Last week the government announced the next step in their One Billion Trees programme: $240 million towards new tree planting projects. While this a win for our native habitats and the fight against climate change, businesses shouldn’t use this as an excuse to pass the buck in funding native forestry, writes Stephen Tindall. I’ve always … Read more
Z Energy sells more petrol than anyone else in New Zealand while also trumpeting its environmental record. Today it put its money where its PR is in purchasing a large majority stake in Wellington startup Flick Electric Co. An unlikely marriage – more an adoption, really – has just been announced between Z Energy and … Read more
This week, Airbnb announced the New Zealand-wide launch of its ‘experiences’ guided tours and the forthcoming Airbnb Plus. These extensions to the global brand’s business got Henry Oliver thinking about the future of travel and the places we call home. Friends, I have seen the future. And, I must say, it’s a little underwhelming. Rather … Read more
The pay TV giant has lost customers, it’s making less out of each one, and has cut prices. Yet Duncan Greive reckons their annual result shows they might yet find a way out of the woods. Sky has completed a highly unusual feat in legacy media – reporting an increase in underlying profit, up 2.6% … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Aaron and Jo Taylor, founders of wellness drink No Ugly. ONE: How did No Ugly start and what was the inspiration behind it? We’ve worked in advertising for over 20 years. We’ve … Read more
Social enterprise is a global phenomenon but, write Steven Moe and Wayne Tukiri (Tainui, Ngāti Whaawhaakia), New Zealand should be using Māori cultural practices to better understand what social enterprise is – and what it could be. Until recently, not many people knew what a social enterprise even was. But in the last few years there’s … Read more
Foam clog pioneer Crocs has announced that it is shutting down its factories. So what does that mean for New Zealand’s first and only Crocs store in Auckland? Jihee Junn paid a (much belated) visit to find out. The Crocs store in Newmarket has just a single review on Yelp: “Could there possibly be a … Read more
Crave café has been serving locals in Morningside, Auckland for almost a decade, and is spearheading plans for a major regeneration of the suburb over the coming year. Alice Webb-Liddall talks to Crave manager and co-founder Nigel Cottle about the neighbourhood-orientated social enterprise. In 2009, Morningside existed as an in-between suburb. A train station was the landmark that kept … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Adrian Wills, founder of Trickle, which manages every aspect of a beer’s life cycle and flow from keg to customer. ONE: How did Trickle start and what was the inspiration behind it? I got involved … Read more
Since 2016, the Department of Conservation (DOC) has partnered with Kiwibank to develop the conservation dog programme and, by proxy, raise the profile of conservation as a whole. Don Rowe goes to visit these hard-working canines to find out what it takes to be a DOC dog. The egg of a common skink is about the … Read more
Today, the National Business Review, New Zealand’s most prestigious and weirdly-run business publication, published its annual Rich List. If you’re interested but not interested enough to subscribe, here are our biggest takeaways. 1. Graham Hart is way richer than Peter Thiel Like, wayyyy richer. Two-and-a-half times richer. Putting aside how weird it feels to see … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Nick Leckie, co-founder of rainwear company Okewa which is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for its newest product line – raincoats made from recycled plastic bottles. ONE: How did Okewa start and what … Read more
Business confidence has fallen off a cliff. Economist Cameron Bagrie says it’s meaningless, but other bad indicators can’t be ignored. The economy is headed for recession if you believe the readings from business confidence. Thankfully we can largely ignore business confidence readings. We can’t ignore other survey measures though that are saying growth has slowed … Read more
Late last month, John Hart attended the ProteinTech 2018 conference and got thinking about New Zealand’s agricultural future. I was at the ProteinTech 2018 conference held in Auckland in late July – the first of its kind, and judging by the response, definitely not the last. Among the 200 plus attendees were representatives from traditional … Read more
In the middle of a building boom, construction companies keep going out of business. Leonie Freeman explains why it’s happening and what we can do about it. It’s hard for many of us to square: while we seem to be on the brink of a house building boom, construction companies are falling over. It’s like … Read more
