Month: May 2007

According to the NZ Herald, Landcorp, the country’s biggest farmer and a state owned enterprise, has done nothing to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions and has not even begun considering how the problem might be addressed. [Link]

Reviewing the company’s performance, Parliament’s primary produce subcommittee were surprised to discover that the company had taken no steps to establish its own carbon footprint, or consider how it might go about reducing emissions. Landcorp has been enthusiastically felling trees in the central North Island – 25,000 ha of forest is planned for dairy and pastoral conversion over the next 20 years – turning carbon sinks into methane emitters. It apparently believes that the drive for any change has to come from its customers and consumers, but the shareholders have a say too. If Michael Cullen and Trevor Mallard (the shareholding ministers) are going to pay more than lip service to making NZ carbon neutral, they might want to have a word with their old friend and Landcorp chairman-designate, Jim Sutton. Perhaps they could send him the summary for policymakers from the IPCC’s mitigation report when it comes out at the end of this week.