Climate Action Week - Marlborough 2025

Climate Action Week - Marlborough, Monday 24th February - Friday 28th February 2025

Resilience in Action: Building Regenerative Communities through Climate Innovation and Nature-Based Solutions

Our Mission

Climate Action Marlborough is dedicated to driving climate action and impact in the Marlborough region by fostering collaboration, promoting education, and inspiring actionable change within the business community. We aim to create a resilient and thriving future for our community through innovative climate solutions and regenerating practices.

Our Vision

Our vision is a Marlborough where businesses lead the way in climate stewardship, contributing to a healthy environment, a vibrant economy, and a high quality of life. We envision a future where positive environmental practices are integral to business operations, where environmental consciousness is a core value, and where the community is united in the effort to combat climate change and protect our natural resources.

Climate Action Week launched in February 2023 to bring the Marlborough business community together to create awareness, enhance education and take action through the exploration of topics including carbon, water, waste, bio-diversity, innovation, land use and many other topics to support our transition to a low carbon emissions but highly thriving and productive community.

We have brought together over 600 businesses from Marlborough, Nelson Tasman and Canterbury to listen, learn, share, discover and grow into this space collectively, knowing that the learning journey is all relatively new for many of us. These businesses have represented forestry, viticulture, horticulture, agriculture, farming, finance, accounting, insurance, associations, nutrition, food, fashion, aquaculture, fisheries and aviation. 

From listed companies to sole traders and every one in between.

Monday 24th February 2025

FINANCING OUR TRANSITION TO A CLIMATE POSITIVE ECONOMY

Hosted at Lansdowne Pavillion, Lansdowne St

- Keynote Speakers
MP Stuart Smith- Chair of the Finance & Expenditure Committee/ Climate Adaptation Inquiry

Catherine van der Meulen - "Prioritising funding for Nature Based Solutions" - key learnings from NL2120

Sebastian Chapman, Seedling - "Collective financing"

- Collaboration session - Thinking Big, Acting local - Rethinking our approach to financing the future, facilitated by Liz Webb from Practics

- Round table discussions

1. & Bloom - Sydney Straver "Nature positive investment"

2. NZ2125 - Catherine van der Meulen "Diverse funding approaches to support a 100 year vision for Aotearoa through Nature based solutions"

3. ASB Bank "Creating Resilient economies" - Chloe Kwak and Jennifer Bourne

4. Angel Investors Marlborough "Funding the future through innovative solutions" - Brian Dawson

5. Sparrow Global - "Understanding access to Horizon EU funding" Joanna Costello

- Partner matchmaking - Supported by Yealands by connecting diverse people from across our business community to bring values aligned people together to create deeper and faster impact.

Tuesday 25th February 2025

RENEWABLE ENERGY FOR IMPACT

Hosted at Yealands Estate Winery (Cnr Seaview and Reserve Roads New Zealand Seddon)

- Keynote Speakers
Andree Piddington - Yealands Estate Winery

Lindsay Wood - Resilienz "Catching up from falling behind on getting ahead: playing leapfrog with our understanding of the energy transition"

- Collaboration session: Electrify Marlborough, enabled by Rewiring Aotearoa (supported by Blenheim Toyota as our transport partner), facilitated by Jaydan Salzke

- Immersion Experience: Energising Marlborough - Yealands and Marlborough Lines Limited

Round table discussions

1. Harrison's Solar - Jono Underwood

2. Yealands Estate Wines - Andree Piddington

3. Tom Powell - Climate Karanga Marlborough, Implementation of Solar for businesses

4. Aquafarming Marine Energy Solutions New Zealand Ltd (Auckland University) - Dr. Vladislav Sorokin "Energy at Sea"

Sustainable growth of the New Zealand aquaculture industry; moving from fossil fuels to renewable energy; enabling innovations in the aquaculture industry by providing energy to aqua-farms.

5. BraveTrace - Shaun Goldsbury

​BraveTrace's purpose is to accelerate the renewable transition. While energy powers everything we do, how we use it and how we procure it matter. Our established system equips you to confidently claim the energy you are using is matched with verified renewable sources. In doing this, you are showing your commitment to sustainability, your support for renewable energy generation, and a greener future for Aotearoa.

