Being environmentally sustainable is about reducing harm to and improving the environment with a focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
This year greenhouse gas emissions increased to 12,002 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide compared with 11,832 kilotonnes last year. Emissions from the land transport system have increased over many decades and reflects a similar increase in travel by the light vehicle fleet. Emissions are predicted to continue to increase over the next few years but will start to reduce over time as the fleet becomes cleaner and government actions to reduce emissions start to take effect.
Greenhouse gas emissions 2016–2020
We’re in the second year of implementing Toitū te taiao, our sustainability action plan, and will publish our second sustainability monitoring report, Tiakina te taiao, later in 2021/22. Over time, Tiakina te taiao will help us measure progress on our commitment to caring for our environment and toward achieving our vision of a low carbon, safe and healthy land transport system.
The latest achievement in our corporate sustainability journey is receiving Toitū Envirocare carbonreduce certification. This is an independent audit against programme requirements and international standards. Achieving certification recognises our climate-positive actions and helps us make measurable progress.
Resilience of the network is becoming increasingly important as we can expect to see more weather events and disruptions with the effects of climate change. This year we progressed development of the Waka Kotahi Adaptation Plan, which considers the multiple risks the land transport system is facing as a result of climate-related events. The Adaptation Plan will be completed over 2021/22 and will include an action plan.
We’re committed to supporting the climate change agenda and the cross-government work being undertaken. We advised He Pou a Rangi, the Climate Change Commission, on their draft advice on carbon emission budgets and emission reduction policies. We provided technical and operational policy advice to the Ministry of Transport to support their development of Hīkina te Kohupara, a discussion document outlining options and pathways to decarbonise the transport system. We’ve also actively contributed to the work of the Ministry for the Environment-led interagency team developing the Emissions Reduction Plan.
