Environment and Sustainability

Our people cherish the unique and beautiful landscape of Central Hawke’s Bay.

Project Thrive reaffirmed that great value is placed on our natural environment, ensuring that it is healthy and can sustain future generations is important to our community. Together we are “successful environmental guardians, ensuring future generations THRIVE here”.

During Project Thrive, our community told us they would like Central Hawke’s Bay to be a good example to the rest of New Zealand, leading the way in clean environmental and sustainability practices. Council has a specific role in providing local leadership and decision-making, and the community also has a local leadership role to play. We are looking forward to working with community leaders on the Environmental and Sustainability Reference Group to consider how our community can lead the way and be a role model to the rest of New Zealand. We have a number of environmental challenges to face - one of most the significant being the impacts of climate change.

Environmental and Sustainability Strategy

We have adopted our first Environmental and Sustainability Strategy, which sets the direction for how we will manage the our impact on the environment for years to come.

The strategy is a key deliverable of Project Thrive, to deliver on the community’s aspirations for Central Hawke’s Bay to be a proud and prosperous district made up of strong communities and connected people who respect and protect our environment and celebrate our beautiful part of New Zealand.

Developed with your help and the support of a community reference group and external expertise, our Environmental and Sustainability Strategy will deliver on Council’s commitments made in the 2018-2021 Long Term Plan. It captures activities and initiatives that Council can influence, coordinate, facilitate and, in some instances, deliver.

The strategy has four priority areas:

• managing our impact on waterways,
• increasing recycling and reducing waste to landfill,
• conserving water and
• managing climate change.

Waste Management and Minimisation Plan 2019 

Our Waste Management and Minimisation Plan (WMMP) sets out the priorities and a strategic framework to minimise and manage the waste in our district. Council plays a key role in collecting, sorting and transferring waste, but we will need to work in partnership with our community, businesses and industry to achieve our goals. The actions will be carried forward into our long-term and annual plans to ensure we have the resources to deliver the WMMP's goals and objectives.