6. Jaydan Salzke, Rewiring Aotearoa

Whakahiko te ao - electrifying everything.

We can all take part in building an electrified future for New Zealand where every Kiwi saves money on energy bills, reduces their carbon emissions and has the resilience to keep their lights on.

7. Marlborough Lines Limited, Renewable Energy - Mark Unwin 

- Partner matchmaking - Supported by Yealands by connecting diverse people from across our business community to bring values aligned people together to create deeper and faster impact.

Wednesday 26th February 2025

NATURE BASED SOLUTIONS 

- International Keynote Speaker: Jonathan Foley, Executive Director - Project Drawdown

- International speaker: Patricia Cruz, The Nature Conservatory, Colombia - Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Adaptation in Colombia: Challenges, opportunities  and community driven approaches

- Collaboration session: Sustainability and exports are most important to NZTE: this Collaboration Session will explore
How might New Zealand exporters lead the world on sustainability and in doing so minimise risk and maximise value - for people, planet and the economy, supported by NZTE

Hosted by: Liz Webb, Practics

- Immersion Experience: Pyramid Farms with Southern Valley Viticulture, Richard Hunter and Chris Dawkins

- Round table discussions:

1. Variegate - Michelle Barry "Land use diversification marketplace"

2. Envirofarms - Tracy Taylor

3. New Zealand Fire and Emergency - Steve Triggs "Low flammability plants"

4. WSP - Adam Burrell "Stormwater Resilient Design, Sponge cities"

5. NZ2125 - Catherine van der Meulen- "Learnings from the Netherlands NL2120 through nature based solutions"

- Partner matchmaking: Supported by Yealands by connecting diverse people from across our business community to bring values aligned people together to create deeper and faster impact.

Thursday 27th February 2025

CIRCULARITY 

Hosted at Hortus Village (3043 State Highway 1, Blenheim)

Keynote Speaker - Des Casey, Author "Nature's Future, Our Future"

Collaboration session - Designing circular solutions for waste in the Top of the South, hosted by NZ King Salmon

Immersion Experience- One forty one Kaituna SawMill, Forest and Sawmill experience

Immersion Experience - Hortus Village Commercial Food composter - giving 100 kg's of food waste a day another life

Round table discussions:

1. Circular Wine - Seth Laurenson, Bragato Research Institute

2. Circular Waste through collaboration - Hortus

3. Circular construction - Fairfield Construction

4. Circular Wood - The Green Circle

5. Circular Aquaculture - NZ King Salmon

6. Circular design for low impact - Lindsay Wood - Clearcut and Resilienz

Partner matchmaking: Supported by Yealands by connecting diverse people from across our business community to bring values aligned people together to create deeper and faster impact.

Friday 28th February 2025A 

CLIMATE POSITIVE FUTURES: the BIG shifts we need to take to take action 

Keynote Speaker: Edwin Massey - "Working back from 2050 - what actions do we need to take now"

Round Table discussions:

1. Deborah Early, PhD; Researcher, Designer, Innovator. Founder of The Art of Awareness studio - "Action starts with Awareness" - The links between loneliness, climate change and bio-diversity

2. Insa Errey, Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority - Efficiencies and Decarbonisation

3. Eliza Turnbull, Kindred "Progress and Identity: Creating a culture of impact" 

4. Heather Donachie, Export Logistics - "Inner Development Goals to create Impact on the Sustainable Development Goals"

5. Barbara Nebel, Think-Step "Focus on impact when deciding on your actions to decarbonise"

Exploring the intricate links between culture, sustainable impact, and our shared future, this session delves into how we can redefine and balance progress and identity. Together, we will examine ways to evolve the cultural identity of our region to meet the future needs of our community and our planet, fostering a meaningful and lasting impact.

Each day includes Morning tea, lunch and afternoon nibbles and drinks

Meaningful food experiences: We are committed to Plant Rich meals at Climate Action Marlborough and use locally sourced produce and caterers with a zero waste philosophy.

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Who's behind Climate Action Marlborough?

Supported by a passionate collective of committed leaders

We are super grateful for the support from our partners

- One Forty One Kaituna Saw Mill

- ASB

- New Zealand King Salmon

- Toyota Blenheim (Hybrid and EV cars during Climate Action Week)