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.

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.

If you are ever so lucky to have the opportunity to have a say in the design of your workplace or home, you'll find yourself with hours of research to do. When you begin to look into it, there are so many opportunities to make the indoor spaces we spend time in more energy efficient, water efficient, pleasant and healthier places to be. Something also worth putting some grey matter to, is what changes we can make to our existing building stock to achieve the same outcomes. The following are some innovative ideas to get you thinking about retrofitting.

Energy ratings on appliances are great, they help communicate with us, the buyer, about something very important when we are comparing different models – the running costs. By having ratings, this also helps encourage the manufacturers to keep making more efficient models. However, when comparing different models, it’s not quite as simple as assuming those with the highest ratings are going to cost less to run. Buying a 5-star rated large fridge may actually consume more energy than a 2-star small fridge, even though the larger one is more “energy efficient”. Confused? Read on before you make a purchasing decision, or go writing anything specific into your company purchasing policy.

Venture Southland, in partnership with SolarCity, this week announced the launch of the Southland Solar Pilot project. The pilot which is New Zealand’s first regional solar pilot scheme has been launched with the support of all three Councils in the Southland region; Southland District Council, Gore District Council and Invercargill City Council. The goal is to install monitored solar hot water systems on 20 homes and five businesses across the region to show how solar can help reduce electricity costs and help offset climate change. It will also assess options for the establishment of suitable loan schemes to support the funding of installations.

We have a number of businesses in Southland who have implemented the LEAN system, following on from receiving training through the former Enterprise Training Programme. Recently one business asked me what the difference was between an Environmental Management System (EMS) and the LEAN system. The following is summarised from a paper written by  Ross & Associates Environmental Consulting, Ltd for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and outlines how these are different systems, but are complementary in some ways.

Ideas Shop founding partner, and regular contributor to Venture Southland’s former Enterprise Training programme, Dan Ormond attended the COP16 climate change talks in Cancún, México from 29 November to 10 December.

So you’ve been thinking about buying a solar water heating system. With hot water heating being a large part of many people’s energy needs, the payback periods certainly do stack up well for most. If you own your building and intend stay there for the next 8 years, it’s likely that your system will pay itself off in electricity savings over that time. After then you’ll virtually be getting free hot water for the next 12 years, because your system will hopefully be built to last 20 - 30 years. Read on for advice from Robin McNeill.

The introduction of greenhouse gas emitting businesses such as fuel, electricity and large industry into the New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme (NZ-ETS) has received considerable coverage in recent weeks. Mike Mitchell from IFS Growth shares his views on the opportunities this presents.