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Aotearoa New Zealand's rapidly growing aerospace sector is still in its infancy, which presents us with the unique opportunity to incorporate sustainability as a key performance parameter from the outset. Through surveys and interviews with key stakeholder groups, we show that currently, the sector largely deprioritises environmental sustainability and compliance with Te Tiriti o Waitangi in favour of economic growth. Actors are not incentivised to consider any aspects of sustainability. While environmental concerns are acknowledged, they are often viewed as technical challenges to overcome by individual companies, rather than global systemic issues that require a collaborative approach. Moreover, the Government's role as a customer, investor and regulator creates a sustainability leadership vacuum, with no clear commitment to quantify or prioritise sustainability within the sector. The results highlight the need for a new approach to balance growth with genuine sustainable development principles using innovative governance models.Abbreviations: DPMC: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet; LCA: life cycle assessments; LCANZ: Life Cycle Association of New Zealand; LEO: low Earth orbit; MBIE: Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment; NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration; NZ: New Zealand; NZSA: New Zealand Space Agency: U.S.: United States (of America) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aotearoa New Zealand's emerging New Space economy provides an opportunity for key actors to focus on space and sustainability issues beyond space debris. The conflict between competing definitions and paradigms of sustainability highlights the importance of diverse values, assumptions, and drivers of change that shape the normative understanding of space sustainability issues. This paper recognises that Indigenous knowledges and practices are in parallel with systems-thinking and transdisciplinary approaches to space and sustainability. The aim of this paper is to describe how current actions can have long term impacts on using and accessing space commercially, scientifically, and culturally. • Space sustainability requires a transdisciplinary approach to explore the definitions and values at various scales. • Space sustainability in New Zealand involves addressing issues beyond space debris. • Space sustainability requires addressing businesses in New Zealand, where sustainability frameworks are poorly implemented. • Space sustainability requires policy interventions beyond compliance with environmental legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution health effects in New Zealand were first assessed in the Health and Air Pollution in New Zealand (HAPINZ 1.0) study undertaken by Fisher et al (2007) for 2001. This work was later updated for 2006 by Kuschel et al (2012) (HAPINZ 2.0), using monitoring data collected to show compliance with a national environmental standard for particulate matter (PM10) (MfE 2011). At the time, limited data meant that HAPINZ 2.0 used PM10 as a proxy for all air pollution, and impacts were assigned to sources using their contributions to PM10 (rather than all) emissions. On this basis, the findings prioritised addressing domestic fire emissions over motor vehicle emissions in most locations across New Zealand. The authors acknowledged that HAPINZ 2.0 likely under-estimated effects due to motor vehicle nitrogen dioxide (NO2). This was flagged for future investigation. In 2019, the Ministry for the Environment, Waka Kotahi, Te Manatū Waka Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Health commissioned a new update - HAPINZ 3.0 - to update the air pollution impacts for 2016. HAPINZ 3.0 developed New Zealand specific exposure-response functions for a range of health outcomes, including childhood asthma, from exposure to both fine particulate (PM2.5) and NO2 using a two pollutant model. While some contribution from NO2 was expected, the extent of the impact was startling. The health burden from all human-generated (anthropogenic) sources of air pollution was estimated at $15.6 billion, with NO2 exposure accounting for just over 60%. At the time the initial findings came to light, no other researchers had found such strong associations between NO2 and mortality. This paper reviews the key features and findings of HAPINZ 3.0. Possibly more interestingly, the paper also discusses the comprehensive additional analyses undertaken by the HAPINZ 3.0 team to check for bias and to confirm the NO2 findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental farm planning in New Zealand dates to the 1950s when soil conversation plans were first undertaken. Since then the extent and complexity of whole farm sustainability along with regulatory drivers and environmental compliance targets has increased. The public, and consumers, both domestically and internationally, are placing ever increasing demands and expectations on farmers to deliver high-quality produce with strong environmental values. Regulatory reform is challenging, with the details around the implementation process varying and far from clear. National-scale freshwater farm plans will be mandatory and enforceable in New Zealand within a few years. How this will deliver a clearer pathway to integrated resource management and provide the primary sectors with a tool to be world leaders in environmental management will depend upon plans being farmer centric and owned and adding value to their business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]