Prominent business leader and environmental champion Rob Fenwick has been hired by the Department of Conservation to encourage more businesses to invest in taking care of the environment.
Mr Fenwick, who was made a Companion of New Zealand Order of Merit in 2008 for services to conservation, will advise director-general
Al Morrison and the new commercial business unit.
The unit will look to enhance the relationship DoC has with more than 4500 private businesses operating on public conservation land, and foster more New Zealand businesses promoting conservation.
Mr Morrison said Mr Fenwick was perfect for the job, given his green credentials and his business links, including co-founding organic waste-management business Living Earth.
"We're basically trying to take the Rob Fenwick experience and universalise it across New Zealand business," Mr Morrison said.
The unit will focus on generating revenue not for DoC but for New Zealand businesses.
"We want to enable business to be more profitable on conservation land.
"Conservation is good for business and business is good for conservation."
Examples included Solid Energy doing pest control, the BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust, which had steered $6 million towards a kiwi recovery programme, and tourism companies that either engaged in conservation activities themselves or donated a portion of their profits to DoC projects.
He said there were several reasons businesses were looking to become greener, including the emissions trading scheme and consumerism based on sustainability and environmental responsibility.
"We've spent a lot of time over the years getting the community to do more conservation work, iwi are doing it, but we've missed out on business and there's a huge opportunity for this to be win-win," Mr Morrison said.
An example was the popular Abel Tasman track at the top of the South Island. It was attracting so much traffic it would benefit from more tracks.
"But we don't have the money ... now there is private-sector involvement, and we're having discussions."
