Contents

• Introducing Kimberly Robertson
• Fast adopters
• Life cycle analysis (LCA)
• Updated ACE 2009

Introducing Kimberly Robertson

We would like to welcome Kimberly Robertson who joined CATALYST^® in March. Kimberly has expertise in climate change, land use, forestry and renewable energy and she will specialise in undertaking Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) projects.

Kimberly has a BSc from Otago University and a Masters of Forestry Science (1st class honours) from Canterbury University. Kimberly will work from the Rotorua office. For more background on Kimberly or to contact her please visit the "Our People" page on our website.

Fast adopters

As is appropriate with a change of government fresh eyes have viewed the directions and funding for research and development. Rightly or wrongly, the R&D tax credit scheme is disappearing, although it is worth noting that this decision takes us well out of step with most developed economies. The Fast Forward programme has also been scrapped to be replaced with a $500 million investment, the details of which are not yet known. Whilst future directions for R&D investment are being pondered, we note a few facts on international investment and these may provide some guidance as to where our dollars should be going.

• Within the OECD over 80 per cent of R&D is performed in just 6 countries: US, Japan, Germany, France, UK and Korea. Less than 0.2 percent of OECD R&D expenditure occurs within New Zealand.
• Putting the previous point more concisely as noted by Brian Easton “To the nearest decimal point, 100 percent of the world’s research, science and technology occurs overseas. Yet we discuss the national innovation system with barely any recognition of this salient fact.”
• In a small open economy the stock of foreign knowledge that “spills in” adds to the total stock of knowledge that is available to the sector. Given that New Zealand is a very small player and accounts for but a tiny fraction of global R&D efforts, it is to be expected that access to this foreign stock of knowledge would play an important role. This spill-in of foreign knowledge to NZ has been demonstrated consistently as an important factor in explaining the growth of productivity.
• The Statistics New Zealand Innovation Survey 2007 found that NZ universities and CRIs were much less important sources of knowledge than spill-in of foreign knowledge to NZ.

For the future, a change of direction as to where and how to invest in R&D is needed as the evidence is that we require a fundamentally different approach. This would be based on an outward focus and a strategy based on being fast adopters of world knowledge and technology. This is a change of mind set for the NZ innovation system, and for the number 8 fencing wire national image.

Life cycle analysis (LCA)

Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is a tool used to measure the impact of a product or service on the environment, from the raw materials through to the use, disposal or recycling of the final product, with a view to minimising the environmental impact of the product or service. LCA can be use to support product or process design, for labeling or product declarations, for customer education, business strategy and R&D.

We see LCA being particularly applicable to food production and biological systems with their long and complex supply chains, and have incorporated it into our suite of carbon services. With this tool, the potential environmental impacts of a product are assessed by quantifying and evaluating the resources consumed and the emissions to the environment at all stages of its life cycle. LCA may be used for a stand alone analysis and subsequent reporting of a product or set of products, or in conjunction with a carbon inventory of a business’s entire operation.

Please contact us to find out more about this new service.

ACE update for 2009

Each year we look to update ACE with the latest emission factors and new functions where robust methodology is available. In the 2009 update we have added the following functions:

• Latest emission factors and vehicle efficiency rates
• Emissions from electricity distribution and transmission line losses
• Provision to enter mixed waste input data in units of volume rather than weight
• A function to calculate emissions from refrigerant losses (from air conditioning units, freezers and chillers).

To download ACE for 2009 click here.

Emission factors are a critical part of the emissions calculator. Due to recent interest in the factors we use we have prepared a page on the website with information on emission factors and the source we use. To view this page click here.