Our sustainability

Read our 2022-2025 sustainability strategy [PDF, 233 KB]

Our 2022-2025 sustainability strategy contains the Ministry’s shorter-term targets and longer-term goals which are focused on all aspects of our organisational sustainability.

About our sustainability strategy

We aspire to lead the public service in operating sustainably and reducing emissions. Our sustainability strategy is a core strategic document which holds us accountable and ensures we lead by example.

For us, sustainability as an organisation means:

• operating within our baseline
• minimising our environmental impact
• giving our people what they need to flourish.

We have a holistic view of sustainability, which is why our strategy includes three pillars:

• tāngata – our people
• taiao – our environment
• pūtea – our finances.

We have had a sustainability strategy since 2018/19. Our emissions reduction targets are embedded within our strategy.

An internal work programme ensures we are meeting our targets.

In December 2020, the Government announced a climate emergency and launched the Carbon Neutral Government Programme (CNGP). Our successive sustainability strategies ensure we are meeting all commitments as outlined by the CNGP.

We achieved many successes over the 2022/23 financial year.

Highlights include:

• measuring, externally verifying, and certifying our organisational carbon emissions for the sixth consecutive year
• reducing our operational emissions by nearly 43 per cent from our 2017/18 base year
• embedding internal emissions budgets and integrating these into our financial business planning systems
• updating our travel policy and including “international business class travel by exception only” criteria
• addressing and disclosing on our climate-related risk and opportunities for the third year
• recertifying the Rainbow Tick for the third consecutive year
• being awarded 6 Green Star Certification for our new 8 Willis Street whare and workplace, shared with Stats NZ
• developing a broader outcomes procurement strategy and supporting guidance to ensure sustainability measures are routinely considered as part of our procurement practices.

We have set our emissions reduction targets in line with a global emissions pathway aimed at limiting warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

• 2025 target: Reduce operational emissions by 35 per cent from our 2017/18 base year
• 2030 target: Reduce operational emissions by 50 per cent from our 2017/18 base year in line with reducing warming by 1.5 degrees Celsius.

These targets meet the expectations of the CNGP.

Tracking our performance against our targets

We remain on track to meet our 2025 gross emissions reduction target, as shown in the graph above.

This is despite an increase in emissions, which is in part due to the absence of COVID-19 travel restrictions in the 2022/23 financial year. We have continued to use internal emissions budgets to manage our performance, encouraged online meetings and technology use, and implemented a new travel policy. Our new travel policy includes criteria that staff must meet to be allowed to book business class international travel, given it is both the higher emissions and cost option.

In 2022/23, we emitted 758.38 tCO₂e, a 71 per cent increase on the previous year (442.97 tCO₂e), and a 42.73 per cent reduction from our 2017/18 base year (1324.12 tCO₂e). Our largest emissions sources are domestic air travel, international air travel (including business class, premium economy, and economy) and electricity use for our offices.

Breaking down our emissions profile by activity shows our biggest emissions sources. Air travel is consistently our largest source of emissions. We have seen a significant reduction in international travel emissions in comparison to our pre-COVID 19 years. One anomaly this year was helicopter travel supporting the Ministerial Inquiry into Land Use.

We continue to prioritise air travel for organisational emissions reductions, given it remains our largest source of emissions.

We have seen a rise in ground transport emissions on previous years. Emissions from taxis, rental and private car usage increased, and use of public transport remains low. In the 2023/24 financial year, we’ll review work programme demand and reasons for staff travel choices and look for improvements on existing support measures for low-emissions ground transport use.

Reducing our transport emissions 

We have made a conscious effort to reduce our travel emissions by implementing measures designed to support reductions including:

• guiding staff on sustainable travel options and behaviours
• ensuring staff consider why and how they travel internationally (by weighing emissions impact, finances, and staff wellbeing)
• setting internal emissions budgets that sit alongside financial budgets for our business groups
• making use of our improved video-conference technology in our offices to support remote working more effectively, and for meeting with stakeholders around the country
• providing a low-emissions fleet of bikes, scooters and an e-bike for Wellington staff to attend meetings around the city
• choosing an electric or hybrid rental vehicle whenever appropriate and available.

Our commitment to be at the leading edge of addressing our climate-related risk

Ministry for the Environment's climate-related disclosure 2022/23

Climate change presents a challenge of unprecedented scope and complexity. As a government agency operating at the forefront of climate-related policy development, we are committed to understanding and addressing the actual and potential effects of climate change on our own operations, strategy, and financial plans.

