Hawke's Bay's business community is being praised by the government for its commitment to a joint effort to boost sustainability and biodiversity.
After attending a launch forum of Hawke's Bay Regional Council's Biodiversity Hawke's Bay programme in Napier on Tuesday night, Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage congratulated Biodiversity Hawke's Bay andGreat Things Grow Here for the work they were leading in getting better outcomes for nature and for business. "Increasingly biodiversity is coming to the boardroom; in businesses which recognise measuring success is as much about ensuring the business contributes to social and environmental wellbeing, as it is about bottom line profitability, and that a we need strong spirit of kaitiakitanga is required to safeguard nature on which so much of our economy depends.
"Working with businesses is part of my and the Department of Conservation's strategy to galvanise an all-of-New Zealand response to the biodiversity crisis. It is one of our most urgent environmental challenges."
Biodiversity Hawke's Bay sponsorship programme manager Sam Jackman said he was "extremely pleased" with the event, which was held at the Mission Estate Winery and attracted 130 businesses from across the region.
"We had some great comments from people in business involved in biodiversity projects from around our region and it was good to hear those comments putting business and biodiversity into context - that went down very well.
"We've got to get everybody into this space. We have our core partners like the councils, Fish and Game, Federated Farmers and people like that. That's one group and then we have all our individual businesses who are involved in the community.
"As I have been saying to people, great things won't grow here, unless we start looking after our biodiversity and our environment for our future generations."
The next step would be to follow-up with businesses from Tuesday's event.
'We already have a few people who have come forward and are very keen to get involved."
