The Sustainable Carrying Capacity of New Zealand
2013: The Society’s two papers published in 2013 on "The Sustainable Carrying Capacity of New Zealand" and "Constraints to New Zealand’s Sustainable Well-being" address the question of how many people, and to what standard of living, can New Zealand support sustainably? This simple question opens up a range of complex issues about well-being, living standards, thresholds, limits, and vulnerabilities.
Dr Daniel Rutledge, Dr Jez Weston, Dr Suzie Greenhalgh, Ella Lawton
Download the papers here
- The Sustainable Carrying Capacity of New Zealand
- Constraints to New Zealand’s Sustainable Well-being
These papers explore recent research (and research gaps) in New Zealand and abroad that provides a perspective on the links between the economy and the environment:
- When can we separate increasing well-being from increasing environmental impact?
- What resources do we depend upon and which scarcities can we trade our way around?
- When can collaborative processes be used to make trade-offs and what are the limitations of those processes?
- How do living standards, lifestyles, income, well-being, and environmental impact interact for New Zealanders?
- What does the concept of carrying capacity add to the multifaceted conversation about sustainability?
These questions were addressed at a discussion seminar at the Society’s offices in Wellington on Friday 15 March 2013.
Speakers and presentations at the launch:
- Dr Daniel Rutledge: “Expanding the Sustainable Carrying Capacity Concept to the Human Context”
- Dr Suzie Greenhalgh: “Thresholds and limits – how do we approach them?”
- Ella Lawton: “Decoupling living standards and resources”