Health, environment and safety top the list of New Zealanders future concerns

By Sustain Team, November 17, 2011 @ 12:25 pm

If you could choose anything at all to help you live well in the future, what would it be? According to a recent ShapeNZ survey, a clean environment, a safe place to live, and a good public health system top the wish list of Kiwis. 

The ShapeNZ poll of nearly 1,500 New Zealanders was commissioned by the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development NZBCSD’s Vision 2050 project, which seeks to identify business opportunities and consider how New Zealand’s projected population of seven million can live well, and within the planet’s resources, in 2050. 

The survey gauged New Zealanders hopes and expectations for life in the year 2050, with the insights guiding the project’s ongoing work to map future economic, environmental and social pathways.

With New Zealand’s population likely to rise beyond five million by 2050, 81.9 percent of respondents thought traffic congestion would be worse or not good enough to cope, meanwhile 56.2 percent believed our fresh water supply would be worse or not good enough to cope

When asked to rate the importance of New Zealand’s natural environment to the decision to live in New Zealand, 85.3 percent rated it as important or very important – only 1.3 percent said it wasn’t important

In regards to transport, Kiwis rank affordable travel (88.8 percent) and safe/reliable transport (87.7 percent) as more important than renewable transport fuel sources (82.3 percent) or transport with zero emissions or pollution (69 percent).

When it comes to housing affordability, Kiwis aren’t overly impressed with 56.1 percent of respondents saying it was either poor or very poor.  

Following closely behind was income equality, or lack there of, with 53.4 percent saying income equality was poor or very poor.

The biggest influence on people’s decision if they left New Zealand permanently would be work opportunities, followed by income, and then cost of living.

Vision 2050 Project Manager, KPMG director Jamie Sinclair, said the challenge for business and various forms of government is to identify innovative ways which will ensure New Zealand remains internationally competitive, for the country to be prosperous, but also living within constrained resources.
 
“One of Vision 2050’s key goals is to identify the opportunities based on clean technology and sustainable resource use which New Zealand can embrace with the right thinking and buy-in from industry.”

A full report Vision 2050 report will be published in December.