce, the cost of carbon will be increased. When the emissions trading scheme (ETS) was first introduced, the price of carbon was fixed at $25 per tonne; however, there was a 2 for one surrender ratio meaning that for every tonne emitted, only half a tonne was surrendered, making the effective price $12.50/tonne.  Over time the market caps have been lifted, and emitters have moved to a one for one surrender ratio. In the last two years, the Government introduced a floor and ceiling in the market: $20 floor and $50 ceiling. This year, prices were raised to make the minimum price $30/tonne and ceiling price $70/tonne. The ceiling will be increased by 10% per year plus inflation. The below table covers current carbon spot pricing and New Zealand Unit (NZU) future pricing with a view on where carbon prices could go out to in 2030. This is the cost that relates to the gas field producing natural gas or the electricity generator producing electricity. For gas customers who are Time of Use (TOU) metered, this cost is passed through as a line item on each invoice. For small commercial gas consumers and all electricity customers, the cost of the ETS is built into the energy tariff. You can see the change from 12 months ago where the carbon price has nearly doubled. In November 2018, it was priced at around $25/tonne. Energy companies within NZ will have to look at their generational assets and search for alternative solutions in a fast and least disruptive way to avoid shortages and payment of increased ETS costs.   Transitioning the economy’s energy needs to electricity requires much more than just new generation, the national grid operator and local electricity network distributors will need to invest billions to get things moving. Whatever is done, NZ needs to sort out its energy policy and fast to ensure the security of supply, the ability for manufacturing to thrive in NZ (by avoiding having to outsource our emissions), and keep prices as low as possible.

What you need to know and how we can help.  It’s no secret that the world is facing a waste crisis. How to reduce it, pay for it, its impact on our public and planet’s health, and where it ends up are just some of the concerns we’re grappling with.  The good news is, Total Utilities can help you identify, monitor, and reduce your waste. Here’s why engaging us as your waste management consultant is so important.  Waste is costly for our planet and business Our growing waste problem is not only costly to the environment but expensive for businesses. New Zealand faces rising transport and disposal costs, changes to national policy and levies, and uncertainty around where to export our recycling when we don’t have the facilities to handle it here.    The Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), our government’s primary climate change response, plays a leading role in how we collectively manage waste and reach our internationally established targets. Our 2030 target, which is New Zealand’s first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement, is as follows: “our net emissions will be 30 per cent below 2005 (or 11 per cent below 1990) gross emissions for the period 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2030.” Waste is a specified activity under the ETS, so those in the waste sector must participate in the scheme. This means disposal facility operators must report their emissions to the government. They need to pay for permits to emit carbon and can offset their emissions. Land disposal facilities have options: they can either decarbonise their activities, face mounting costs, or offset their emissions by supporting climate action projects like forestry and conservation.   The most cost-effective and sustainable path for landfill facilities is to find ways to reduce their emissions. The government incentivises these facilities to find and deliver innovation and efficiencies by becoming eligible to apply for a Unique Emissions Factor. You can read about this here. Waste levy increases Growing pressure to address climate change, the uncertainty surrounding recycling commodity returns and stricter separation and hygiene standards are all factors behind the government’s decision to raise waste levies.  The levy increase will be phased in over four years, the first of which happened in July 2021. Levies will increase to a maximum of $60 per tonne by 2024. These increases are designed to encourage more recycling and to divert waste from landfills. The costs apply regardless of which waste supplier you choose.  Based on the average industry wage, the cost increase would equate to an additional $22 per 4.5m³ front-end load pick up. We’re investigating with each supplier how this cost will be passed on.  The big issue: Spoiled or contaminated recycling In a 2018 Stuff article, Green Party MP, Eugenie Sage, who was the Associate Environment Minister at the time said, “The co-mingling of waste like glass, paper and plastic was what led China to stop accepting it.”  One solution is to improve the quality of our waste by changing our behaviour – getting better at sorting and separating our waste at the source. Countries no longer taking some recyclables creates greater uncertainty  Now that the Chinese market doesn’t accept specific categories of recyclables, costs have grown significantly. The Chinese government also signalled to reduce its annual cardboard recycling quota by six million tonnes (10% of global demand). This means the cardboard price will drop further – it’s a market characterised by extreme pricing uncertainty. China’s ban had a massive ripple effect on where millions of tonnes of waste ended up. Indonesia bore the substantial brunt of this.   In late 2019, the Indonesian government was looking to pass urgent legislation which would allow them to legally return spoiled recycling back to the port of origin, not the last port of call.  Indonesia has now closed its market to recycling and has indicated it would only re-open if spoiled waste could be sent back to the country of origin. How the tightening of global spoilage standards will affect us. Stricter global spoilage standards will affect the ongoing rates for recycling in New Zealand. The market has not priced all these factors in yet. Under the current uncertain climate, suppliers are unable to fix pricing for recycling. How Total Utilities can help you navigate the costs and changes. By working closely with our specialist waste consulting partners, suppliers, and customers, you can achieve reduced waste charges and levies, improved monitoring and reporting of your waste systems, and ultimately send less waste to landfill. This is a win for your bottom line and the environment.  Navigating the waste environment alone is complicated – it takes a deep understanding of the political, environmental, and global trends and policies. We expect that what happens to our waste will continue to be complex for many years to come.  Total Utilities has a finger on the pulse of policy, pricing and procurement. We can effectively interpret the changes and identify smart ways for you to contribute towards a more efficient, greener, cleaner planet.  That’s good for everyone.

