Sustainability

Exporting in 2026: Sustainability and proof

Exporters are not being asked for their sustainability commitments. They are being asked to prove them. Across global markets, sustainability is becoming a condition of doing business. Not because it is the “right thing to do” (although it is), but because regulators, retailers and procurement teams are building sustainability into the rules of trade. Eloise Joiner, Sustainability Lead at New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE), shared with thinkstep-anz team at our recent team days what NZTE is hearing directly from exporters and what this means for New Zealand businesses trying to grow internationally. Her talk was a timely reminder that while the sustainability conversation may feel noisy, complex and sometimes uncertain at home, the international direction is clear. Here are our takeaways Regulation is moving fast and it is not just climate Eloise highlighted that around 70% of New Zealand exports go to countries with mandatory climate disclosures either proposed or enforced. But climate is only one part of the picture. Exporters are also navigating requirements related to modern slavery, packaging, end-of-life responsibility and product design. For many companies, the challenge is not a single regulation. It is the growing number of overlapping requirements across multiple markets. The result is a system that is often fragmented and hard to interpret, particularly for businesses exporting to more than one region. \ The EU is setting the pace and everyone else is watching Eloise made it clear that Europe is setting the direction on sustainability requirements, and exporters will increasingly need to respond. Read more about the Europe’s sustainability demands on NZTE’s website. The challenge is not just the volume of regulation. It is the complexity, fragmentation and ambiguity, especially for companies selling into multiple markets. New Zealand’s domestic policy signals may not match what exporters face internationally. Despite any changes New […]

In God we trust: All others bring data

David Altena is Head of Growth & Partnerships at SmartSpace.ai & Co-Founder & Host of The Better SMB Podcast. david@altena.solutions Rob Bull is Director of the New Zealand Lean Academy. rob@nzla.nz Edwards Deming’s line has been quoted so often it risks becoming wallpaper. But for New Zealand manufacturers facing reducing margins, skills shortages and relentless competition, it’s not a slogan; it must be a standard. You know the feeling. Every day’s busy, the team hustle, the shop floor hums, yet profitability wobbles, lead times slip and projects that looked promising last quarter are still stuck in first gear. The gap isn’t effort. It’s information. Not a shortage of activity, but a shortage of clarity. Do you know what “good”, let alone “great”, looks like? Information-led businesses win Let’s be blunt: gut feel gets you started, but data helps you sustain quality, hit targets and scale. Information led businesses don’t drown in dashboards – they know which information actually matters, they measure, share with the team and act on it. Manufacturers need a clear view of flow, quality, throughput, commercial health and capability. Most businesses already measure far more than they need – but far less of what matters. These aren’t “nice-to-haves.” They’re the instrumentation panel telling you if your workshop is flying straight or drifting off course. Without this, you risk over-investing in the wrong places, repeating the same mistakes and confusing activity for progress. Insights, not just indicators But watch out, simply measuring more is not learning more. Too many leaders implement software, install sensors and create dashboards using yesterday’s processes and call it transformation. What’s missing are the insights – turning the raw numbers into a real narrative. Trends vs. snapshots: Is OEE improving, or did we just have a “good week”? Causes vs. symptoms: […]

Power Politics: How high electricity prices are squeezing NZ Manufacturers in an Election Year