Our process and disclosures are aligned with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD), commonly referred to as best-practice guidance which is based around four domains: Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets. While not mandatory for the Ministry we have adopted this framework to enable examination and development of our climate risk management.

We use our climate-related disclosures to share our actions and performance as we progress on our action plan to address our climate-related risk, build organisational resilience, and become carbon neutral.

Our third annual climate-related disclosure

We remain committed to ongoing improvement, self-reflection, and transparency when it comes to understanding and addressing our climate-related risk and opportunities.

The changing climate has presented numerous challenges in our 2022/23 reporting year, bringing home a hard reality for many across the motu. The extreme rainfall that Aotearoa New Zealand saw in January and Cyclone Gabrielle in February, left a significant physical and emotional toll at the whānau and community level. These impacts have reinforced once again how urgent it is that we both reduce our emissions and make sure we are adapting to our changing climate. We do not see ourselves separate to the action we ask of the rest of Aotearoa.

These climate events and our response raises questions about how the Ministry and wider government will act with similar climate-based emergencies in the future. The Ministry will reflect on the urgency of response, how we are structured to react in the future, and what will happen if these pressures continue to grow. It means working through the uncertainty, asking hard questions and finding solutions. If we fail to adapt, and find ourselves in a constant state of recovery, we need to understand what this means for central agency operational resilience.

The implementation of wider actions in the national adaptation plan has led to government agencies embedding climate change into their own processes and future planning. Building proactive risk management in this new area will take practice, and we are dedicated to sharing what we learn from our own.

Commitment to ongoing improvement

The financial year 2022/23 was the second year implementing our ambitious list of actions to address our climate-related risk and opportunities. There have been related and significant milestones achieved in our work programme, and these are detailed in our Annual Report.

To date, we have focused on:

• developing new climate-related scenarios based on latest projections, drawing on in-house and subject matter expertise
• regular scenario planning to identify and assess our climate-related risk
• publicly disclosing our yearly emissions reduction performance, and developing an action plan to reduce our carbon emissions under the Toitū carbonreduce programme
• signing on to the Climate Leaders Coalition Statement of Ambition 2022

Plans for the 2023/24 financial year

These include:

• develop and trial a robust, repeatable climate-related scenario process, that can be extended across the organisation
• improving our governance, risk management, and accountabilities to manage climate-related risk, and embed climate risks and opportunities in our reporting cycles
• using climate risk as a lens to look at our investments and policy work, to ensure they consistently address climate-related risk and opportunities
• preparing an annual ‘Climate change – risk and opportunities’ report detailing our climate risk as found through scenario planning.

Our previous climate-related disclosures

An independent assessment of our climate-related policies and processes in 2021 identified opportunities for improvement across all four TCFD domains, while noting that our Metrics and Targets efforts already demonstrate an advanced level of maturity relative to leading practice. 

We developed an ambitious action plan to implement over the coming years. 

Following the assessment, our disclosures have outlined our identified climate-related risks, opportunities, and commitments to address them. 

Ministry for the Environment’s climate-related disclosure 2020/21

Ministry for the Environment’s climate-related disclosure 2021/22

Sustainability reporting in annual reports

For more information on our sustainability performance read the sustainability sections of our annual reports:  

• 2022 annual report* - pages 94-99
• 2021 annual report – pages 29-32  
• 2020 annual report – pages 22-25 
• 2019 annual report – pages 22-25  
• 2018 annual report – pages 14-15 

* The Ministry reported 752.33tCO2e in its 2022/23 Annual Report, and incorrectly noted that taxi usage had reduced from FY2021/22. This was due to a process error in the Ministry’s third-party certification.

Emissions certifications

As part of our sustainability strategy and to meet the requirements of the Carbon Neutral Government Programme, we have committed to measuring, reducing and reporting on our organisational emissions profile and having them externally verified.

We have been measuring and reporting our emissions since 2018. We are proud to have achieved the Toitū carbonreduce certification for the sixth consecutive year.

View our emissions certification summaries on the Toitū website:

• Summary of Toitū carbonreduce certification 2022/23 [PDF, 228 KB]

• Summary of Toitū carbonreduce certification 2021/22 [PDF, 447 KB]

• Summary of Toitū carbonreduce certification 2020/21 [PDF, 197 KB]

• Summary of Toitū carbonreduce certification 2019/20 [PDF, 438 KB]

• Summary of CEMARS certification 2018/19 [PDF, 331 KB]

• Summary CEMARS certification 2017/18 [PDF, 225 KB]