“We wanted to see a really strong degree of partnership and alliances because in this type of space, if you’re just doing it on your own, your impact is very limited.”

Initially finding suppliers was hard, especially when it came to sourcing uniforms made from sustainable textiles, says Russell Werry from commercial cleaning franchise Clean Planet. But two years later, he has choices.

“There has been quite a shift in the market in the last 18 months.” His business has also benefited from others wishing to add cleaning to their sustainability checklist, with the number of Clean Planet franchisees jumping from just three to 26 in a year.

All those questioned in the marketplace category said they selected suppliers based on a range of values, sustainability being one alongside price and service. But finalist Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) and category winner CarboNZero also said it was equally important to communicate their values to customers and potential customers, even if that meant losing some.

Michael Shirley, New Zealand regional manager for international engineering and science consultancy SKM, says the company walked away from a multimillion dollar hydroelectric project when it became clear the project had less to do with power and more to do with deforestation. Though the decision may have hurt in the short term, in the longer term the benefits far outweigh the negatives, both for staff attraction and retention and customer relationships, he says. “As long as our clients are open to new ideas and are thinking about the longer term, then those are projects we’d do. But if you pick up a whole bunch of projects that no one wants to work on, you’re instantly picking up a whole lot of problems.”

Not long ago it wasn’t uncommon for companies to approach certification body CarboNZero wanting a carbon neutral stamp, but without the hard graft of reducing their emissions. CarboNZero’s Tournier says he walked away from one large, multinational customer because its procurement team wanted elements of the carbon footprint assessment removed — “as it might make them look bad”.

A couple of days later, the chief executive of the company phoned Tournier and asked CarboNZero back in, no strings attached. “We won that work on the basis of excellence and sticking to our principles,” he says.

Peter Salmon, from Wellington-based design strategy consultancy Moxie Design, says sticking to principles, proving them and pinning them to the rafters for all to see has got to be good for companies wanting to thrive in the long term. “The issues we need to look at coming from the future are issues we need to get seriously sustainable about, so energy is an issue, fuel supply is an issue, water is an issue, and there are a whole lot of social things coming through too.”

Moxie Design launched its NextPlays strategy tool for businesses wanting to learn to think differently about the future at a sustainable brands conference in Miami last December. Since then it has been picked
up by Air New Zealand, Procter & Gamble and the World Bank, which uses it to explain what climate change means for ordinary people. “It’s about helping people find their own solutions. And that’s not really about developing new stuff, but about redeveloping what you do now, in a better way,” says Salmon. “We’re not tree huggers, we just think it’s good business behaviour: why wouldn’t you want to cut costs and be really innovative?”

Marketplace finalists

• CarboNZero Programme (winner)
• Corporate Express
• IAG NZ
• Kokako
• Moxie Design Group
• Sinclair Knight Merz
• Westpac
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