By Sean Doherty,Manufacturing Commentator | NZ Industry Trends New Zealand’s electricity market is producing two parallel realities. For the country’s four major generator-retailers, business has never been better. For manufacturers, the same market is steadily destroying the economics of making things in this country. If the balance is not corrected soon, the closures already under way will accelerate – and some of the damage will be permanent. Generators cash in while industry burns out In the six months to December 2025, New Zealand’s four major gentailers – are forecast to deliver a combined operating profit of approximately $1.86 billion, an increase of around 45% on the same period a year earlier. These are not one-off results. In 2023, the same four companies posted combined operating profits of $2.7 billion – roughly $7.4 million in profit every single day. The Electricity Authority’s own energy margin dashboard shows big generators regularly earning weekly gross margins in excess of $70 million, peaking at around $119 million in some high-price weeks. Consumer NZ chief executive Jon Duffy has put the problem plainly: “We hear the same lines every year. Big profits are needed to fund investment. But the investment is always coming, never here in sufficient quantity“. The numbers back him up. Analysis by the NZCTU and 350 Aotearoa found that over the past decade, the four gentailers paid $10.8 billion in dividends to the government and shareholders while investing only $4.5 billion into plant, property and equipment. Transpower data showed that as of late 2025, only around 986 MW of new generation had been committed and financed – far short of the 1,500 GWh of new capacity needed every year until 2031. The system, in other words, is structured to reward generators most when supply is tight and prices are high – […]

The world wants Kiwi manufacturing: Turning acquisitions into advantage

By Sean Doherty,Manufacturing Commentator | NZ Industry Trends Global investment is reshaping the future of Kiwi manufacturers—and the outlook is surprisingly positive. It has been a historic couple of years for New Zealand’s manufacturing and food processing sectors. From Invercargill to Auckland, a remarkable string of large manufacturing companies have been acquired by overseas buyers—or are in the process of changing hands. Fonterra’s consumer brands, Alliance Group, Synlait Milk, MHM Automation, Robotics Plus, Bremworth, Rakon, and a host of others have all attracted international attention. At first glance, headlines about foreign buyers snapping up New Zealand businesses can feel unsettling. The instinct is to ask: are we losing jobs and intellectual property? But when you dig into the details, a more encouraging picture emerges — one of fresh capital, global market access, jobs protected, and innovation accelerated. Here’s what’s really going on, and why there’s reason to be optimistic. The world wants what we’ve built The sheer scale of interest in New Zealand companies tells a story of success, not failure. In the third quarter of 2025 alone, 52 deals were announced, a 41 percent increase on the same period a year earlier. International investors from France, Ireland, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Australia, and Sri Lanka have all been writing cheques. Why? Because New Zealand companies have built something genuinely valuable. Robotics Plus, a Tauranga-based agricultural robotics company, attracted Yamaha Motor—one of the world’s leading industrial conglomerates—because its autonomous orchard vehicles and AI-powered systems are among the best in the world. Yamaha has now made Robotics Plus part of the foundation of its new global agricultural automation company, Yamaha Agriculture Inc. That’s not a loss. It’s a global validation of Kiwi ingenuity. Similarly, Christchurch’s MHM Automation caught the eye of Fortifi Food Processing Solutions because its post-harvest, […]

From data to decisions: getting more value from sustainability measurement

From February issue, NZ Manufacturer magazine The way manufacturers measure sustainability is changing rapidly. New tools, improved data and AI-enabled platforms mean businesses can now measure far more than they could a few years ago. Carbon, circularity, risk and supply chains — the list keeps growing. For manufacturers, this often shows up as long lists of metrics across plants, products and suppliers. Energy and fuel use on the factory floor, raw materials, packaging, transport and supplier emissions are all in scope. Without clear priorities, teams can spend months collecting data without clarity on what to act on first. Measuring everything is rarely practical, and it is not the goal. What matters is measuring the right things, at the right level of detail, to support decisions that reduce risk and create value. As Jeff Vickers, Technical Director at sustainability firm thinkstep-anz, puts it plainly: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” He also cautions that “we need to focus our efforts on measuring what matters most so that we don’t get lost in the detail.” Why focused measurement leads to better outcomes More data does not automatically mean better decisions. The real value comes from measuring what matters and using it well. A focused approach to measurement helps organisations: Keep priorities clear: A small set of meaningful metrics makes it easier to see what matters most and act with confidence. Put effort where it counts: Time and budget are spent on data that actually changes decisions, rather than information that sits unused. Protect credibility: Reported numbers are understood, can be explained and are clearly linked to actions being taken. Meet expectations: Measurement focuses on the issues regulators and investors care about most, reducing the risk of blind spots. This approach avoids the risks of over-measurement while strengthening insight, trust, and performance. […]

