Climate Change

Our water systems are at the forefront of climate change impacts. This Special Interest Group’s (SIG) mission is to provide leadership across the New Zealand water sector to enable it to act to limit the effects of climate change to a temperature change of 1.5 degrees Celsius. We actively work across all three waters to provide guidance to meet ‘zero carbon’ goals and adapt to the impacts and risks of a changing climate.

Membership consists of professionals working across the water infrastructure supply chain including network managers and operators, consultants, contractors and suppliers.

Objectives

The Group's objectives are to:

Support all three waters of the New Zealand water sector to achieve climate goals
Work across both mitigation and adaptation
Work in a way that upholds our Treaty of Waitangi partnership responsibilities by engaging with and seeking to understand the perspectives of mana whenua and working to integrate knowledge systems and pathways from Te Ao Māori
Be the pre-eminent source of information (including benchmarking and knowledge sharing) to enable the New Zealand water sector to act to meet climate goals
To interact with others (including other parallel / support industries) across New Zealand

Get Involved

Membership of the groups is open to all Water New Zealand members. If you are a member and wish to belong to one of the special interest groups, make sure you are logged in, then simply send an email via the contact form at the bottom of this page.

If you are not a current member, visit our membership page for more information. Remember to tick the appropriate Special Interest Group box when completing the Membership Application form.

Climate Change Publications

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Carbon Accounting Guidelines for Wastewater Treatment: CH4 and N2O

12 Aug 2021

This document provides guidelines for accounting for methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from municipal wastewater treatment, discharge and sludge processing in New Zealand. Emissions from on-site septic tanks are also covered.

Navigating to Net Zero: Aotearoa's water sector low-carbon journey

06 Dec 2021

A guide to support the water services sector to reduce emissions from operations and capital works.

Climate Change Webinars

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Net Zero Together: how the water industry can measure, manage and mitigate carbon

05 May 2022

Climate Change | Navigating to Net Zero

03 Dec 2021

The official launch of Navigating to Net Zero, Aotearoa's water sector low-carbon journey.

Carbon accounting guidelines for wastewater treatment - CH4 and NO2

06 Oct 2021

In this webinar, you will hear from the lead authors of the Carbon accounting guidelines for wastewater treatment - CH4 and NO2 document.

Tools for Estimating Carbon

04 Aug 2021

Keen to get started reducing your organisation's greenhouse gas emissions but not where to start?

Carbon 101: An introduction to Climate Change

01 Dec 2020

Andrew Springer, Chair of Climate Change Communications sub group, hosted our second webinar on Carbon 101: An Introduction to Climate Change.

Carbon in Practice - The Anglian Water Journey

19 May 2021

David Riley, Head of Carbon Neutrality at Anglian Water Services, is the guest speaker for this Climate Change webinar.

Māori Worldviews, Climate & Carbon Pathways Webinar

30 Oct 2020

Water New Zealand’s Climate Change Group and Engineering New Zealand’s The Sustainability Society hosted a Māori Worldviews, Climate & Carbon Pathways Webinar.