I do get incredibly frustrated by the zealots on either side of the debate on global warming. Those who are talking up ‘the world is going to end’ because of global warming do as much harm to the cause as those that deny that pollution is having any impact on the planet at all. Actually it’s the extremists that I believe who are doing the greatest harm to the future of the planet, as well as destroying the opportunity that exists to embrace the increasing concern about these issues and the business potential that emerges.
I said to our staff early on, this isn’t a debate about whether you buy into global warming or not. If you look at our business, it’s about selling New Zealand. The vast majority of people we carry on our services, particularly international services, are people coming to this country and so we’re selling New Zealand. Why do people want to come to New Zealand? It’s a beautiful place, they believe it’s under populated with amazing scenery, adventure tourism, lovely people, and so on. You can’t sell that if alongside that people believe you have polluted waterways and rubbish in the streets, or graffiti on buildings. All of that compromises the imagery we are trying to present to the world.
Personally I’m a believer that global warming is an issue but even if I wasn’t, that ain’t the point. The point is that what attracts and interests people in New Zealand - both the brand and the people - is a sense that we live in a unique and special part of the world. I believe we can leverage those values, that perception, far more widely than just tourism product.
At Air New Zealand we burn a reasonable size swimming pool of fuel every 20 minutes. That’s 50,000 litres every 20 minutes, 24 hours a day. So we acknowledge we are a polluter. Whether you buy into carbon footprints or global warming, we are a polluter and if we are going to bring people to one of the most picturesque parts of the world, we need to demonstrate to them that we are doing everything to lessen the impact and footprint we leave on the planet.
So issue number one, we should always be looking to reduce our pollution. That’s about recycling materials we use on the aircraft and throughout our business, about limiting the amount of pollution we create and importantly about limiting our consumption of scarce resources.
The other big issue is that we are consuming the Earth’s resources at a frightening pace and anything we are doing to more efficiently use the world’s resources and slow down our rate of consumption to ensure we are preserving those resources for future generations is surely a worthy endeavour for anyone who believes in the future of our society and wants to hand the world on to their children as a better place. Put aside all the rhetoric about global warming and carbon footprint and so on. There is a basic set of values here that says we should care about this stuff.