Contents - April 2008

• R&D tax credits
• Dietary supplements and supplemented food regulations
• Energy efficiency grants and opportunities
• Carbon footprint analyses
• CATALYST^® Auckland office

R&D tax credits

Many of you will have received an email from us last month advising of upcoming tax credits for business R&D activity. The new scheme takes effect this financial year.  Businesses wanting to take advantage of the credits need to comprehensively scope and identify eligible activity and expenses and have a system in place to accurately and efficiently document those activities.

Under the scheme businesses will be able to claim a tax credit of 15% of their eligible R&D expenditure. We believe many of our clients may benefit from this scheme. You can download an outline of the regime  here (PDF file; 75KB). For those businesses unsure of how best to capture this opportunity, CATALYST^® R&D is ready to assist.

CATALYST^® is registered with the IRD as a Listed Research Provider (LRP). For more information on the scheme, and our status as an LRP, visit the IRD website by clicking here.

Changes to the dietary supplements and supplemented food regulations

Dietary supplements at the food-medicine interface are currently regulated under the Food Act 1981 and the Dietary Supplements Regulations (DSR) 1985. This is about to change following recent public consultation. Recommendations made by NZFSA in a 2007 discussion paper, agreed to by Cabinet and expected to come into effect this year, include:

• regulating food-type dietary supplements as supplemented foods under the Food Act (1981), initially under an interim Standard to be called the Supplemented Food Standard, and later under a joint standard through Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). Under this, general level health claims (but not therapeutic claims) can be made. Such claims can refer to the presence of a nutrient or substance in a food and to its effect on a health function. A general level health claim cannot refer to a serious disease or condition or to an indicator of a serious disease (e.g. blood cholesterol). Manufacturers must hold scientific evidence to substantiate such claims and produce this evidence, on request, for enforcement agencies.

• transferring the administration of therapeutic-type dietary supplements, or complementary medicines, from NZFSA to Medsafe with a requirement for details of products to be entered into a database (COMET) to be administered by Medsafe (Ministry of Health). Therapeutic claims are not permitted for dietary supplements, unless they are registered as medicines.

The challenge for manufacturers and sponsors of dietary supplements is to determine where in the food-medicine interface their products fall. Both NZFSA and Medsafe have put together a Guidance Tool to assist with these determinations.

For more information on these changes you can read our 5 page research paper (PDF file; 154KB) or visit the Medsafe or NZFSA websites.

Energy efficiency grants and opportunities

Recently the government launched their second five-year strategy under the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act 2000 (EECA). The strategy is a key part of the government’s response to meeting its energy, climate change, sustainability and economic transformation goals. The complete document can be viewed here.

For primary industry and those in manufacturing or processing, aspects of the Energywise Businesses programme may be of interest.  The government has implemented a series of initiatives that include education and training programmes, amendments to the building code, energy rating and performance schemes and grants.

Cash and capital grants include:

• Energy Intensive Businesses (EIB) grants
  Cash grants to help businesses adopt energy saving technologies. The project is aimed at companies that spend a high portion (greater than 5%) of their business costs on energy. There is funding available for up to 40% of the capital cost of an energy efficiency project, to a maximum of $100,000.

• Emprove
  A separate energy audit grants programme to enable businesses to receive a grant towards undertaking an energy audit, which can be used to identify and evaluate potential energy efficiency projects.

• Forestry Industry Development Agenda (FIDA) grants
  Capital grants for woody biomass projects to overcome information and financial barriers to the uptake of woody biomass as an energy source. EIB grants can also assist feasibility and /or implementation projects for biomass utilisation.

In addition, the government will be funding workshops, training programmes and advisory services to encourage and educate workplaces in the use of best energy management practices.

If any of these initiatives and opportunities are of interest to your business and you would like to learn more, contact us.

Carbon footprint analyses

CATALYST^® has developed over the past 18 months a range of services around monitoring, managing and reducing a business’s carbon footprint. Our complimentary carbon calculator ACE has proven very popular with businesses large and small. For those of you yet to try it, download it for free here.

With focus on monitoring and reducing emissions growing for many businesses and industries it is becoming clear that transparent, reproducible and auditable methods for collecting and reporting activity is necessary for generation of meaningful data. The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has set out guidelines that we will be adopting in all our carbon analyses and projects from now on. ISO 14064-1 relates to the design and development of organizational GHG inventories. ISO 14064-2 sets out the standards for the design and implementation of GHG projects, and ISO14064-3 provides guidance and standards on validation and verification processes.

Should you be interested in undertaking a carbon inventory to these internationally recognised standards, or are considering undertaking a project to reduce your emission profile and would like some assistance, contact us for more information.

Auckland office

Last month we opened an office in Manukau City to assist us service clients more effectively in the upper North Island. For the first week of every month one of our consultants will be based in the new office and will have the opportunity to catch up with those of you in the Auckland, Northland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions.

Details of our scheduled visits can be found on our website. The next visit will be from May 6-8 when Malcolm will be tending the office. Please contact Malcolm here if you would like a visit or meeting during this period.