Election Year Excuses? Why Manufacturers Can’t Afford Them

From February issue, NZ Manufacturer magazine David Altena is Head of Growth & Partnerships at SmartSpace.ai & C0-Founder & Host of The Better SMB Podcast. david@altena.solutions We are entering a familiar three yearly cycle of hesitation. As we flip into another election year, a subtle but pervasive “hush” descends over factories from Penrose to Invercargill. Business cases for new CNC machinery get shuffled to the bottom of the pile. Recruitment for that much needed engineer is “put on hold until we know who is running the Beehive.” Election years tempt businesses to pause, waiting for policy clarity. But in manufacturing, hesitation is costly. Whoever wins, the fundamentals won’t change. Capability, capital confidence and innovation still matter. Waiting is the real risk. We have been waiting for the miracle decisions every three years for decades. It is no surprise that the MBIE and Foreign Affairs Long Term Insights Briefing released in December 2025 still describes New Zealand as being stuck in a low-productivity rut. Another report to feed the lack of progress on this subject over the last 40-years. “Wait and see” is not a strategy, it’s slow-motion surrender. (Ab0ve)Rob Bull is Director of The New Zealand Lean Academy. rob@nzla.nz Myth Busting: The “Pause Button” Election-year uncertainty is the ultimate security blanket. It’s the perfect, explainable excuse for inaction, but let’s look at the reality of the productivity gap. New Zealand has struggled with a tail of underperformance compared to our OECD peers[1] and according to The Economist, New Zealand’s economic performance is now ranked 33rd (of 37) in 2024[2] (we were as high as 3rd in the 1950’s!). That gap doesn’t take a holiday because there are billboards on the side of the road and policy ideas thrown about like a lolly scramble. The truth is sitting there right […]

Productivity and baby boomer business owners

From March issue, NZ Manufacturer magazine By Mike Warmington, Platform 1 For many SME baby boomer business owners last year, the economy forced them to think more of productivity and how to do things smarter. Some made strong gains however these were generally the larger SME sized businesses and above. Smaller businesses with long term owners often struggled to pivot to using technology or Ai as an enabler to be more productive. Bringing in a consultant is perhaps an option and there are a multitude of companies running courses and programmes on Ai in social media promising to upskill people 15 min a day for 30 days. But is it helpful to just be a generalist on all the productivity uses in your business ? You can’t do everything and it comes down to ensuring you execute on your critical biggest productivity bottlenecks. Many owners know where their bottlenecks are and it’s not the skills but the willingness to embrace emerging technologies to improve these bottlenecks that is the challenge. Learning something new and foreign later in life can be daunting, when what you want to do, and deserve to do is to slow down. Another option is to find a technology and Ai savvy potential Business Partner to work in your business, using their experience and knowledge to help enable technology and Ai for productivity gains. With planning skills honed in much larger organisations that have training budgets and resources they will work with you to identify bottlenecks and implement productivity solutions. They acquire skin in the game over time to a structured managed plan and you exit with more wealth, as your business becomes more productive and profitable. A business we worked with did over 4000 specialised scheduled preventative maintenance jobs a month managed on an Access database and a […]

