New Zealand's consumption based resource use
Tender ID: 550543
Tender Details
Tender Description
The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has a programme of work underway on natural resource use and efficiency in the New Zealand economy. Its main objective is to assess the environmental pressures associated with the extraction, processing, use and disposal of natural resources – both today and in the future.
The work includes a strong focus on consumption-based measures of natural resource use and waste generation. That is because the supply chains that serve New Zealand businesses and consumers extend well beyond our borders. Accounting for just the resources extracted and wastes generated domestically would – in many cases – serve to underestimate New Zealand’s contribution to environmental pressures or overall ‘footprint’.
The objective of the research sought here is to build on our existing understanding of New Zealand’s resource and waste footprints. Three individual modules are proposed. These are, (i) a high-level analysis of the natural resource footprint(s) of New Zealand’s final demand, (ii) a detailed analysis of the metal requirements of key renewable energy technologies, and (iii) a ‘hotspot’ analysis of the plastics contained in imports of finished products.