Why cloud is crucial for a sustainable business, and how to choose the best option. The Covid-19 outbreak has reinforced two lessons for businesses – the importance of cloud-based services and the need to ensure their model is sustainable. Cloud platforms have really come into their own, providing accessibility for remote workers and customers, while providing the ultimate scalability for businesses facing an uncertain future. But in a world where both the economy and environment are facing unprecedented challenges, it is more vital than ever for business owners and CFOs to make informed business decisions. Choosing the right cloud option can be daunting, and a truly sustainable business needs a clear understanding of the financial and business case drivers to help make the right decisions. Review the business model Changes are happening at a rapid pace in today’s business environment, with many companies looking at downsizing and improving their remote working capabilities. Even beyond the extremes of a pandemic, acquisitions, new ventures, upturns and downturns all provide daily challenges for senior managers. Over the last few years, the focus of major decision-makers has moved away from in-house tech infrastructure and experts and towards more flexible and agile cloud models and platforms like Microsoft Azure that best fit their way of working. Before making any investment in IT infrastructure or platforms, ask whether they can adapt if your business needs change in the future. Nothing illustrates how quickly the business environment can change as the infographic below. The infographic shows the vast drop in consumption of electricity since Covid-19 hit New Zealand. Many businesses were unable to operate from their normal offices and stores. While most have adapted to working from home, the shutdown had a huge impact on commercial electricity consumption. While major industry consumes a third of all our energy, the wider commercial sectors consume a further quarter of New Zealand’s electricity demand. It is this quarter that we can reasonably assume to have almost completely evaporated when the lights went off. Although the future is opening up and consumption is starting to rebound, businesses are now focused on new ways of consuming energy or delivering services. Many CFOs and CIOs are trying to figure out this new way of working and how it affects their own businesses. The days of the road warrior salesperson may be coming to an end. How we engage with, incentivise and add value to our clients will look very different, as some may prefer a call from the office or a virtual meeting to a corporate lunch. Customers too will be feeling the impact, with online engagement becoming the predominant form of communication, and Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Hangouts becoming an integrated part of working culture. In addition, Covid-19 has caused a large shift in the global economy and supply chain. Secure production and supply are increasingly of greater importance than the cheapest or most efficient options, which has led to a greater focus on in-house production, multiple suppliers or regional stockpiling. The result of all this is we can no longer trust the stability of the surrounding environment. While we may see some return to the old ways of working, some business processes will never be the same again. Business managers therefore need to be prepared to constantly review business models and consider whether their technology needs are still being met by their current system. This will help ensure their business remains sustainable in a world that can change drastically in what seems like a second. Plan for the rebound Businesses are now furiously planning ahead for the future. Many will need to start scaling up or down to stay on track with fluctuating demand. Working through the challenges including staffing, supply chain logistics, stock management and managing demand will impact most businesses, not to mention the increasing expectation they will reduce their environmental footprint. Kiwifruit producer Zespri is a classic example of how to approach this kind of situation. In 2010, it was dealing with the PSA Virus, which caused entire crops of kiwifruit to fail. The popular gold kiwifruit was the most affected variety, spurring Zespri scientists to research a resistant strain. They knew the situation could have gone either way – with the opportunity to double production if the new strain was successful or ultimately halve if the research failed. Zespri was concerned about having enough computing power to cover existing demand while preparing for both the best- and worst-case scenarios. With support from Total Utilities to assess its existing IT costs and consumption, Zespri was given a list of options that projected the business outcomes and costs for each. It could either continue managing and maintaining its own data centre, outsource its data to another local vendor, or switch to the public cloud so it could replicate the same platforms around the world. Zespri chose the latter, moving its infrastructure and associated platforms onto the Microsoft Azure Cloud. This decision helped Zespri cover a multitude of potential problems by removing the financial risk of investing in its own tech infrastructure, allowing rapid expansion of a global supply chain and delivering detailed cost control mechanisms. Providing Zespri with financial operations toolsets allowed it to efficiently manage costs and consumption, which was repaid as Zespri’s research gamble paid off and the business grew in scale. Measures such as “cost per tray