Contents

• Sea freight GHG emissions calculator
• Funding supports 150 new jobs for post-graduates
• A four point plan to “get R&D moving”

Sea freight emissions calculator

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shipping activities are significant and account for about 600-800m tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 5% of global emissions (BP Marine and Germany’s Institute for Physics and Atmosphere Report 2007). This was more than double those from aviation and about twice that generated by the whole UK. However, on a per distance basis GHG emissions from sea freight are about 1-2% of those from air and about 17% of those from trucking. Because sea freight is a more carbon efficient mode of transport, shipping companies are investing in container technologies which prolong the storage life of perishable food products and are also more carbon efficient. Sea freight will continue to be significant.

GHG emission figures for sea freight activities by New Zealand industry are hard to find. However, given we are a net exporting country sending more than 99% of our produce by sea, emissions will be a significant component of our exports’ footprint. Foreign consumers are becoming increasingly aware of and sensitive to the carbon footprint of the products they buy and freight is typically a large component of this.

In partnership with Airshed CATALYST^® has developed a simple tool to provide you with a means to measure GHG emissions from sea transport. Users choose between two classes of cargo ship, select the departure and destination ports, and enter the weights of up to 5 containers per shipment. The calculator uses vessel emission factors from DEFRA and shipping route distances from AXS Marine. To visit the calculator, click here.

www.airshed.co.nz

Funding supports 150 new jobs for post-graduates

A new internship programme will help New Zealand businesses to innovate by providing funds for them to employ university post-graduates to work on research and development projects.

The programme which is being piloted by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology will give 150 of New Zealand’s top science, technology and engineering graduates a head start in their career. The Foundation will provide up to $30,000 towards a post-graduate salary for a period of up to nine months. The funding is for new positions that will lead to companies undertaking new or additional R&D. Students will be selected from the top 20 percent of masters and PhD candidates in engineering and science faculties at New Zealand universities. A range of large, medium sized and small companies will be targeted to create vacancies for the post-graduates. The Foundation will be working with TechNZ Regional Partners, located throughout New Zealand, to identify suitable businesses.

The internships will encourage New Zealand companies to take on additional post-graduates this year, at a time when it is vital for companies to continue investing in research and development programmes as a means of thriving in a tighter financial climate.

If you have a project which you think may be eligible, please contact us to discuss it or you can find out more here.

A four point plan to “get R&D moving”

In a recent speech the Treasury has outlined “An Innovation Agenda for Boosting New Zealand’s Growth Prospects”. In summary the plan comprises;

• the government setting out its priorities and goals so that we all understand the big picture,
  
• making the business assistance programmes easier to understand and access,
  
• sharpening funding and other incentives so that the science happening in CRIs and universities is in sync with the innovation needs of firms, and
  
• looking at a greater range of financial incentive tools to really get R&D moving.
  

No rocket science here, in relation to the food and beverage sector much of it has all been said before both recently and in the more distant past. The question is whether there is the will to implement.

Overall the message is that there needs to be a greater emphasis on the “D” of R&D and that there is very little capacity for additional government investment. With this in mind; here is our brief commentary on some of these points:

• A “greater range of financial incentive tools” - this is interesting given the abandonment of the R&D tax credit which was supported by Treasury, was broadly in line with policies in most of the economically developed world and was widely welcomed by business.

• The above list may overlook some structural issues such as those outlined in the food and beverage industry task force report which noted that the structure of much of the primary sector mitigates against long term strategic R&D investment in high margin products or services.

• As noted in another much quoted Treasury analysis by Hall and Scobie the spill in effect of foreign knowledge to the New Zealand economy is significant. As noted by Brian Easton “to the nearest decimal point, 100% of all the world’s research, science and technology occurs overseas”. It is not evident that the above plan addresses this. If we are to be better and faster developers then it is critical that our innovation system focuses more on how to adopt the immense R&D resource that exists outside of NZ, as well as supporting NZ R&D.

• An hour worked in New Zealand still produces about 30 per cent less value-added than an hour worked in Australia. The question is what will lift us to at least parity and it is unlikely to be “business as usual” R&D investment in the traditional primary sector. As noted by Professor Paul Callaghan to match Australia's per-capita prosperity, we would need to lift our GDP by US$30 billion a year. Simplistically this is equivalent to increasing Fonterra's production by a factor of five or quadrupling the numbers of tourists visiting New Zealand each year from 2.5 million to 10 million. It is debatable whether either of these is achievable or desirable and Prof Callaghan makes a convincing argument for another “higher technology” route e.g. Rakon, Fisher and Paykel and spinouts from our universities.

As noted above much of the “plan” has been mooted before. However, to make the substantive changes that are needed if we are to address both our economic and environmental issues will require a real resolve to implement these initiatives.