We’re Up Against the Big Dogs Now
Monday, March 30th, 2009
That’s right, Duncan & Prudence gulped when it found out this month that we made it into the Finals of the Green Gold Business Award. I was up in Auckland for the week, staying with friends and going to my brother Charles’ wedding, and so Duncan went all by himself to the afternoon announcement last Tuesday. Poor dude, I’m usually the one that speaks the sustainable language, so he must have felt lonely without me, but he said he loved the speech given by the guy from PriceWaterHouseCoopers. One of our category’s finalists – Meridian – is also a principle sponsor of the whole thing, so I figure it might seem crass awarding themselves, which leaves the other three of us in the category a better chance. We’re proud to use Meridian for our electricity.
Regrettably we’ve had to take a year off our subscription to the Sustainable Business Network, however. We fought about it, but in the end it was one of our expenses we’ve decided to cut down on: our memberships to just about everything has become a burden, so not really sustainable. Our commitment to reducing everyone’s carbon footprint through our independent industry in Newtown has become, I hope, hallmark enough of our identity without having to keep proving it, somehow, to our customers this way. And anyway, what’s better proof than to be recognized by the Gold Awards? Gold! I like Gold!
While we’re discussing sustainability I feel I must put my opinion in writing regarding NZ Defence’s gutting the heart of NZ Textiles and manufacturing with its outsourcing of its uniforms. What makes me so angry is that I’m sure the National Government has decided the way to make jobs for New Zealand that could save it from the recession is Roadworks. So, hundreds of women lose their jobs in factories sewing uniforms, and hundreds of men are offered jobs constructing new roads…hmmm, what’s wrong with this scenario? Shame on you NZ Defence, and don’t give me that Designed Here argument: load of intellectual property gobbledygook.
As Gareth Morgan says in his brilliant interview with Black in The Listener, the government cuts an expense here, it ultimately becomes a new expense somewhere else – ie, the dole payments – within its vast bureacratic brain matter, a bigger expense even. It’s not plain stupid economy, it’s sick.
For me and everyone I have talked to – customers, friends, family – the consensus is that this recession has been a breath of fresh air. A purging of excess lifestyle and its stresses. But I guess I don’t know a lot of people who had really major and silly investments. Us little people are merely talking about things like less plastic, in our household hardware, in our kitchen cupboards, hey, in our wallets. Yes, Duncan cut up both our credit cards this month (although we haven’t severed some of our automatic payments out of it, LOVE online banking). Less waste, more garden. Perhaps we’ll talk less about “sustainability” – awful word, Duncan never knew what it meant anyway. We go back 
to plain old “resourceful”. Now that’s a word we can act upon, rather than a benchmark we all feel obliged to achieve.
Ultimately we work on both words, as principles of our post-holocaust lifestyle. And I’m not using that word lightly, either. While everybody in media keeps comparing our times to that of the Great Depression, let us never forget World War Two directly after, for what it was: a genocidal and nuclear holocaust. It’s about time we started accepting and thinking post-modernly about how we’re living. By that I mean more relatively: who are we kidding and who are we stepping on continuing and carrying on like American consumers? Us New World Whities in America, Australia, Africa and New Zealand, what a bain we’ve been to the rest of humanity. Where do we get off thinking the world can keep affording us to live the highlife like we are? Time to get real. High Time we thought seriously about moving to the dark side. Aren’t we All Blacks? Which reminds me, Go Obama! LOVE that Stimulus Package. And Hip Hop Hooray for Our Helen! From Labour to Global Poverty and Aid in Development! I’m so proud to have shaken her hand as I’m sure most NZers had a chance at least once to in the last decade.
Did I mention it’s a golden age for New Zealand? Gold!