of kiwifruit shipped” have become an important way of tracking success. Zespri has used subscription cloud services as an effective way to manage, analyse and contain its costs ever since. Not only does that mean Zespri is able to adapt its model to any scenario, not having a data centre on site reduces both energy consumption and space. The business is therefore more sustainable in every sense of the word – something consumers around the world increasingly expect. Microsoft itself has committed to removing all carbon it has ever emitted directly or by energy consumption from the environment by 2050, reinforced by its pledge to support New Zealand’s sustainability goals through its new datacentre investment. As every organisation on the planet is challenged to review its impact on the environment, choosing greener IT options is a great way to minimise your footprint. As the adage goes, the only certainty in life is change. While an upfront investment during downturns can be daunting, the best way for any business to safeguard its sustainability long-term is to invest in an IT system that doesn’t become obsolete, that meets modern expectations around environmental impacts and which allows workers the greatest accessibility in an era when many of us are now working remotely. And that means embracing the cloud. Ensure resilience A resilient network and good technical support are essential to every modern business. There is an expectation for email, purchasing or sales automation to be working around the clock. Software updates, testing or hardware failures are no longer an excuse for disrupted services, which can instantly see customers go elsewhere. Just five years ago, businesses were put off moving their platforms and operations to the cloud because they weren’t sure about achieving the level of compliance and technical competence they needed to operate the systems. Every business we consulted felt the skills to manage cloud migration were a barrier to digitising their operations, and that only in-house experts could provide the support needed. That figure is now just 40 per cent. Trust in the cloud and cloud providers to manage their businesses and tailor their services to their needs has skyrocketed. Likewise, secure and reliable connections are more available than ever. While some thought the demand put on the internet during this period of working from home wouldn’t hold up, the Covid-19 lockdown has proven how resilient the internet can be. It is a credit to our network providers, whether fibre, copper or mobile data-based, that these services have remained largely in place as millions of people have suddenly put tremendous demand on capacity. This shows that network availability is no longer a constraint holding back businesses from placing their operations and services in the cloud. Those organisations using public cloud services are also better placed to combat the predatory players who sought to take advantage of the situation via scams and cyber-attacks, with regular security upgrades not available to those using an outdated server in the back office. No longer can you place your trust in simply ‘doing it yourself’. Instead, managed cloud-based services can prove more secure and reliable. Security and connectivity is complex to establish and even more challenging to maintain, especially when scarce, skilled resources are in high demand. Establish good financial governance Whichever cloud service you use, make sure to choose a partner or platform that can provide real-time analysis and reporting so you can see exactly how it’s working for your business and change your plan if you need to. Governance, cost control and resource efficiency have always been top priorities for businesses. Now more than ever, businesses are focused on getting the best value for money from their technological solutions while growing a sustainable business. One thing cloud-based platforms do very well, thanks to their sheer accessibility and ease of use, is enable workers to use a huge range of resources and implement their own changes and updates. However, if unconstrained, this can result in wastage and bill-shock. While governance and budget setting have provided the framework for cost control and planning for decades, moving to the cloud requires a new level of collaboration between Finance and IT. Ensuring these two teams remain communicative through the cloud integration process is vital to ensuring it runs smoothly and efficiently, that the right functionality is baked in from the beginning and there are no budget surprises.  As well as close co-operation, the key to ensuring total visibility and that cloud services are providing the best value, is using a monitoring service to provide real-time data on how cloud is being consumed across the business. The best services can illustrate exactly how resources are being used – either energy or data – and enable CFOs and other decision-makers to rapidly change to new plans that are better for the environment and the bottom line. Clear and regular reporting is essential and takes a great deal of time and effort out of maintaining good governance. Cloud is the future of many businesses and in a time of so much change and uncertainty, it is important to know your business has a model it can rely on to save costs and make governance far less onerous. To know that your business is making most of out your cloud service, make sure you have reporting in place so you can accurately reflect usage in real time, limit your expenses and energy consumption and create a business model that’s truly sustainable for many years to come.