Southland is a pretty awesome place to live. We can produce our own milk and meat, grow a huge number of vegetables and grains, and our fruit trees are known for their spectacular crops. But there are some things we aren’t so great at; growing coffee is one of them. It’s not easy to produce coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa, bananas and cotton (among other things) in New Zealand so we have to rely on our neighbours overseas to get our daily fixes.

Quite some time ago, most of Southland was pretty much a wetland. Many a tile drain later, there are a whole bunch of people putting a lot of effort into recreating wetlands. I can see why people were never fond of them - hard to navigate and 'unproductive' from an agriculture perspective. What became clear at my recent attendance at the Wetlands Symposium a couple of weeks ago, was that it is much simpler to preserve what we already have by way of wetlands, than to realise the consequences of draining them away, and later having to recreate them.

A couple of weeks ago I was privileged to be at a networking meeting for the various landcare groups from around Southland. Many spoke of the great work their volunteers had achieved, from high profile events like the Living Legends planting for the Rugby World Cup, to everyday work that goes under the media's radar. In particular, one group raved about how much they achieved when a workplace used their project for a workplace volunteer day - part of the BNZ's 'Closed for Good' initiative.

In terms of the sustainability challenges we are facing, some would argue that the advertising industry has played a big part in getting us into this mess, through it’s role in promoting materialism and ego-driven consumption. (Clive Hamilton is a particularly strong advocate of this position).

Here at the Invercargill TOP 10 Holiday Park, we are proud members of the Southland Sustainable Business Network and enjoy reading the regular newsletters sent to members. However, I still feel we are at times inclined to be price driven rather than always looking at the sustainability issues when we do things. We are as guilty as the next person and it's only because we have the benefit of hindsight from building several units and also the early involvement with the Sustainable Tourism South Project that we started down the track of thinking differently.

When we began searching for local businesses who were implementing sustainable practices, we found a lot of examples of good stewardship. The Anchorage Motel in Te Anau encourages their guests to take away their toiletries and finish it up, rather than leaving behind a half used product. They also supply motel units with re-usable bags for guests to use. Other accommodation providers are collecting used bars of soap and returning them for manufacture into biodiesel. CleanBiz, a cleaning product supplier, takes back empty containers from customers, washes and re-uses them.

After an interval approaching 22 years, in October last year I resumed biking to work for a variety of sensible reasons. I confess that it took a little adjusting to.

Sometimes, with all the best intentions, changes we make result in some unintended consequences. Some environmental solutions actually create other problems. Most people or organisations who have started their sustainability journey have at least one story to share along these lines. You know, when you have tried to change something to improve the environmental outcomes, but for some reason or another it has ended up causing another problem that you didn’t intend.

Your biggest energy saving opportunity is likely to come in a very small package. I occasionally hear people say that "we are not going to change the world by changing a few light bulbs". Indeed it's not the only answer, but as well as changing the world, changing your light bulb will reduce your electricity costs and may have other benefits too. The Energy Efficiency Conservation Authority says that most businesses can reduce their energy bills by at least 20% through energy efficiency improvements. One of the areas almost always noted on an energy audit, is lighting. To give an example, in 2008 the Ascot Park Hotel in Invercargill had an energy audit completed, where it was identified they could save $11,000-$16,000 per year through changes to their lighting alone. You can read more, or even listen to Peter Ridsdale talk about the Ascot Park Hotels energy audit on their case study on www.sustainablesouthland.co.nz.

Last month I attended what felt like the social event of the year - the Environment Awards. Such a positive buzz of enthusiasm from young school kids right through to some of our region's older pioneering tourism operators. There were a number of businesses nominated for awards. However, I felt there should have been a greater number of nominations because there are so many more businesses doing wonderful things that I am aware of.