How can private enterprise help local governments innovate? Mark Thomas reports from the World Cities Summit in Singapore. Imagine you’re a mayor. Your city is growing faster than you can build the things you need to support the growth, or you’re shrinking and trying to incentivise new industry. Either way, you can’t get the funding … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to co-founder of The Pure Food Co, Sam Bridgewater, whose business makes nutritionally dense and visually appealing food for people who have a hard time eating. ONE: How did The Pure Food Co start and what … Read more
Youth of New Zealand rejoice! Apple has become the most valuable company to ever exist and we’re all investors. Apple has become the first public company to reach a market value of US$1 trillion this morning – great news for Kiwis, who collectively own about $400 million of Apple shares through the New Zealand Superfund. … Read more
Allbirds has a brand new product and investor – one from Brazil, the other from Hollywood. First, they came for our sheep. Then they came for our trees (but not before coming for our children). And now, they’ve come for our sweet, sweet sugar. I’m talking about Allbirds here, the San Francisco-based Kiwi footwear company … Read more
Henry Oliver asked John Tookey, AUT’s deputy head of the School of Engineering, Computer & Mathematical Science, to explain how Ebert Construction is going bust just as New Zealand’s building industry is supposed to be ramping up. This morning, construction company Ebert Construction went into receivership, leaving workers on several major projects across the country … Read more
The off-site industry is full of great energy but in a mess, stumbling around looking for solutions, writes Dan Heyworth, CEO of Box, a company which has dipped its toe in the prefab business. Heralded as key to the government’s ability to build 100,000 homes over the next 10 years, prefab is hot right now. … Read more
The Vegan Society’s Claire Insley went along to ProteinTECH 2018 last week and left confident that a plant-based future was closer than we think, despite the day’s lunch offering leaving a lot to be desired. Investors look to whatever’s new and sexy, and right now plant-based proteins are the future. At last week’s ProteinTECH Conference … Read more
Global consumer campaign One Big Switch has arrived on Kiwi shores, hoping to harness the power of the collective to unlock special group discounted energy offers and drive competition in New Zealand’s electricity industry. Jihee Junn talks to the man spearheading its arrival, Saveawatt CEO Tim Rudkin. Turns out, ovens and stoves aren’t just for … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to Mark Stolten, the inventor of flexible, Lego-like brick toy Flexo. ONE: How did Flexo start and what was the inspiration behind it? While I waiting for a physio appointment for a torn … Read more
What’s the best way for under-privileged kids to get the nutritious school lunches they need? This post was originally published on 26 July 2018 Yesterday, Eat My Lunch, the social enterprise which provides a lunch for a hungry school kid for every lunch it sells to the public, came under fire for claiming that 290,000 … Read more
Jihee Junn heads along to the newly opened Tesla showroom on Auckland’s Karangahape Road. It’s a hard life being a billionaire. Just ask tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who’s been vilified over the past few days for his (unprompted) involvement in the recent Thai cave rescue mission. First, they rejected his offer to use his custom-built … Read more
Glen Herud’s mission for an ethical dairying company isn’t over yet. In part two of his series documenting his attempts to launch Happy Cow Milk 2.0, Herud talks about single-use plastic in the dairy industry and the plan to get farmers to adopt the “Happy Cow way”. It’s been a very busy month scurrying around rebuilding … Read more
Every week on The Primer we ask a local business or product to introduce themselves in eight simple takes. This week we talk to sibling entrepreneurs Brittany and Johanna Cosgrove of Nopesisters, the social enterprise championing ‘fashion for a cause’. ONE: How did Nopesisters start and what was the inspiration behind it? Nopesisters started in October 2016 during Breast … Read more
Almost 30% of organic waste goes straight to landfill, sparking two leading businesses in the composting sector – Innocent Packaging and We Compost – to team up and launch The Full Package, the first citywide compost collection of its kind in New Zealand. On December 31, 2017, China decided that enough was enough. Sick of … Read more