Hutt City Council –
founding sponsor

“The Hutt City Council is proud to be the first local authority in New Zealand to support the Rata Certification Programme by providing a funding subsidy towards Lower Hutt businesses membership fees.

For the Hutt City Council the environment, climate change, sustainability, and green business, are increasingly becoming more important areas of focus. For organisations it seems that it just won’t go away, but more importantly, organisations that do tackle these questions are benefiting. In Lower Hutt the Council has worked with organisations achieving impressive results, such as:

• Improved compliance with environmental legislation.
• Using resource efficiently which ultimately has a helpful effect on the bottom line.
• Being a responsible employer which attracts a committed workforce.
• Building community, supplier and regulatory relationships.
• Increasing competitiveness through innovation, and reducing environmental impacts.

Hutt City Council has set itself the goal of becoming an environmental leader within its community and has taken steps to reduce the Council’s and the city’s environmental impacts. First, they adopted an Environmental Sustainability Strategy that sits alongside their Economic Development Strategy. They have found that there is no one single answer in how an organisation can become green and more sustainable. What is important is that an organisation needs to make a start. That is why they are proud to be the first local authority in New Zealand to be working with the Rata Programme to assist local organisations in their journeys to become sustainable.”