re
:
think
Winter 2014
12
NEW ZEALAND needs to up its
sustainability practices to compete in a
global market.
Professor Juliet Roper at Waikato
University Management School has led
a Marsden-funded study to assess the
vulnerability of New Zealand’s global
environmental positioning. She says we
are vulnerable, but we’re not doing much
about it.
“Our over-arching finding is that
New Zealand businesses are increasingly
concerned about environmental issues
but too few will act on a voluntary basis,”
says Professor Roper. “It may not please
everybody, but we need government
regulations to maintain our clean
green image.”
The researchers had studied the
sustainability practices of 730 New Zealand
businesses three times since 2003, and their
fourth iteration came under this bigger
sustainability study.
“We’ve looked at the barriers, drivers
and motivators for sustainability, and how
sustainability issues are framed by policy
makers, media and business leaders. In
the last few years the government has not
placed sustainability high on its agenda; as
a consequence the media has addressed it
less and businesses have stopped feeling the
heat,” says Professor Roper.
Professor Roper says while 'Clean Green'
was initially promoted as a tourism brand,
exporters are reliant on it and reneging makes
us vulnerable. “We found 34% of companies
we surveyed were making environmental
claims. It’s a high-risk strategy if you don’t
make sure your environmental claims stack
up. We’re lucky to have got away with it so
far – there have been a few damning articles.”
Protecting
clean and
green
The survey found bigger businesses were
more likely to be implementing sustainability
policies and practice than small, because they
respond to external market pressure, but
no matter the sector, Professor Roper says
for most businesses, sustainability is still an
add on.
“Cost is the reason, but even when
businesses recognise they can save money
long-term by reducing waste and energy use
for example, they don’t action it. They lack
long-term strategies, and governments tend
to take a similar approach.”
Professor Roper concedes implementing
successful sustainability polices can be
complicated and costly but says we’re placing
our reputation and particularly our exports at
risk by not doing it. “For a start, we need to
be talking about this across all sectors; that’s
not happening and once the talk disappears
then it becomes very difficult to get action.”
REPUTATION CONCERN: Professor Juliet
Roper says ‘clean and green’ is under threat.
Comparing cow-housing systems
FARMERS are constantly being challenged
to lift their environmental performance and
compliance and at the same time work to
increase productivity and profitability.
Thomas Macdonald, studying for a Master
of Management Studies in agribusiness at the
University ofWaikato Management School, has
been researching the cost and benefits of cow-
housing systems on dairy farms.
“I wanted to find out if changing farm
systems through additional infrastructure
investment was a compliant and profitable
approach to farming,” he says. And he found
that it is.
Thomas took two housing systems –
woodchip bedding and slatted concrete flooring
– which incorporated duration-controlled
grazing, supplementary feeding systems and
nutrient management ability.
“Obviously it costs money up front to build
the houses, but the initial cost for a woodchip
bedding system was between $900 and $1,000
per cow, and for the slatted floor system the
initial cost was higher – $1,250-$1,750. The
woodchip system is cheaper initially, but then the
bedding needs to be replaced so there’s a cost for
that.” Both systems netted an annual net cash
benefit of about $32,000.
Calculating over 10 years, Thomas found the
benefits of both systems to be about the same.
For the woodchip system there was an increase in
cash flow over 10 years of 5% and for the slatted
concrete, the increase was 4.90%. The return on
investment was 11.34% for woodchip and 7.2%
for concrete.
“Stock like the indoor lifestyle. When they’re
let out to graze, they go reluctantly.They can stay
warm and dry for up to 20 hours and in summer it
gets themout of the sun.There is a cost per year for
spreading effluent, but I can say that both systems
provide farms with technology and infrastructure
to address compliance issues regarding effluent
management and control nitrogen leaching with
a profitable farm system.”
Thomas Macdonald has just been awarded
a 2014 National Agricultural Fieldays Sir Don
Llewellyn Scholarship worth $17,000 to assist
his masters study. Thomas is midway through his
degree which is looking at issues of compliance
for dairy farmers, and he recently secured a
full-time position with Landcorp.
A second Fieldays scholarship of $5,000
has been awarded to Brooke Wilson who is
studying for her MSc in biological sciences at
the University ofWaikato.
NEW HABITS:Thomas Macdonald has studied the costs and benefits of different cow-
housing systems.
Testing at the top
IT WORKED for rowing and rugby and now
Brett Smith (pictured) and his colleagues are
turning their focus to cycling and triathlon as
the University of Waikato increases its work
in the high performance sport sector.
Dr Smith, a senior lecturer in sport and
leisure studies, has worked with the back-
to-back Super Rugby champions Chiefs for
the past two years after more than a decade
involved with Rowing New Zealand.
Now he is part of a team establishing
a state-of-the-art testing laboratory at the
Avantidrome near Cambridge, which was
officially opened by the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge in April.
The University of Waikato is the tertiary
partner of the Avantidrome and Dr Smith
says the new lab will serve several functions.
“It will be a teaching facility, a high
performance testing facility for High
Performance Sport New Zealand, a testing
facility for other people wanting to use
it and a research lab where we will work
collaboratively with other organisations,”
he says.
It will be used by elite cyclists, rowers,
triathletes and kayakers, he says.
The university is further boosting its
high performance sport staff with the recent
appointments of three top sports scientists.
Senior Lecturer Dr Matt Driller has
arrived from the Australian Institute of Sport,
PhD student Joe McQuillan was previously
manager of clinical education exercise
physiology and strength conditioning
clinics at AUT and Professor Rich Masters,
who arrives in June, and currently heads
the Institute of Human Performance at the
University of Hong Kong.
Dr Smith pioneered the development of
analysis models that integrated physiological
and performance measures to optimise
performance of elite athletes.
After initially working with rowers,
he teamed up with the two-time Super
Rugby champions Chiefs two years ago
and says his work is using science and
technology innovatively to ultimately
improve performance.
Each player trains with a Statsports GPS/
accelerometer unit, producing a raft of data
for Dr Smith to analyse, including impact
forces, how far they run, how fast, how
quickly they accelerate and decelerate.
“It’s managing data, making sense of
it and presenting it in a meaningful way,”
he says. “It’s a lot of maths.”
Aside from data gathered on the training
field, Dr Smith also feeds game data and the
results of daily psychometric monitoring into
his database, providing a valuable asset to
the team.
“The Chiefs are a great example of how
embracing innovations in technology can
help optimise performance.”