The Year in Review – Business Exit Landscape

Mike Warmington, Platform 1 This year has been marked by fluctuations in the business exit landscape. The first quarter saw lots of activity and some deal flow. The middle two quarters saw business owners contemplating transitioning out, more likely to hold off as they endured a tougher sales environment putting the squeeze on their businesses. Our meeting numbers with business owners we had not previously met were significantly up on 2024, however this did not translate into as many engagements as we would normally expect from that level of activity. The market is experiencing record demand from individuals seeking business ownership or transition opportunities. Three Reserve Bank OCR cuts since August and lower interest rates made a noticeable positive difference ,along with increasingly positive business confidence survey results. We have found more business owners we spoke to during the year are only now prepared to either push the button on engagement now or indicate they will take action in early 2026. Having held off through COVID and the recent recession many owners are years behind in their exit planning or executing .In our opinion NZ faces the largest business ownership transition it has ever seen : Over 50% of New Zealand SME owners are aged 55 or older Over 40% of business owners plan to exit in the next 5 years Over 70% of business owners plan to exit in the next 10 years While exact numbers are assumptions, figures from a variety of other sources all quote essentially the same statistics.This demographic reality means thousands of businesses will change hands in the next decade creating both challenges and opportunities. Here’s what I’m seeing in the market: Management Buy-Ins are gaining awareness and traction – external talented entrepreneurial people transitioning in over time. Employee Ownership Models are emerging to keep businesses […]

Reflecting on 2025: Circularity, Sustainability and Transformation for Steel Manufacturing

Troy Coyle, CEO, HERA As 2025 draws to a close, it’s clear this has been a year of transformation and momentum for Aotearoa New Zealand’s steel manufacturing industry and for HERA. The national conversation around sustainability and circular design has matured significantly, with steel once again proving itself to be the rockstar of the circular economy. One of the biggest milestones for our sector was undoubtedly the announcement of the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) at New Zealand Steel. This long-anticipated investment represents a major step forward for domestic steelmaking, enabling the production of lower-carbon steel from locally recycled scrap. It’s a tangible example of how industry can decarbonise while strengthening regional manufacturing resilience. The EAF signals a new era where circularity, innovation, and sustainability sit at the core of our national manufacturing. At HERA, we’ve seen that growing interest in low-carbon and circular design first-hand. Our newly released update to “How to Specify Low Carbon Steel” guide, has rapidly become our most downloaded publication, reflecting the appetite among engineers, designers, and specifiers to make informed material choices that reduce embodied carbon. This surge in demand shows that Aotearoa New Zealand’s construction and manufacturing sectors are ready to move from ambition to action. Circularity goes beyond just lowering emissions. It’s about designing systems that keep materials in use for as long as possible and few materials perform better than steel in this regard. That’s why one of HERA’s proudest achievements in 2025 was launching our Low-Carbon Circular Design Guidance. This guidance provides a practical framework for designers and manufacturers to apply circular economy principles in real projects, helping to close the loop between design, fabrication, and reuse. It showed that >50% reductions in carbon emissions were readily achievable through clever design and material selection. This work has been further strengthened by our successful application for […]

What 2025 taught us about sustainability and resilience

By Barbara Nebel, CEO, thinkstep-anz In 2025 we saw something important: progress on sustainability continued, even as regulations shifted and economic conditions became challenging. For many organisations, sustainability has become central to resilience, competitiveness and long-term planning. Rather than slowing down, they took more confident steps to manage risk and prepare for the future. Climate disclosure: fewer rules, but the same risks One of the major changes this year was the government’s plan to reduce the number of businesses that need to report their climate-related risks and opportunities. This shift removes the pressure of mandatory disclose and allows businesses to take a more pragmatic approach. It also raised a fair question: if fewer organisations need to disclose, does that mean the financial impacts of a changing climate are becoming less relevant? At thinkstep-anz, we know the answer is no. Climate disclosure has always been more than a compliance task. For manufacturers and other businesses with complex supply chains, it is a practical tool for managing risk. Regulations may shift, but the physical and transition risks of climate change remain. Extreme weather, changing markets and new policies will continue to affect operations, logistics and access to materials. That is why we integrate climate risk and scenario analysis directly into clients’ risk management frameworks. When climate insights sit within existing decision-making processes, they guide investment, planning and strategic direction. After two years of supporting organisations on their disclosure journeys, we are seeing a clear shift: clients are not just reporting; they are preparing for the future with greater clarity and confidence. Scope 3 emissions: more time, better tools Changing regulations also brought more time for some organisations to measure and report their scope 3 supply chain emissions. For many, scope 3 includes the upstream materials they purchase and the downstream use […]

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