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20/20 vision for 2050

If you plan to be alive in 2050 what sort of a lifestyle do you want? And what are you prepared to pay for it?

As one of seven million people, will you get your fair share of fresh water, food and fuel?

Will our environment handle another 2.5 million people?

The New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development believes that if we don't start thinking about these things now then we won't get the country we want.

So it's preparing Vision 2050, a report that will be published in December and which will serve as a template for businesses wanting to be sustainable and thriving.

The report will draw on a survey of nearly 1500 New Zealanders, who were asked to list what was important about living here.

It showed that our main concerns are around fresh water, the environment, traditional energy sources, fishing, personal transport, traffic congestion, poverty, crime and the overall impact on cities (see graph).

For instance, more than 50% of us expect air quality to worsen by 2050.

On the whole, though, Kiwis are optimistic New Zealand will cope with more people. It's the rest of the world we're not so sure about.

While 60% of us think New Zealand will have enough food in 2050, that figure dropped to just 17% when asked if there was enough to feed a global population of nine billion in 2050.

The keys to living well in 2050 throw up some anomalies.

What rated as important were:

A safe place to live

A clean environment

A good public health system

But given the most popular political football of recent times has been the wage gap between Australia and New Zealand, having "higher personal incomes than in other countries" ranked just 26th, and last, on the list.

Even "democracy" finished just mid-table as Kiwis instead concentrated more on aspiring to live safely in a clean environment with good health care.

That was among a number of counter-intuitive responses, said Vision 2050 spokeswoman Dee Crooks.

"People want a safe place to live, a clean environment and good public health. But to have a good public health system you need to have high incomes to get tax to put into a public health system.

"It's the same with a clean environment. People in the survey said it was more important to have affordable travel than a renewable fuel source but you can't have cheap and renewable.

"If a clean environment is important you should be prepared to pay for cleaner emissions. You can't have your cake and eat it, too."

Or as the survey stated: "This clearly suggests we're not willing to pay to have the things that are most important to us."

When asked to rate New Zealand now, the two biggest issues, which irked more than 50% of respondents, were housing affordability, followed by income inequality.

Around 70% said quality of life was good, very good or excellent, a figure that fell to 57% among Maori and Pacific Islanders.

One of the overwhelming factors that kept people in New Zealand was our natural environment, and when it came to things that drove us offshore the biggest influences were work opportunities, income and the cost of living.

Crooks said Vision 2050 was unusual in the timeframe mapped out.

"There has never been anything in New Zealand that has looked this far ahead.

"Election cycles are three years. In the first year, they tick boxes, in the second year get some actions going and in the third year they start campaigning again. This is about saying, `Where do we want to be in 40 years?"'

But what about those protesters now occupying the hearts of our cities. Would they not argue that business will give up on sustainability if it hits their bottom line?

"Corporates cannot afford to ignore sustainability any more," Crooks argued.

"It's about making sure that in 40 years these businesses are still around.

"Take hotels. With their little plastic shampoos and conditioners – there might be a way those can be recycled so you don't create waste. But it can also be good for your P&L [profit and loss]."

The next stage of the project are meetings in Wellington tomorrow and Auckland on Wednesday where selected "future leaders" will talk about their vision for 2050.

A sample of 1471 respondents from a random selection from the Shape NZ panel responded to the survey.

Results are weighted to represent the New Zealand population.

The overall margin of error at a 95% confidence level is 2.6%.

MICHAEL DONALDSON

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